From rhalperi at smu.edu Fri May 1 13:28:22 2015 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Fri, 1 May 2015 13:28:22 -0500 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, DEL., FLA., ALA. Message-ID: May 1 TEXAS: Gonzales' latest appeal denied A federal appeals court has denied the latest in a string of challenges from a man who currently waits on Texas' death row for the murder of an 18-year-old Bandera County woman. On Friday, April 10, judges on the United States Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in San Antonio denied Ramiro Felix Gonzales' claims of procedural errors in his original trial in Medina County for the shooting death of Bridget Townsend. The court's decision nudges Gonzalez a step closer to his execution. He is currently being held in the Walls Unit at the Texas State Penitentiary in Huntsville. Gruesome backstory According to court documents, on Jan. 15, 2001, Gonzales, then 18, went to the home of his drug supplier in Wharton's Dock to steal cocaine - fully aware that only Townsend, his supplier's girlfriend, was at the residence. Additionally, Gonzales and Townsend were acquainted. They had been classmates in middle school before Gonzales dropped out in the 8th grade. Nevertheless, according to court documents, Gonzales pushed Townsend down, dragged her into a bedroom, tying her hands and feet with nylon rope from a closet. He also stole between $150 and $500 in cash. After carrying the still-bound Townsend to his pickup truck, Gonzales drove to a large ranch in Medina County off FM 1077 in northern Medina County, where he lived; retrieved a high-powered .243-caliber deer rifle equipped with a scope; and forced the girl to walk into the deserted brush. When Gonzales loaded the rifle, Townsend began begging for her life. In response to her offer of sex in exchange for her life, Gonzales unloaded the rifle, took her back to the truck where he raped her. After Townsend redressed, he walked her back into the brush and shot her, leaving her body where it fell. Returning to his grandparents' house, Gonzales removed the empty shell casing from the rifle and threw the casing away. He returned the rifle to his grandfather's ranch truck from which he had originally retrieved it and proceeded to interact with his family as though nothing had happened. Given death penalty However, during the September 2006 trial, it was revealed that Gonzales had repeatedly returned to the scene of Townsend's murder. Court records also stated that as a youth, Gonzales "on numerous occasions shot animals and then watched their bodies decay over time." These facts were never disputed during the trial. At that time, Gonzales' was the 1st death penalty case held in Medina County in more than 2 decades. Ultimately, Gonzales was convicted of intentionally causing Townsend's death by shooting her with a firearm during the course of committing or attempting to commit aggravated sexual assault, kidnapping, or robbery. The jury took just a little over 34 minutes to find him guilty of capital murder and approximately 3 hours to sentence him to death. Previously, Gonzales had been found guilty in 2002 of kidnapping and aggravated sexual assault with deadly weapon of another Bandera County woman. For those crimes, he was sentenced to serve 2 life sentences. Confessed to murder While in the Bandera County Jail waiting to be transported to prison, Gonzales told then-Sheriff James MacMillan that he had information about Townsend, who had been reported missing almost two years earlier. Accompanied by Gonzales and a jail administrator, MacMillan drove to the ranch where Gonzales and his family lived, eventually walking to a remote cedar-covered hillside where Gonzales indicated they would find Townsend's remains. At the site, the sheriff and the jail administrator discovered a human skull and other bones that had been scattered by wildlife, as well as jewelry that had been previously described by Gonzales. Townsend's body was discovered Oct. 7, 2002. She was positively identified using dental records. During Gonzales' murder trial, then-Texas Ranger Skylor Hearn testified that Gonzales' final account of the murder was consistent with evidence discovered during a subsequent investigation. Additionally, Gonzales had given law enforcement officers an audio-taped and transcribed statement, which he signed. Hearn read the statement at the trial and the audiotape was played as well. In an earlier pre-trial hearing, 38th Judicial District Judge Antonio Cantu had denied motions to suppress Gonzales' written confessions. The case was tried in Medina County because that was where Townsend's remains had been found - although the decision was rife with controversy at the time. Mitigating circumstances? During the trial, Gonzales' defense attorneys blamed their client's behavior on childhood neglect, drugs and sexual abuse. According to court records, his mother had used drugs during her pregnancy then abandoned him at birth, leaving him to be raised primarily by his grandmother. Additionally, as a child, Gonzales had been sexually abused by a male relative and was using alcohol and drugs by the time he was 12. Speaking after the murder trial, Gonzales' 2nd victim, who had been taken to the same ranch in Medina County, told the court she believed Gonzales would also have murdered her had she not been able to escape from a cabin where she, too, had been bound and imprisoned. Most recent challenge During Gonzales' most recent appeal, his attorneys challenged testimony from a forensic psychiatrist who had testified that there was a serious risk that Gonzales would continue to commit acts of violence in the prison setting. However, at the time, the psychiatrist had also acknowledged that predictions of future dangerousness were "highly controversial" and that the American Psychiatric Association had taken the position that such predictions are unscientific and unreliable. Additionally, Gonzales' court-appointed defense attorneys charged "ineffective assistance of counsel" during the original trial because his attorney failed to present evidence that Gonzales might have suffered from Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD). According to the appellate court's finding: "Defense council presented substantial evidence at trial that Gonzales's mother abused alcohol, marijuana and inhalants while pregnant with Gonzales. There is insufficient persuasive evidence that Gonzales actually suffers from FASD." To Gonzales' claim that his trial counsel failed to secure an abuse expert, the court countered that Dr. Daneen Milam, a neuropsychologist and sex offender treatment provider, had testified for the defense on the psychological consequences of the neglect, abuse and drug use on Gonzales. "Beyond Dr. Milam's extensive testimony, additional testimony by an abuse expert would most likely have been cumulative, and Gonzales does not show otherwise," the court stated. For these reasons and more, the appellate court denied Gonzales' most recent appeal. A local attorney opined that many more appeals would be filed with higher courts. One of Gonzales' previous appeals went all the way to the United States Supreme Court before being denied. "He's doing this simply to avoid the death penalty and to prolong the process," the attorney said. (source: Bandera County Courier) **************** No Decision Made On Whether 3 Area Teens Will Face Death Penalty 3 teenagers were named in indictments Wednesday charging capital murder in connection with the February murder of a Freestone County man. Amber Halford, 19, O'Jarion McLenon and Lawson Abram, both 18, were named in the indictments handed up in connection with the shooting death on Feb. 9 of Douglas Carr Hurst, 45, who was Halford's uncle, Freestone County District Attorney Chris Martin said. Halford and Dustin Sanoja, who was Hurst's nephew, also were named in indictments charging them with burglary of a habitation. Halford remains in the Freestone County Jail in lieu of bonds totaling $530,000; McLenon and Abram are held in lieu of $500,000 bond each and Sanoja has posted a $30,000 bond on the burglary charge and been released, jail records showed. Martin has not yet decided if he will seek the death penalty for any of the capital defendants, he said Thursday. Texts detailed in an arrest warrant affidavit released shortly after the arrests suggest Halford was responsible for planning the break-in in which her boyfriend was killed in an exchange of gunfire with her uncle. "It's my fault this happened. I shouldn't have said go back," Halford said in a text she sent just before 4 a.m. March 9 to her boyfriend, Joshua "JD" Donnell Mulkey, 19, more than 2 hours after the shooting. Hurst, who was married on March 3, was in Galveston on a honeymoon trip with his new wife and family and had returned to secure his home after a break-in on March 7, Chris Martin said. He was alone in the house at around 1:30 a.m. March 9 when Mulkey and 2 other teenagers broke into the back door of his rural home at 135 Private Rd. 871 just off Highway 84. He was awakened by the noise of the break-in, grabbed a semiautomatic pistol and exchanged gunfire with Mulkey, who was found dead of a gunshot wound to the chest in the backyard of the home. Hurst was taken to Baylor Scott & White Medical Center in Waco where he later died after he was removed from life support. Arrest warrant affidavits released in response to an open records request indicate that Halford, 19, planned both break-ins. Halford, was arrested later in Thornton. McLenon and Abram were arrested on the day of the shooting. A 4th suspect, Hurst's nephew, Sanoja, of Teague, was arrested on his 19th birthday and was charged with burglary in connection with the 1st burglary in which 2 laptop computers, 2 rifles, and 2 pistols were taken. Halford told an investigator that she, Mulkey and Sanjoa decided to break into Hurst's house on the night of March 7, the affidavits say. She said the 3 of them got into her vehicle and drove to the house where she dropped off the other 2 teenagers, the affidavits say. Mulkey and Sanoja broke in through the back door and took the computers and firearms, the affidavit says. Halford then drove back by the residence and picked them up, the affidavit said. >From there, they drove to Groesbeck where all three spent the night at the home of her grandmother-Hurst's mother-Nadine Hurst, the affidavit said. She told the investigator that she and Mulkey sold an AR-15 .223 caliber rifle and 1 of the pistols and that Mulkey kept a Glock 31 and the other rifle. A Glock 31 .357 caliber semi-automatic pistol was found Monday lying on the ground next to Mulkey's body, the same make and model of handgun as one that was taken in the 1st break-in on March 7. Investigators also found several texts on Mulkey's cellphone from Halford including two sent early on the morning of March 8. The 1st, sent at around 10:35 a.m., read "Just go by there tonight and see if the lights are on and all that." The 2nd, sent a minute later, read, "Well go by there tonight just be careful and take someone who won't hit licks on 'em," according to the affidavits. A third sent just before 4 a.m. March 9, more than 2 hours after the deadly break-in, said, "It's my fault this happened. I shouldn't have said go back. I shouldn't have even let the first lick happen." McLenon, who, along with Lawson and Halford, was identified as a suspect through interviews with Mulkey's brothers, mother and friends, told investigators that Mulkey had asked him and Lawson to accompany him to commit the burglary early March 9, the affidavits said. He said the 3 walked to Hurst's home from a nearby trailer park at 1091 U.S. Highway 84 and Mulkey, who was the only one who was armed, went through the back door first, the affidavits say. When the gunfire erupted, McClenon said he and Lawson ran back to the trailer park and into the home of Lawson's girlfriend, the affidavits say. He identified Sanoja as a participant in the 1st break-in at the home on March 7, the affidavits say. (source: KWTX news) ******************** Young Kiwi law grad heads to Texas to help save death row inmates Otago University law graduate Andrew Row will travel to Texas in January to do voluntary work on death row cases. A young Kiwi law graduate is heading for Texas with the hope of saving a human life next year. While his fellow graduates settle into roles at law firms, Row, 23, will be volunteering for University of Houston professor David Dow, founder of the Texas Innocence Network, which campaigns to spare the lives of prisoners on death row. Crisis appeals, made in the last few months before an inmate's scheduled execution, are the types of cases Row will be working on, and where he hopes to help the most. "I guess the ultimate thing would be saving someone, but I'm quite realistic that the odds are extremely slim. "I've always been against the death penalty. I think every human being has got something more to offer ... I mean you look at those guys in Bali - they turned into exemplary citizens. One had become an ordained pastor and the other an amazing painter." Only this week, Dow and his team managed to spare the life of prisoner Robert Pruett. "He was going to be the 7th person executed this year in Texas, but David Dow got him a stay of execution just a few hours before he was killed," Row said. He has been saving money to fund the trip through his job as clerk to Justice Susan Glazebrook at the Supreme Court, where he has worked for 2 years. "I initially had a fund for travel, but I think it's going to be less travel, and more work and volunteering" When he finishes his internship with the Innocence Network, he hopes to do his postgraduate studies in the United States, looking at the the over-representation of minorities in prisons all around the world. "Some people might call me young and naive, but I want to use my law degree for good." BY THE NUMBERS 6 people have been executed in Texas this year 276 inmates currently on death row in Texas 42 % of inmates on death row in the US are African-American 13 % of US citizens are African-American INMATES OF DEATH ROW Anthony Ray Hinton walked free in April 2015 after spending 30 years on death row in an Alabama prison, often in isolation. Robert Pruett was given a stay of execution on Wednesday, just hours before he was to be killed. David Dow and his team convinced a judge to allow more time for DNA testing in the case, in which Pruett was convicted of killing a prison guard as revenge for being punished for eating his lunch in an unauthorised area. Walter McMillian was exonerated in March 1993 after spending 6 years on death row in Alabama. He was jailed in 1988 for the shooting death of an 18-year-old white female store clerk. Australians Myuran Sukumaran and Andrew Chan were executed on Tuesday morning after being convicted of drug-trafficking in Indonesia as member of the Bali 9. They spent 9 years on death row. (source: The Dominion Post) *********************** Portrayal of only Argentine on US death row falls flat Argentine Victor Saldano left the city of Cordoba as a young man in 1989 and took a long journey across Latin America, which lasted until 1995 when he arrived in the US. He had long wanted to see the whole wide world, and so it seemed his desire was to be fulfilled. After a brief stay in New York doing odd jobs, he moved to Dallas with Jorge Chavez, a Mexican friend of his with whom he got hooked on drugs and crime. Following some heavy partying, on November 25, 1995, Saldano and Chavez kidnapped 46-year-old US citizen Paul Ray King with the intention of robbing him. But as King resisted the assault, Saldano killed him with 3 shots to the chest and 1 to the head. Saldano has stood trial twice since then. With enough evidence against him, he pleaded guilty in both occasions, and was sentenced to capital punishment in both trials. He was first given the death penalty because, as a Hispanic, he was regarded as very likely to commit another crime in the future - that is, according to the legislation of Texas, which was later on modified. In the 2nd trial that took place after 12 years of inhumane imprisonment on death row, as Saldano's mental state was bordering psychosis, he was nonetheless considered a sane adult, eligible for the death penalty and not an asylum. >From a legal standpoint, this is a case with the right charges and the right conviction, no doubt about that. But it has been alleged that he's been wrongly sentenced to the death penalty because of racial and discrimination issues. As he couldn't afford experienced lawyers, he was initially granted a poor defence by the State. As of today, Saldano awaits execution. Raul Villaruel's documentary Saldano, el sueno dorado (Saldano, The Golden Dream) provides a very basic panorama of the entire affair, with testimonies from Saldano's mother, his US and Argentine lawyers who took the case at different stages, Argentine government officials and other legal experts. It also includes footage from the police interrogation of Saldano the night he committed the crime. So if you want to be informed in broad strokes, you will be. Yet from a cinematic standpoint, Villaruel's film is very flat and poorly conceived. A series of talking heads alone don't make for good cinema, lack of subtext and few insights into potential layers as well as telling details render it obvious and formulaic, and a didactic stance towards viewers doesn't allow them to reflect upon the material. And while the formal values - cinematography, sound design, editing - are not a total mess, they are merely correct, at best. And yes, the documentary does raise uneasy queries about injustice in a legal system and the inhumanity of the death penalty, but it's been done before many times and in much better shape. As it is, many of the particulars of this case, including a full portrayal of Victor Saldano, the man, are left unexplored. (source: Buenos Aires Herald) ************* Widow of 'American Sniper' author writes in new book of her struggle with death penalty The widow of famed "American Sniper" author Chris Kyle says in her upcoming book that she struggled with the idea of whether her husband's killer should be executed. Taya Kyle writes in "American Wife," which will be published next week by William Morrow, that she concluded she would be fine with either the death penalty or life in prison. "That was as far as I could go toward forgiveness," she wrote. Kyle describes her life with the famed former Navy SEAL sniper and coping after his 2013 death at a Texas gun range. The Associated Press purchased an early copy of the book, written with Jim DeFelice, who also co-authored her husband's bestselling memoir of his Iraq tours that was turned into an Oscar-nominated movie. Kyle and his friend, Chad Littlefield, were shot to death by former Marine Eddie Ray Routh, whose mother had asked Kyle to help him. The prosecutor decided not to seek the death penalty, so Routh was automatically sentenced to life in prison after his capital murder conviction in February. Taya Kyle said that while she still believes in the death penalty, she also has "come around to the view that life without parole may in fact be a worse punishment than death." Trial testimony revealed Routh had been hospitalized for psychiatric treatment and prescribed medication to treat schizophrenia. But jurors found the insanity defence mounted by his lawyers failed to meet the legal threshold: a mental illness so severe he didn't know right from wrong. Erath County District Attorney Alan Nash told the AP Thursday that he decided not to seek the death penalty after weighing several factors, including that the jury and higher courts could consider Routh's military service and mental health records. He said it also led to a faster conclusion as opposed to years and years of appeals. Chris Kyle met Routh for the 1st time the day he was killed, Taya Kyle wrote, adding: "Chris didn't know the young man, nor was he told the vast depths of his problems." She writes about deciding to have her husband laid to rest at Texas State Cemetery in Austin instead of Arlington National Cemetery. They had talked about it after a friend's funeral and she wrote that her husband told her: "I just want to be wherever is best for ya'll." He also told her: "I want a big funeral. I'm gone, right? Blow it out." Thousands attended his memorial service held at AT&T Stadium, where his coffin was placed at the Dallas Cowboys' star at midfield. (source: Associated Press) DELAWARE: It's time to abolish the death penalty in Delaware Our justice system must recognize the value of every human life. I retired to Delaware. I was impressed by the caring and concern evidenced in my dealings with all in the community. Peace and justice are affirmed daily by our citizens. Protection of life, practice of mercy and rejection of vengeance are hallmarks of a just society. Currently we are all called to support the passage of SB 40. The repeal of the death penalty will improve the lives of all our citizens. Our justice system must recognize the value of every human life. In all media coverage, one can find evidence that our current administration of the death penalty is unjust. I urge every citizen to study the evidence and act to preserve the dignity and value of all our citizens. Elizabeth Richardson Bethany Beach (source: Letter to the Editor, delmarvanow.com) FLORIDA: End the death penalty The FBI and Justice Department have pledged to review more criminal cases that may have involved flawed and erroneous evidence and testimony by FBI experts. (FBI analysts gave flawed testimony, April 20). That 95 % of the cases studied thus far had fundamentally flawed and erroneous testimony and that the highest number of these cases that resulted in death sentences were in Florida, calls for more than a review. It calls for termination of the death penalty. Florida, after all, is the state with by far the most exonerations of those wrongfully convicted, sent to death row and later released - 25 so far and some after 10 to 20 years of trying to prove their innocence. Even with all these mistakes, trying to execute already-locked-up prisoners costs Florida taxpayers an estimated $1 million a week over and above the cost of sentencing the same people to life in prison without the possibility of parole. There are much better ways to spend these millions to protect Florida families and help those affected by violent crime. We can put down the needle, go get the handcuffs and solve some of the more than 14,000 unsolved Florida homicides. We can fund proven, effective crime-prevention programs. We can help families of murder victims with immediate needs to improve their shattered lives. It's time to end Florida's fatally flawed and hugely expensive program for killing prisoners. Mark Elliott, executive director, Floridians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty, Tampa (source: Letter to the Editor, Miami Herald) ALABAMA: Death penalty capital: Alabama has nation's most death row inmates per capita Texas often is called the death penalty capital of America, and California actually has the most death row inmates. Neither of them come close to Alabama, though, when it comes to sentencing criminals to death. According to a recent report by the Death Penalty Information Center, Alabama has the nation's biggest death row as a percentage of the state's population. And No. 2 is not even close. The 198 condemned prisoners in Alabama represent 40.8 for every million residents. Nevada, which has 77 people on death row, is 2nd with a rate 27.1 per million. The national average, among the 32 states that have the death penalty, is 12.7 per million. "Alabama has the 4th-largest death row in the nation in sheer numbers," said Robert Dunham, the death penalty center's executive director, contrasting the figures with the state's relatively small population. "It's a combination of everything," Dunham said. "Judicial override is a significant factor." The U.S Supreme Court is considering a related issue from Florida. The justices are weighing whether a jury's recommendation of the death penalty must be unanimous. Dunham said a ruling by the high court could have a significant impact on the death penalty in Alabama, where nearly 1/4 of death row inmates had recommendations of life-without-parole sentences overruled by judges. "You end up with a death sentence that would not be tolerated in most of the states that have the death penalty," he said. "The dynamics of juries are different in places where you have judicial overrides." Greater death distribution A study 2 years ago by the death penalty center indicated that most of America's death row inmates come from a small number of jurisdictions. Some 56 % of people on death row were convicted in just 2 percent of the nation's counties. In many states, 1 large jurisdictions accounts for a large chunk of that population. In Pennsylvania, for instance, nearly 1/2 of death row inmates are from Philadelphia County. That is not the case in Alabama, however. Jefferson County, including the Bessemer Cutoff, has produced 33 death row inmates. That is about 16 % of death row, roughly comparable to Jefferson County's share of the population. 43 of Alabama's 67 counties have at least 1 death row inmate. 14 have at least 5. That kind of widespread use is not seen in many states. "I would imagine judges apply it a whole lot more," said state Sen. Cam Ward, an Alabaster Republican who chairs the Judiciary Committee. "We elect our judges. I don't know if that makes a difference." Sen. Hank Sanders, D-Selma, said he thinks it does make a difference. He said another possible factor is the "skimpier" rules governing legal representation for capital defendants. He said if the state provided a more robust defense for low-income defendants, it would affect the death penalty cases in 2 ways. "You would have prosecutors using it a little less, and you'd get a little less (conviction) results," he said. Tide turning? There is evidence that support for the death penalty is waning. A Pew Research Center survey released last month indicated that 56 % of Americans favor the death penalty. That is the lowest level of support in four decades. Dunham, of the Death Penalty Information Center, said he thinks much of the reason for that decline is the advent of DNA evidence, which has exonerated scores of death row inmates across the country. Smaller Majority Supports the Death Penalty Dunham said many of those exonerations have come in cases with seemingly strong evidence, including eyewitness identifications and even confessions. "It's undermined confidence in a lot of the evidence," he said. Both death sentences and executions also have been going down. Death sentences peaked in 1998, when judges imposed the ultimate penalty on 295 defendants nationwide. Since then, it has been on a fairly steady downward trajectory. Last year, 73 defendants got the death penalty. Executions hit a high-water mark in 1999, when 98 death row inmates were put to death. That number fell to 35 last year, the lowest number since 1994. Dunham argued that the death penalty is ineffective. He pointed to studies concluding that it does nothing to deter violent crime. "It doesn't even do what it's supposed to do," he said. And, he added, the process is fraught with error and abuse He referenced data from the Bureau of Justice Statistics showing that execution is only the 3rd most likely outcome for death row inmates - behind exoneration and continued life on death row. Alabama statistics from 1973 through the end of 2013 paint a similar picture - 115 sentences or convictions overturned vs. 56 executions. The state has seen several recent examples. Anthony Ray Hinton, convicted in Jefferson County for the 1985 murders of a pair of fast food workers, walked free from prison on April 3 after prosecutors decided not to retry him amid evidentiary problems. The Alabama Supreme Court had ordered another trial. New forensics testing indicated that bullets found at the scene could not be matched to gun police found at his mother's house. Several weeks later, William Ziegler got out of prison after he pleaded guilty to an amended charge. Prosecutors faced the prospect of a risky retrial after a Mobile County judge found prosecutorial abuse and other problems related to his 2001 murder conviction. Ziegler had been on death row until Circuit Judge Sarah Stewart overturned his conviction. Dunham said he believes certain mistakes are more common in capital cases because the stakes are so much higher. The pressure on police and prosecutors for a conviction is much higher in those cases and the tendency to cut ethical corners is greater, he said. Dunham said support for eliminating to curtailing the death penalty is gaining steam even among Republicans. He pointed to heavily Republican Nebraska, where the legislature has taken the first steps toward repealing the death penalty. He said Republicans increasingly are coming to view the death penalty as just another flawed program that the government cannot be trusted to get right. "It also offends traditional conservative values," he said. Alabama's take Support remains strong for the death penalty among Alabama's lawmakers, though. "We're just the reddest of red states," said Ward, the state Senate Judiciary Committee chairman. "I don't think (a shift in public opinion) is happening here in Alabama." Ward said he is troubled by the fact that some innocent people have ended up on death row. He said he favors expanded use of DNA testing as a safeguard. But he said state forensics labs struggle with insufficient funding. "The issue is we're overwhelmed (as far as) forensic science," he said. Miriam Shehane, who founded a Victims of Crime and Leniency after three men raped and murdered her daughter five days before Christmas in 1976, said the death penalty offers the only final closure for relatives of murder victims. She said that of her daughter's killers, only one was executed. Another had his sentence changed to life in prison without parole and one is serving life with a chance for parole. "I have to go at least every five years and beg the parole board not to parole him. And I shouldn't have to do that," she said. "I certainly do not want anyone executed who is innocent. But I do not think that we need to get rid of the death penalty." Sanders, the state senator from Selma, has sponsored legislation every year since 2000 to repeal or reform the death penalty. The proposals have gone nowhere. "I'm traveling on faith every time I introduce it," he said. "To me, it's a moral issue. I don't try to calculate what chance we have." State Rep. Merika Coleman-Evans, D-Birmingham, has introduced a bill to mandate a 3-year moratorium while the state studies the death penalty. She said she does not know all of the reasons why Alabama leads the nation in per capita death sentences. "That's the reason why we need the moratorium, so that we can study the numbers," she said. (source: al.com) From rhalperi at smu.edu Fri May 1 13:29:43 2015 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Fri, 1 May 2015 13:29:43 -0500 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----OHIO, IND., KAN., ARIZ., CALIF., WASH., USA Message-ID: May 1 OHIO: Bans on local hiring quotas, death penalty among new bills in the Ohio legislature Death penalty ban On Wednesday, Sen. Edna Brown, a Toledo Democrat, proposed legislation to prohibit capital punishment in Ohio. Brown said in a news release that she introduced Senate Bill 154 after meeting with death-row exonerees. Brown introduced similar bills during the past 2 legislative sessions without success, and her chances of success this year aren't much greater in the GOP-dominated legislature. (source: cleveland.com) INDIANA: Expert: Daniel Messel could face death penalty in Hannah Wilson's murder The man accused of murdering IU senior Hannah Wilson could face the death penalty, if prosecutors charge him with kidnapping. Daniel Messel, 49, already faces a charge of murder. "It's my opinion that the state is probably considering a death penalty count in this murder case," said criminal defense attorney Jack Crawford, a former county prosecutor. "It appears strongly like Hannah Wilson was abducted, that's a kidnapping. A murder committed in the course of a kidnapping is an aggravating ground or circumstance to seek the death sentence." In the Brown County field where Hannah Wilson's body was found last Friday, so was a cell phone that police say belonged to Messel. Police then found blood and hair inside Messel's car and, when he was arrested, he was carrying a trash bag full of clothes. But there are apparently no witnesses to the murder. "It's not unusual to have a circumstantial case. You let the jury put the pieces together. And these are some big pieces," explained Crawford, who said the prosecution in this case does not have to prove motive. If Messel never testifies about the case, that's fine, too he can still be convicted. "If they connect up the DNA, if they find his DNA on or near her body, or if they find her DNA in his vehicle, that's strong circumstantial evidence that he committed the killing," said Crawford. If detectives are able to show that Hannah was abducted, this could become a capital case. The Brown County prosecutor, so far, isn't talking about the evidence or additional charges. "We will remain playing this close to the vest, I don't want to make a comment at this time," said Brown County Prosecutor Ted Adams on Monday. Hannah's father is focused on the loss and mostly, celebrating a young and vivacious life. "She's gone. It doesn't matter whether they find a killer or don't find a killer," said Dr. Jeff Wilson, Hannah's father, "I think, though, the police and the detectives have done a great job. They're on it. I'm not too concerned about that." (source: WTHR news) KANSAS: Kansas Supreme Court delays death penalty ruling The Kansas Supreme Court announced Friday that it has delayed issuing a decision in the death penalty case of Scott D. Cheever while the U.S. Supreme Court considers appeals in three other Kansas cases that raise similar issues. Cheever was convicted and sentenced to death for the 2005 killing of Greenwood County Sheriff Matt Samuels. Attorneys for both the prosecution and defense in the Cheever case agreed to the stay, according to a statement from the court. The U.S. Supreme Court is considering appeals in 3 other death penalty cases from Kansas. In each case, the Kansas high court vacated death sentences due to procedural errors in the sentencing phase of the trials. Those cases involve Jonathan and Reginald Carr, who were convicted and sentenced for a brutal murder spree in December 2000 in which 4 people were shot execution-style in a frozen field near Wichita. The 3rd case involves Sidney Gleason, who was convicted of killing 2 people near Great Bend in 2004 as part of an effort to prevent them from providing evidence about an earlier robbery. 1 of the issues on appeal common to all of the cases is whether juries in the penalty phase of the trial must be told that the defense does not have to prove mitigating circumstances beyond a reasonable doubt. Under Kansas law, the death penalty can only be applied if the prosecution proves certain aggravating circumstances beyond a reasonable doubt. But the law puts no similar burden on the defense when presenting mitigating circumstances. The Kansas Supreme Court reversed Cheever's conviction and death sentence once, in 2013, on the basis that the court violated his 5th amendment right against self incrimination by admitting into evidence statements he had given to federal authorities in a separate proceeding. But the U.S. Supreme Court reversed that decision a few months later and remanded it to Kansas to be considered again. Kansas reinstated the death penalty in 1994, but since then the Kansas Supreme Court has overturned virtually every death sentence it has considered and, to date, no one has yet been executed under the 1994 law. (source: Lawrence Journal World) ARIZONA: Death penalty pros and cons Over the past couple years, I have tried to completely ignore the Jodi Arias case. It is totally disgusting to me. If the case had not been a good looking woman involving sex, it would have ceased to be a news story very quickly. The real sad story here is a couple spoiled kids without any moral values that destroyed each other. I had someone tell me, "I would have really liked to have been on that jury." Not me; I wanted nothing to do with the story. I did not even want to hear, talk or read about the case. The death penalty is one law I believe Arizona should do away with. I have several reasons I feel the death penalty should be eliminated. 2/3 of the rest of world has decided to eliminate the death penalty. China, Iran, North Korea, Yemen and yes, the U.S. does conduct the majority of executions in the world. I am not very proud to be part of that group. It costs a lot more to execute someone than to let them rot in jail. Yes, it is cheaper to feed them than to pay the attorney fees for 20 years' worth of appeals. I believe someone that commits a murder should be prevented from ever committing the crime again, and keeping them in jail for the rest of their life does that. Do you really believe that dying is worse than sitting in an 8-foot box for 20 years? Some people argue that the death penalty is a deterrent. I do not believe someone that is thinking about committing a murder says, "Well, if the punishment is life, I will commit the crime, but if it is death, I will not commit the murder." Is that fair? We say we do not execute people with a mental illness, but I believe anyone that commits murder has a mental illness. If you are charged with murder and you have enough money, it is very unlikely you would ever get the death penalty. The FBI said in the 14 states that do not have the death penalty, they have a lower homicide rate than the national average. Lesson: If you really believe in the death penalty, ask yourself, would I like to witness an execution? (source: Quentin Tolby, retired judge; The Glendale Star) CALIFORNIA: Lawyer claims client never deserved death penalty----Attorney: Convicted murderer is 'not a dangerous person' Nearly 15 years ago, Jeffrey Jens represented Paul Gordon Smith Junior, the man convicted of killing 20-year-old Lora Sinner during a 1998 camping trip. Smith was also convicted of an attempted murder charge while he was in the Shasta County Jail. This week, the California Supreme Court ruled that Smith did not get a proper sentencing trial and therefore he is no longer on death row, for now. Jens shared he is happy his former client's death sentence was overturned. "I've had 350 jury trials and to have somebody on death row, it's something that you can't quite forget and to have that overturned and have that off your conscious at this stage in my career means a lot," Jens said about his former client Smith. Jens said the case never should have been a death penalty case because Smith is not a dangerous person. In an interview with KRCR News Channel 7 in 2002, Jens said Smith had a "far from normal," childhood. "He was raped by his father over and over again. He was neglected, abandoned, abused, and then shuffled into the system. He never really had a chance. He has a brain dysfunction. This is not the kind of person that you put to death this is the kind of person that gets life without parole," Jens shared in 2002. On Monday, the high court ruled that an expert was wrongly prevented from testifying. The jury was told of Smith's several attempts to escape from the jail and his violent attitude toward guards. The court said a prison expert was barred from telling the jury that security is tighter at San Quentin, which is where Smith resides currently. Smith could face another death penalty trial or he may be sentenced to life in prison. The Shasta County District Attorney's office said they haven't started reviewing the case and they have not made a decision about whether or not they will retry the penalty phase. (source: KRCR tv news) WASHINGTON: The state Supreme Court justice who stepped down to protest the death penalty The Supreme Court's heated debate over lethal injection on Wednesday highlighted the stark divide that remains in how the justices view the death penalty. It was the 1st time in nearly a decade that the justices had contemplated lethal injection, the country's primary method of execution, and their arguments were notable for the sharp tone as much as their underlying disagreements about what they were debating. As Ken Armstrong at the Marshall Project points out, not long after these arguments wrapped up, the Washington state Supreme Court was holding a memorial service to honor one of its former justices. It seemed oddly relevant, because that justice had specifically said he was stepping down from the court 2 decades ago to protest the state's use of the death penalty. Robert F. Utter, who died last year at age 84, wrote in April 1995 that his only regret about serving on the court was a failure "to provide equal access to justice" to everybody in the state. "I have reached the point where I can no longer participate in a legal system that intentionally takes human life in capital punishment cases," Utter wrote in a letter explaining his decision, which you can read in full over at the Marshall Project. "We continue to demonstrate no human is wise enough to decide who should die." Utter is not the most high-profile judge to turn against the death penalty, of course. Just a year before Utter's letter, former Supreme Court justice Harry A. Blackmun declared that he had reversed his position on the death penalty after almost a quarter of a century on the court. Blackmun declared that he would no longer meddle "with the machinery of death" and decried the country's capital punishment system as "fraught with arbitrariness, discrimination, caprice and mistake." (Blackmun retired from the court that year.) Still, Utter's resignation and his later comments were dramatic in a different way, a judicial swan song reached after dissenting 2 dozen times from cases that upheld the death penalty. His feelings on capital punishment were not with him all of his life, though, but rather were forged in his experiences as a young judge and strengthened over his years on the bench, as he later explained in a series of interviews with the Washington State Legacy Project in 2009. In these interviews, Utter recalls that while serving as a prosecutor in King County, he asked for death sentences while working on cases. "I just felt it was part of the law," he said. "We didn't win those cases when I was a prosecutor in the 1950s, thank goodness." Utter said that his views on capital punishment could be traced back to a trial involving Don Anthony White, a young black man who had what Utter described as "all sorts of mental problems." White had killed 2 people and been sentenced to death, but he was granted a new trial before Utter, who was a superior court judge at the time. Utter said White as a young man had dramatically changed while on death row, and the jury in the new trial found him guilty but spared his life. "That really opened my eyes to the power of rehabilitation," Utter told the Legacy Project. However, he said, these were his personal feelings, and he said he could not dissent against the death penalty without a legal basis. "But the legal reasons against it are there in almost every case you look at," he said. Over his nearly 23 years on the state Supreme Court, Utter said his opposition continued to grow, until he finally decided he could do more good by stepping aside than by continuing to dissent. "There were 2 death penalty cases coming up in the next term," he told the Legacy Project. "At that point I had to ask myself, 'Am I going to do more benefit in the long term by staying on the court or by resigning and bringing the issue to the floor?'" A majority of Americans support the death penalty, though that level of support has been consistently falling since about the time Utter stepped down. And a sizable majority of people are also pretty sure that an innocent person can be executed in the current system, an opinion that transcends race, gender and political preferences. Washington state has carried out 5 executions since the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976. It last executed an inmate in 2010, when Cal Brown, who was convicted of raping and murdering a woman, was killed by lethal injection. Utter spoke out against that execution, again stating that he felt the system remained unequal and costly. Last year, Gov. Jay Inslee (D) announced a moratorium on executions in the state due to what he called an unequal and inconsistent system. "There are too many flaws in the system," Inslee said in a statement at the time. "And when the ultimate decision is death there is too much at stake to accept an imperfect system." (source: Washington Post) USA: There's more to executions than pain----Supreme Court must consider what the death penalty inflicts on America's political and legal values America's death penalty system is in crisis. Its severity was vividly on display Wednesday when the U.S. Supreme Court took up the case of Glossip v. Gross, a challenge to Oklahoma???s use of the drug midazolam as a component of lethal injection. On April 29, 2014, Oklahoma's botched lethal injection of Clayton Lockett brought dramatic attention to what was once believed to be a safe, reliable and humane method of putting someone to death. Lockett died of a heart attack 43 minutes after the 1st execution drug was administered and after a series of frantic attempts to find a useable vein. He groaned, writhed, lifted his head and shoulders off the gurney and said "man." The case highlighted the vain effort of states to find drugs that can be relied on to do the business of killing humanely. So serious are the problems with the death penalty system and with lethal injection that Dr. Jay Chapman, the pathologist who pioneered this method of execution, now says that he has "revised his view of capital punishment" and has serious doubts about whether it should continue to be used. With medical heavyweights such as Chapman criticizing the suitability of midazolam for use in executions and with the bulk of scientific evidence now suggesting that midazolam cannot be used "to maintain adequate anesthesia" during an execution, Oklahoma has been forced to rely heavily on the expert testimony of Dr. Roswell Evans, dean of the school of pharmacy at Auburn University, to support its execution protocol and its use of midazolam. Despite never himself having used the drug on a patient or had any experience with anesthesia, Evans testified in the district court that first considered the Gross case that inmates given midazolam "would not sense pain" during an execution. Junk science reached a new low when he supported this assertion by relying almost exclusively on citations from a consumer website, drugs.com, a website that offers the disclaimer that it is not intended to provide "medical advice." The claims of so-called experts in the science of pain should warn us that the constitutional status of the death penalty in the United States has tended to turn on the question of whether we can know for sure whether the condemned suffer when they are executed. But can we really answer this question? And, even if we could, is it the right question? "The constitutionality of capital punishment should not depend exclusively on whether there is a painless method of execution, because that is a question we may never be able to answer." Does the Eighth Amendment's ban on "cruel and unusual punishment" require us to depend on science to reveal the pain of those we execute? Or is the effort to answer that question inevitably going to evince the confused rhetoric that was on display in Wednesday's oral argument? (Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito, for instance, went so far as to contend that the Gross case was one part of "a guerrilla war against the death penalty," in which opponents try to deny states the drugs that could carry out executions with little or no pain, such as those used in assisted suicide.) This doubt and confusion can neither be put to rest nor alleviated. Pain "has no voice," Harvard English professor Elaine Scarry observes in "The Body in Pain: The Making and Unmaking of the World": When one hears about another's physical pain, the events happening within the interior of that person's body may seem to have the remote character of some deep subterranean fact, belonging to an invisible geography. The constitutionality of capital punishment should not depend exclusively on whether there is a painless method of execution, because that is a question we may never be able to answer. Rather, we must consider the damage the death penalty inflicts on America's political and legal values. We know, for instance, that for every 9 people executed in the U.S. since 1976, 1 person has been falsely convicted, condemned and subsequently exonerated - and that death sentencing has been impermissibly tainted by racial discrimination. We must gauge how such social harm measures up to America's commitment to respecting the humanity of all citizens and its belief that no one's worth or dignity can be measured simply in terms of his or her own worst act, no matter how heinous. Displacing that inquiry and focusing simply on the pain of those we execute turns complex moral and political questions into questions of science. It pushes people such as Evans to the forefront of our most important constitutional controversies, where they do not belong. Justice Elena Kagan got it right Wednesday when she asked whether it would be constitutional to burn someone at the stake after an anesthetic with debatable pain-killing properties. She answered her own question by saying, "Maybe you won't feel it. Maybe you will. We just can't tell." (source: Austin Sarat is the William Nelson Cromwell professor of jurisprudence and political science and the associate dean of the faculty at Amherst College. He is the author of "Gruesome Spectacles: Botched Executions and America's Death Penalty."----Al Jazeera) ****************** Prall: No sense in the death penalty The death penalty is somehow still implemented in the United States. China, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and the United States carried out 88 % of death penalty executions in 2007, according to Northwestern University. These are not countries we want to align ourselves with in terms of human rights. So, who's even for the death penalty? A recent Pew poll found that 56 % of Americans are in favor of capital punishment, the lowest level in 4 decades. Besides all the states that have deemed it unethical, the United Nations has voted 117-38 for a global moratorium on the death penalty. You'll never guess which side the United States voted on. As U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said, "The death penalty has no place in the 21st century. Leaders across the globe must boldly step forward in favor of abolition. Together, let us end this cruel and inhumane practice." There have even been reports of China re-evaluating its death penalty policy, according to the New York Times. Germany refuses to assist in a murder case of a U.S. serviceman because the death penalty may be involved. There has to be a change here in the States, in every state. Oklahoma is up to bat. Oklahoma's Supreme Court is going to hear another appeal for the abolishment of capital punishment after the horrific incident with Clayton Lockett. Lockett was given a state-sanctioned, untested sedative drug (midazolam) to bring about his death in a quick and painless way. Instead, he was not sedated and writhed in agony, fully conscious, until a he had a major heart attack. How could the Oklahoma Supreme Court approve the use of such a drug? Justice Sonia Sotomayor noted in the dissent that the state expert testifying on behalf of midazolam's effects relied on the website drugs.com. That is an absolutely incompetent job done by the highest judicial officials in the state of Oklahoma. The justices have voted to take up the case again after other botched executions from across the United States have made headlines. What is actually on the table in this case is actually quite ridiculous when considered. The justices are ruling on whether midazolam violates "cruel and unusual punishment" in the 8th Amendment. They are also considering whether someone who challenges a lethal-injection protocol has to find a substitute drug that would cause less pain. How about the state just stops killing people? The question before them now is whether the use of midazolam violates the Eighth Amendment's ban on cruel and unusual punishment. Because this is the death penalty, where logic often does not apply, the justices will also consider the bizarre question of whether someone challenging a lethal-injection protocol must identify drugs the state could use that would cause less pain. And it isn't cheaper to use the death penalty. After a recent study the Kansas Judicial Council concluded, "Defending a death-penalty case costs about 4 times as much as defending a case where the death penalty is not considered." Not to mention the appeal process which can go on for years, if not decades. All of this is paid for on our dollar, and at the end of the day, it might be our dollar taking a human life. Knowing that innocent men have been put to death before is reason enough not to support the death penalty. We are not Salem; that may be our history, but it doesn't have to be our legacy. Putting people to death in any form has dangerous moral implications on an entity such as the state. (source: Opinion, Jacob Prall, The Daily Iowan) ***************************** Death Row's Other Killers Glenn Ford, 64, convicted of murder in 1984, spent 30 years on the death row of Louisiana's notorious Angola prison before his conviction was overturned and he was freed last month. Anthony Ray Hinton, 58, convicted of murder in 1983, spent 30 years on Alabama's death row before his murder conviction was overturned earlier this month and he was freed. That means they've joined the growing number of individuals convicted of capital murder and other serious crimes who've been proven innocent only after years in prison. Their exonerations also underscore how widespread are the terrible flaws of American's criminal justice system, and especially its ultimate evil: the death penalty. In fact, these men - whom the nation's death penalty advocates would have sent to their execution decades ago - are, literally, living proof that the death penalty itself is a crime. According to data compiled by The Innocence Project, which seeks to exonerate the wrongfully-convicted, since 1989, 329 inmates convicted of capital murder, murder or rape charges have been exonerated via DNA testing. The exonerated had served an average of 14 years in prison. Equally horrifying are the conclusions of a 2014 study that determined that at least 4 percent of the 3,000 inmates now on the nation's death row are probably innocent; that a "comparatively low" percentage of innocent inmates have been executed since 1973; and that there is a greater percentage of innocent people whose death sentences have been commuted to sentences of life without the possibility of parole. One of that study's authors wrote: "The great majority of innocent defendants who are convicted of capital murder in the United States are neither executed nor exonerated. They are sentenced, or resentenced to prison for life, and then forgotten." Whenever I read of another death-row exoneration, 4 considerations immediately come to mind. The 1st is, having been convicted of a capital crime, how does it feel to sit awaiting execution on one of America's death rows and know that you are innocent? How does it feel to know that men and women, inhabiting offices of power and clad in the trappings of respectability, are going to kill you so they can keep pretending the American criminal justice system is just? How does it feel to know that the only thing standing between you and execution is a few people who have the resources to help you breach the extraordinarily high barriers put in place to help the legal system try to avoid admitting it made a mistake? Anthony Ray Hinton's words, quoted in an April 5 article of theatlantic.com are worth focusing on. "They didn't just take me from my family and friends," he said. "They had every intention of executing me for something I didn't do." The 2nd thing I think about whenever another exoneration is announced is the studied silence of the get-tough-on-crime crowd and the death penalty advocates who are always complaining that the appeals process of capital sentences is too drawn out. If those now exonerated had been executed "on time," this crowd would have declared: justice done. The 3rd thing I think about is the injustice to the crimes' victims of these wrongful convictions. The Innocence Project data show that in the 329 cases of DNA-proved exoneration, less than half of the true perpetrators of the crimes have been brought to justice. Finally, I've come to think that all these cases prove there are 4 kinds of souls inhabiting America's death rows. There are the correction officers, of course. There are the men and women who actually are guilty of murder. There are the men and women actually innocent of the crime they've been blamed for or whose guilt was not actually proved at trial. And, finally, there are, in spirit, the death penalty advocates, hanging around like vultures waiting for the next execution so they can pull the tattered rags of their self-righteousness every more tightly around them. The death penalty is itself morally repugnant, and the growing numbers of death-row inmates whose innocence has been proven before they could be executed has shown that the process of capital punishment in America is shot through with, not just the possibility, but the reality of grievous error. So, the next time you hear a death-penalty advocate spouting off about its validity, ask them how many state-sponsored murders of innocent people they're willing to take responsibility for. (source: Lee A. Daniels' new collection of columns, Race Forward: Facing America's Racial Divide in 2014, is available at www.amazon.com; baystatebanner.com) From rhalperi at smu.edu Fri May 1 13:30:33 2015 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Fri, 1 May 2015 13:30:33 -0500 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide Message-ID: May 1 HUNGARY: Hungary says 'does not plan' to introduce death penalty, after PM's call riles EU Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban "does not plan to introduce the death penalty," his chief of staff Janos Lazar said Thursday, after strong EU criticism of Orban's call for debate on its reintroduction. Orban informed European Parliament (EP) president Martin Schulz by telephone that the government would debate the issue, but "the prime minister does not plan to introduce it in the country," Lazar said. Hungary will "keep to EU laws", he added. The EP confirmed in a statement that Orban had "assured the President that the Hungarian government will respect and honour all European treaties and legislation". The controversy first erupted on Tuesday when Orban pushed for a debate on bringing back capital punishment, saying existing penalties in Hungary were too soft. Orban's comments immediately sparked a sharp response after a series of spats with Brussels over his hardline stance on human rights and civil society norms - key values for the European Union. Earlier, European Commission chief Jean-Claude Juncker had warned Orban that he faced a "fight" if he reintroduced the death penalty. "Mr Orban should immediately make clear that this is not his intention and would it be his intention, it would be a fight," Juncker told a press conference, stressing that the EU charter forbids the death penalty in the 28-nation bloc. Orban's junior coalition partner, the Christian Democrats, had also distanced themselves from his comments, saying they opposed the death penalty. Hungary abolished capital punishment after the end of communism in 1990, fulfilling a key condition for membership of the European Union, which it joined in 2004. Orban's call for a debate on capital punishment was seen as a further provocation after remarks last week in which he called the EU's immigration policy "stupid", just after hundreds of migrants seeking to get to Europe drowned in the Mediterranean. The right-wing Orban, who has been in power for 5 years, has been losing ground recently to the extreme-right Jobbik party which supports the death penalty and is strongly anti-immigration. (source:straitstimes.com) EGYPT: Death for soccer violence An Egyptian court yesterday took a step towards imposing the death penalty on 11 men for involvement in deadly soccer stadium violence in 2012, in a court session shown on television. The judge referred the sentencing to Egypt's Grand Mufti, the country's most senior religious authority, a step towards the death penalty, which could be imposed at a later court hearing on May 30. Soccer matches are often a flashpoint for violence in the country but the Port Said incident was Egypt's worst ever soccer disaster, killing more than 70 fans and injuring at least 1 000. Many of those killed were crushed when panicked fans tried to escape from the stadium after a post-match pitch invasion by supporters of the local side Al-Masry. Others fell or were thrown from terraces, witnesses said. In January 2013, a court sentenced 21 people to death in the case, but after more than a year, the high court overturned the sentences and ordered a retrial. The Grand Mufti's decision is not binding but referral is needed in order to impose a death sentence. The case could be subject to a further appeal which could take several years. (source: Reuters) INDONESIA: Why Did Indonesia Just Execute 8 People for Drug Crimes? Indonesia: Stop Imminent Executions April 24, 2015: Press release The coffins for the condemned in Indonesia's latest round of executions are finally being put to use on the country's remote island of Nusa Kambangan. On April 29, Indonesian authorities executed 8 death row prisoners - 7 of whom were foreign nationals, from Australia, Ghana, Nigeria, and Brazil, and all of whom were convicted of drug smuggling - by firing squad. For the executioners, it was a familiar procedure: Indonesia put 6 other convicted drug traffickers to death in January, including 5 foreigners. (Non-Indonesians constitute the majority of prisoners on that country's death row for drug crimes.) The executions are a tragedy not just because of moral objections to the death penalty. Despite Jakarta's defense of the death penalty as "shock therapy" against drug trafficking, the alleged deterrence effect of the death penalty has been repeatedly debunked. Most recently, on March 4, the U.N. assistant secretary-general for human rights, Ivan Simonovic, stated that there was "no evidence that the death penalty deters any crime." A University of Oxford analysis concluded that capital punishment does not deter "murder to a marginally greater extent than does the threat and application of the supposedly lesser punishment of life imprisonment." That renders today's punishments merely cruel and irrevocable. Indonesia's current execution spree is no judicial accident. The archipelago nation ended a 4-year unofficial moratorium on the use of capital punishment on March 15, 2013, when it executed Adami Wilson, a 48-year-old Malawian national, by firing squad. An Indonesian court had convicted Wilson in 2004 of smuggling 2.2 pounds of heroin into the country. Since then, Indonesia has executed a total of 6 other people, all of them convicted on drug crimes. President Joko Widodo, who took office in November 2014, has made the death penalty for convicted drug traffickers a signature policy issue. Widodo's death penalty policy and his stated refusal to grant clemency, citing national sovereignty, have sparked a diplomatic firestorm. In March, Brazil refused to accept the credentials of Indonesia's incoming ambassador after the January execution of Brazilian citizen Marco Archer Cardoso for drug trafficking. Brazil also furiously sought clemency for Rodrigo Gularte, who was executed April 29 for drug trafficking, on the grounds that he had paranoid schizophrenia and was "in a very deteriorated psychiatric state." The Indonesian authorities refused clemency despite extensive diplomatic overtures aimed to spare Cardoso's life. In a related incident, the Netherlands withdrew its ambassador in Jakarta after the January execution of Dutch citizen Ang Kiem Soei, who died alongside Cardoso. The diplomatic fallout from Indonesia's burst of executions has most seriously affected its relationship with its southern neighbor Australia. Canberra's efforts to obtain clemency for two Australians executed today, Myuran Sukumaran and Andrew Chan, prompted heated exchanges between the 2 governments. Australia's Prime Minister Tony Abbott had earlier described how he is "revolted" at the prospect of Sukumaran and Chan's executions. Some of the international criticism of Widodo's death penalty policy comes from perceptions of its hypocrisy. Despite the mass executions today on Nusa Kambangan, Jakarta is devoting considerable resources to prevent the execution of Indonesian citizens overseas. They include Satinah Binti Jumadi Ahmad, an Indonesian domestic worker on death row in Saudi Arabia since 2010 for allegedly robbing and murdering the wife of her Saudi employer. Jakarta sent a formal appeal to Saudi Arabia's then King Abdullah to pardon Ahmad after paying the entirety of the victim's family legally recognized "blood debt" - equivalent to $1.9 million in late 2014. Indonesia has applied a combination of diplomatic pressure and cash payments over the past 3 years to secure commutation of death sentences for 189 Indonesians facing execution overseas - the crimes for those granted clemency include drug trafficking. Widodo's death penalty policy also doesn't withstand international legal scrutiny. Article 6 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which Indonesia acceded to in 2006, restricts the use of the death penalty to only "the most serious crimes" which the United Nations has defined as "intentional crimes with lethal or other extremely grave consequences." The United Nations Human Rights Committee and the U.N. expert on unlawful killings, Christof Heyns, have condemned using the death penalty in drug cases. All this makes Indonesia's use of the death penalty for drug-related convictions particularly odious and wrongheaded. But Widodo need not look far afield for inspiration on how to resolve the worsening furor over his death penalty policy. On February 13, Fiji became the 99th country to abolish the death penalty, leaving Indonesia in the ranks of the 58 states, which retain it. For Widodo, it is time to recognize the well-documented failure of the death penalty as a crime deterrent and join the growing number of countries that have abolished capital punishment. Until he does, they'll need more caskets on Nusa Kambangan. (source: Phelim Kine is deputy director for the Asia division at Human Rights Watch) ************************** Indonesia Executes Man With Schizophrenia Indonesia's Attorney General HM Prasetyo has high praise for the April 29 executions of 8 people on the country's death penalty island of Nusa Kambangan, even saying the executions were "better, more orderly and more perfect" than those of 6 people in January. That sunny appraisal suggests Prasetyo is unaware of the last moments of Rodrigo Gularte, a Brazilian national executed for drug trafficking. Gularte didn't realize that he was about to die until the final minutes before he went before the firing squad, a Catholic priest who had counselled him said. That lack of understanding was no herculean act of denial. It was because Gularte reportedly had bipolar disorder and paranoid schizophrenia and simply didn't understand the gravity of his situation until the very end. A Brazilian diplomat likewise described Gularte in "a very deteriorated psychiatric state" in the lead-up to his execution. Indonesia's death penalty spree, powered by President Joko Widodo's wrong-headed belief in the deterrent effect of the death penalty, is already a barbaric punishment inconsistent with international human rights law, statements of United Nations human rights experts, and various UN bodies. Human rights law upholds every human being's "inherent right to life" and limits the death penalty to "the most serious crimes," typically crimes resulting in death or serious bodily harm. But the apparent willingness of the Indonesian authorities to disregard medical evidence of Gularte's apparent psychosocial disability is an appalling violation of both Indonesian law and international human rights standards. The UN Commission on Human Rights adopted resolutions in 1999 and 2000 urging countries that retain the death penalty not to impose it "on a person suffering from any form of mental disorder." Article 44 of Indonesia's Penal Code excludes from criminal punishment any person demonstrating "disorder of his mental capacities." Gularte's execution should prompt an urgent inquiry into this affront to basic dignity. It reinforces the need for the Indonesian government to impose an immediate moratorium on the death penalty and move toward eventual abolition. Until it does, the Indonesian government's death penalty "shock therapy" against convicted drug traffickers will risk yet more unlawful deaths. (source: Human Rights Watch) ********************* Indonesian envoy explains execution of 4 Nigerians The Ambassador of the Republic of Indonesia to Nigeria, Harry Purwanto, in a meeting summoned by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday, gave reasons why the country went ahead to execute 4 Nigerians and other nationals convicted on drug offences on Tuesday. . According to him, the execution was in order since it was strictly done according to legal proceedings. Purwanto said: "There was nothing we could do for those 4 Nigerians, because every legal process was completed and only then did the government of Indonesia implement the decision of the court." According to him, the case has been on for 10 years, and Indonesia needed to make sure that adequate opportunity was given to the convicts within the bounds of the law, stressing that his government suspended the moratorium on death penalty due to the gravity and dangerous impact of drugs on their country. He disclosed that Indonesia suffers from the harsh reality of the drug trafficking as about 4.5 million of their citizens especially the youth, are affected by the narcotics adding that only about 1.8 million of them have been rehabilitated. He further said that between 33 and 50 victims of the drugs die every month describing it as unfortunate. On the possibility of Prisoner Transfer Agreement between both countries, Mr. Purwanto said, "Actually, Indonesia will be happy to do that; but, unfortunately we do not have the legal basis, we have to wait for a new legislation in Indonesia but then we have to convince our members of parliament to do that." Reacting to the incident, the Undersecretary Economic and Consular Affairs Department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ambassador Bokunolu Onemola, said although the Federal Government protested the executions on the basis of subsisting friendly relations between both countries, Nigerians should desist from drug trafficking, especially in countries where capital punishment is being implemented. He added that Nigeria would not recall its ambassador to Indonesia over the executions. Jamiu Owolabi Abashin, 50, Martin Anderson, 50, Okwudili Oyatanze, 41, and Sylvester Obiekwe Nwolise, 47, were executed on Tuesday in Indonesia. (source: Nigerian Guardian ) ************************** Indonesia mulls over 3rd round of execution of death row convicts Indonesia's Attorney General's Office (AGO) will make an evaluation next week on whether to proceed with executing more death-row convicts in the near future after the 2 recent groups of executions drew international outcry. AGO spokesman Tony Spontana said convicts set to be included in the execution list would be those who had exhausted all their legal attempts to avoid the penalty. "An evaluation of the recent executions will be thoroughly evaluated next week. After that we will determine whether to proceed with the third round of executions in the near future, and the list of convicts who will face the firing squad," he said. More than 162 death row convicts are currently awaiting their fate. Of the figure, 73 convicts are murderers while 89 are drug traffickers. The list excludes terrorist inmates, according to the AGO. (source: Straits Times) ******************* Indonesia Needs the Death Penalty to Deter Drug Traffickers Indonesia's spiraling drug problem is the main reason why Jokowi should maintain his tough anti-drug stance. International pressure has mounted on Indonesia in recent months to stop its enforcement of the death penalty. In January, Indonesian President Joko Widodo - known as Jokowi - ordered the execution of 6 convicted drug traffickers, 5 of whom were foreign nationals. Another group, including Australian duo Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran, was executed on the island of Nusakambangan on April 28, as various legal appeals had been exhausted. Despite international concern, Jokowi should maintain his tough anti-drug stance for a number of reasons. Indonesia's drug problem is a state of emergency. It holds a sovereign right to enforce the law within its territory, and its enforcement of death penalty does not violate international law. Millions of people are affected by drugs in Indonesia. According to the National Agency for Narcotics (BNN), 1 million people are addicted to drugs with little chance of recovery. Around 1.6 million people occasionally take drugs, while 1.4 million are regular consumers. Indonesia is Southeast Asia's drug hub. The BNN, along with customs and police, has confiscated large quantities of drugs. In January, the police found 8.1 kilograms of crystal methamphetamine. In 2014, the BNN impounded 157 kilograms of crystal meth in a drug bust in Jakarta, and in 2013, the police seized 9.9 kilograms of crystal meth. Each day, more than 30 people die of drugs, according to BNN estimates. Some observers have challenged the accuracy of data provided by the BNN, doubting the government's claim that Indonesia is facing a drug crisis that warrants the execution of convicted drug traffickers. However, these considerations should not divert attention from Indonesia's efforts to combat drug abuse. Indonesia's estimates on drug use were jointly produced by the BNN and a reputable research center, the University of Indonesia's Center for Health Research. They used scientifically-based research methodologies and have considered the margin of error carefully in their studies. So far, Indonesia does not have any data other than the BNN's 2008 studies. Experts admit that new data will provide stronger estimates than what is currently available. However, conducting a survey on Indonesia's large population is not easy. IndonesiaWe cannot ignore the victims of drug abuse just because the harm cannot be accurately quantified. It is better to believe the worst situation of drug abuse based on the BNN's data and by looking at the realities in Indonesian communities. In a personal interview, the head of the BNN said the government has allocated additional funding to reduce the demand for drugs. Under a new policy, drug users are not sent to jail but sentenced to mandatory rehabilitation. The program targets at least 100,000 people to recover from drug addiction a year. Under this policy, no drug user will be sent to prison. Only those who trade and gain profit from illegal drugs will be criminalized. Indonesia's move to enforce the death penalty on convicted drug traffickers is protected by the principle of state sovereignty. Under this principle, Indonesia has the freedom to make and apply laws within its territory and on its citizens wherever they are, without any interference from other states or entities. Since the development of international law, the concept of state sovereignty has been the main foundation of the system of relationships between countries. Indonesia is a party to the United Nations Convention Against Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances. In addition, to ensure the fulfilment of its human rights, Indonesia has become a party to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR). As part of the implementation of its international obligations, Indonesia has enacted several anti-drug laws, including Law No.35 of 2009 on Narcotics and Law No.5 of 1997 on Psychotropic Substances. Indonesia has the authority to enforce these laws on anyone, including foreign nationals in its territory. Other states must not pressure or interfere in Indonesia's domestic application of the law. If other states intervene, it can be considered a violation of customary international law, which gives the right for Indonesia to retaliate to redress interventions. Compliance With International Law Indonesia is not violating international law in upholding the death penalty. Under the anti-drug trafficking convention, Indonesia is still allowed to apply the maximum penalty as deemed appropriate by the state to provide a deterrent to drug trafficking crime. Indonesia has enshrined the death penalty into law in its 2009 anti-drug legislation. And in a 2007 judicial review, the Constitutional Court ruled that the death penalty was in line with Indonesia's constitution. Some human rights activists argue that Indonesia is obliged to respect the right to life as stipulated under the ICCPR. They suggest Indonesia should abolish the death penalty. But the country provides all death row convicts equal opportunities to appeal. And after all legal proceedings have been completed, people on death row can request clemency to the president. Some observers have indicated that some courts' procedures and rulings have been corrupted. But we cannot generalize the whole proceedings of Indonesian courts to be corrupt. Notorious decisions based on fraud and corruption were committed by small number of judges. Indonesia's legal system is not perfect, but the country is not a failed state in upholding the rule of law. Indonesia's stance on the death penalty is in accordance with Article 6 Paragraph 2 of the ICCPR, which states that countries may impose the death sentence "only for the most serious crimes in accordance with the law in force at the time of the commission of the crime." Some might disagree and condemn the execution of convicts before the firing squad. However, we should also think about the victims of drug abuse who have died and those who are now suffering. Considering the grave threat that drugs pose to Indonesia's younger generations, the Indonesian government should continue its forceful policy against drug-related crimes. (source: Arie Afriansyah, fairobserver.com) ******************* Bali 9 clemency deal ignored ----The Indonesian President's chief political rival promised to publicly support Joko Widodo if he granted clemency to Bali 9 ringleaders Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran. The West Australian can reveal that military strongman Prabowo Subianto twice privately assured Mr Joko there would be no political consequences if Chan, Sukumaran and eight others on death row were reprieved. Mr Prabowo's extraordinary behind-the-scenes intervention would have given the President face-saving political cover to spare the lives of Chan and Sukumaran. It is understood that Mr Prabowo penned a letter to Mr Joko at the weekend in which he said that if the President were to "postpone the executions indefinitely", he would come out in support of the decision. Mr Joko, under pressure from his political patron, former president Megawati Sukarnoputri, ignored the offer and the 2 Australians were killed by firing squad on Wednesday, along with 4 Nigerians, a Brazilian and an Indonesian. 2 people, a Frenchman and a Filipina woman, got late reprieves. Chan and Sukumaran's bodies were expected to be flown back to Australia today or tomorrow. As reported by The West Australian in March, Australian diplomats sought Mr Prabowo's help to save Chan and Sukumaran, believing the former general could engineer a change of heart. Mr Prabowo, the son-in-law of former dictator Suharto, narrowly lost last year's presidential race to Mr Joko but still wields great influence over Indonesia's Parliament and political system. To Australian observers, Mr Prabowo had a much better grasp of the international repercussions for Indonesia if the executions went ahead. The Abbott Government fears relations might not be fully restored until Mr Joko's term ends, in the same way that Australia's relationship with Malaysia did not properly thaw until Mahathir Mohamad retired, 10 years after Paul Keating called Dr Mahathir "recalcitrant" for not attending the APEC summit. Mr Joko does not face another election until 2019. Publicly, Mr Prabowo has said he supports the death penalty but that Indonesia should have a "flexible" approach. He told an Indonesian news website in March that Australia was "performing its duty" by wanting Chan and Sukumaran's death sentences overturned. Independent senator Nick Xenophon had for some time favoured lobbying Mr Prabowo. "I was urged by my human rights contacts in Indonesia that this would have been worthwhile exploring," Senator Xenophon said. "But I can understand the risks involved in such a strategy." Though the majority of Indonesians wanted the condemned prisoners executed, some media outlets urged Mr Joko to first review each case. "Backpedalling may be in the best interest of Joko and the nation," the Jakarta Globe newspaper said in its editorial this week. "There is no shame in accepting and correcting one's mistake. This is not a sign of weakness. Rather, it is a sign of greatness. "This is wisdom that will put him as a great leader." Foreign Minister Julie Bishop lashed out at suggestions yesterday that the Government had made it easier for the Australian Federal Police to work with foreign governments in cases where the death penalty could be applied. In 2014, Justice Minister Michael Keenan omitted any reference to Australia's opposition to the death penalty when laying out a mission statement on how the AFP should behave. Labor questioned whether the Government had again opened the door to allowing the AFP to help another country pursue an Australian in a death penalty case. Ms Bishop blasted Labor, saying it had deliberately twisted an innocuous document for political gain. She said the AFP still had clear guidelines laying out what assistance could be given in death penalty cases and nothing had changed since Labor was in power. The AFP is under pressure to explain why it tipped off Indonesian police about the Bali 9 drug smuggling operation in 2005 when there was a chance the death penalty could be imposed. (source: Yahoo news) ****************** Govt mulling 3rd round of executions The Attorney General's Office (AGO) will make an evaluation next week whether to proceed with executing more death-row convicts in the near future after the 2 recent batches of executions drew international outcry. AGO spokesman Tony Spontana said convicts set to be included in the execution list would be those who had exhausted all their legal attempts to avoid the penalty. "An evaluation of the recent executions will be thoroughly evaluated next week. After that we will determine whether to proceed with the 3rd round of executions in the near future, and the list of convicts who will face the firing squad," he said. More than 162 death row convicts are currently awaiting their fate. Of the figure, 73 convicts are murderers while 89 are drug traffickers. The list excludes terrorist inmates, according to the AGO. Citizens of the UK, the Netherlands, France, Nigeria, Malaysia and China are among the death row convicts. Early on Wednesday, the government executed 8 inmates from Indonesia, Australia, Brazil, Nigeria and Ghana. The executions were the 2nd round after the 1st was carried out on Jan. 18, during which 6 inmates from Indonesia, the Netherlands, Brazil, Nigeria, Vietnam and Malawi were killed by firing squad. (source: The Jakarta Post) ****************** "Welcome to Indonesia, Death Penalty for Drug Traffickers!" ---- Why the country's new president is executing more foreigners, despite international outrage Shortly after boarding an Indonesian domestic flight, the voice of an air-stewardess will flood the intercom, sweetly informing you, in Indonesian and then again in broken English, that the penalty for transiting drugs is death. When you arrive at the airport in Jakarta, you will pass under a crimson banner that announces, "Welcome to Indonesia, Death Penalty for Drug Traffickers!" But when Joko "Jokowi" Widodo, Indonesia's reformist new president, was inaugurated last October, it was not clear whether these warnings were still current. His predecessor, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, had executed people sparingly, even placing an unofficial 4-year moratorium on executions during his 2nd term. As a result, when Jokowi took office, there were as many as 65 convicts on death row for drug offenses alone, including as estimated 45 foreigners. Yudhoyono had been criticized in the Indonesian press for bowing to foreign pressure and commuting the sentences of foreign drug traffickers. Eager to distinguish himself, Jokowi declared shortly after assuming office that there was a "national emergency" surrounding drugs - which, he claimed with little evidence, took 50 Indonesian lives a day. His administration insisted that only the death penalty would deter drug traffickers. 3 months later, in January, Jokowi proceeded with the 1st wave of mass executions; 6 drug offenders, including 5 foreigners, were killed by firing squad. Just after midnight Wednesday morning, 8 more drug offenders were executed. Of those, the highest profile were a Brazilian man with paranoid schizophrenia who, according to his pastor, went to his death unaware that he was being executed, and 2 Australian men whose impending deaths inspired nationwide vigils back home and an extraordinary public campaign to have them freed (the duo had admitted to trying to smuggle 18.5 pounds of heroin). In a video titled, "Save our Boys, Mr. Abbott," a series of Australian celebrities had demanded that Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbot find a way to bring Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukamaran home. "Tony if you had any courage and compassion you'd get over to Indonesia and bring these 2 boys home," said one. "Show some balls." The executions of all but one of the "Bali 9" have turned into a diplomatic nightmare for Indonesia, whose new president has been working to stimulate Indonesia's lagging economy by encouraging foreign investment. Australia withdrew its ambassador - the 1st time it had ever done so over citizens executed abroad - and promised to re-evaluate its relationship with the country. Brazil expressed anger but it didn't have an ambassador to pull, as its ambassador had already been recalled after the 1st Brazilian trafficker was executed in January; the government said it would delay the return of its ambassador to Jakarta. Ban Ki-moon, secretary general of the United Nations, pleaded with Indonesia to commute all further capital sentences. (There are still 33 foreigners on death row for narcotics offenses.) "Jokowi did not expect the other nations to protest this hard," said YohanesSulaiman, lecturer in international relations at the Indonesian Defense University. "He was caught completely off guard." And yet, on Thursday morning Indonesia announced its next wave of executions. Indonesia's attorney general, HR Prasetyo, dismissed the international pressure, promising that the diplomatic fallback would be merely a "ripple." "It's the diplomatic domain, there will be a solution," he said. Indeed, the domestic pressure may be greater. A poll from Kompas newspaper showed that 86 % of Indonesians support executing the Australians. It will be difficult for Jokowi to back down now. "From what I have heard," Yohanes said, "the debate now in the Palace is, 'If we stop the executions now, then we bow down to foreign pressure.' So I think the government will keep pushing forward with [the executions], that's my gut feeling. But I am not sure they have a plan to deal with the international fallout." The run of negative stories looks to continue, as the French Foreign Affairs Ministry declared it was "mobilized" over the case of Serge Atlaoui, its citizen on death row, and international media has begun focusing on the British grandmother who worried that she would be executed next. The one slightly optimistic story of the week - the last-minute halt to the execution of Mary Jane Veloso, an impoverished Filipino maid who was among the Bali 9 - also turned sour. Jokowi insisted that Mary Jane's execution was only being delayed to allow her to testify in a new court case. It would not be cancelled, despite the Filipino president's personal appeals. Andreas Harsono of Human Rights Watch says Jokowi is under intense domestic political pressure to continue with his current course, and that the BNN (the national narcotics agency) and the attorney general "are for moving forward." Indonesian politicians, meanwhile, have used the opportunity to posture against what they portray as countries eager to encroach on their sovereignty. Tjahji Kumolo, the minister of Home Affairs, said in March: "If there were a thousand Tony Abbotts it wouldn't be an issue. Whoever it is - a thousand secretary generals of the U.N., a thousand prime ministers - Indonesia is a sovereign nation." Jokowi repeatedly warned nations not to interfere with Indonesia's sovereignty. After the executions, Jokowi repeated, "It's the sovereignty of our law." His vice president was even more scathing of foreign governments' objections, saying of Australia, "We import more from Australia so if there is any freeze in trade relations, it would be their loss." Tobias Basuki, a researcher at CSIS, a prominent Jakarta think tank, wrote in an email that there has been a "harsh and hyper-nationalistic narrative along with the executions ... Indonesia and Jokowi in particular has lost much respect and moral standing." The international pressure may have had an effect, however slight. The next group to be executed consists of 5 Indonesian men convicted of murder, rather than foreigners convicted of drug trafficking. Some speculate that the decision is meant to show the Indonesian government's commitment to following through with executions but without further alienating any foreign powers. According to Harsono, "The heat from the international outcry and the fact that it is against international law to execute drug traffickers," may have prompted the Indonesian government to "go domestic and to pursue murderers." On Thursday, I spoke with Todung Mulya Lubis, a lawyer and longtime campaigner against Indonesia's use of the death penalty, who represented the 2 executed Australians. He said that it was "possible" that the execution of Indonesian murderers, rather than foreign traffickers, was a sign that the government was reconsidering, but added, "I cannot say that. It remains to be seen. It may just be that the other cases [of foreigners] are still [requiring] legal action." Australian media focused relentlessly on its government's efforts to save Chan and Sukamaran. When it was clear they would be executed, the Australian press meticulously documented their final days, from Chan's last-minute marriage, to Sukaraman's final self-portrait, where he depicted himself with a hole in his chest, to the moment the 2 were led out of their prison, given the choice to stand or kneel, and shot through the heart. After the executions, Lubis tweeted: I failed. I lost. I asked him how he was feeling. "How do I feel? Gloomy, is the feeling that I have. I have never been so stressed, so depressed, with what's going on. Because I expected humanity would prevail. I expected a sense of justice. But that is not the case." (source: New Republic) PHILIPPINES: Death penalty revival opposed Senator Francis "Chiz" Escudero is keeping a firm stand against the reimposition of death penalty in the Philippines, expressing hope that the government will help in the global action to abolish death penalty as punishment for any crime. Escudero said that it is the certainty of punishment that will deter criminals from plying their trade rather than the re-imposition of the death penalty. At the same time, he urged the government to exhaust all legal means for the pardon or commutation of the death sentence on Mary Jane Veloso, who got a reprieve from the Indonesian government shortly before her scheduled execution along with 8 other people for drug-related crimes. Escudero said there should be no let-up in the Philippines' efforts to save Veloso. "The same is true with other distressed Filipinos in the different parts of the world," he said. There are about 13,000 to 14,000 distressed overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) languishing in prisons in various parts of the world, he said. With this number, he pointed out that the "current P100 million budget allocated to DFA for legal assistance to OFWs is evidently not enough to reach to as many OFWs in need of assistance." He said he believed that whether it's right or wrong and regardless of the victim, as long as 1 is a Filipino, he should be entitled to due process and should be protected by the foreign affairs department. He likewise cautioned Filipinos who are bound for overseas work to be extra careful and be wary of people who may dupe them into transporting contrabands. (source: Manila Standard Today) From rhalperi at smu.edu Fri May 1 13:31:25 2015 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Fri, 1 May 2015 13:31:25 -0500 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide Message-ID: May 1 AUSTRALIA: Why Australians should pursue a global ban on the death penalty As the grieving families of Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran await the return of their loved ones' bodies from the killing field of Nusakambangan island prison in Indonesia, there are a number of lessons we should start to learn. It goes without saying that for most Australians, and indeed most citizens of functioning and compassionate democracies, the death penalty achieves nothing. Capital punishment serves at best as a cruel and cynical domestic political prop that plays only to the baser and more insecure elements of a society worried about issues of law and order or sovereign stability. Execution does not reform, and neither, as the statistics so sadly and endlessly demonstrate, does it deter those people willing to take a risk thinking it will never happen to them. In fact, in many instances the threat of capital punishment is likely to exacerbate violence - particularly against law enforcement personnel - at the hands of criminals who calculate they have nothing to lose by resisting capture via whatever means they can. And when it comes to crimes such as drug smuggling - for which Sukumaran and Chan paid the ultimate price - for many people a higher risk simply equates to a higher potential return. For Australia, a country which does not bestow upon its judicial system the power of life and death, the Bali 9 executions have been wrenching at both a personal and a diplomatic level. We are not alone though, and must remember that Sukumaran and Chan were just 2 of 8 prisoners executed in Indonesia this week, and they are just a handful of the thousands of haunted men and women on death row in prisons around the world. Our last-ditch diplomatic efforts were all they could have been, but perhaps we could have done more, not only for Sukumaran and Chan, but for others in the same position. In the Bali 9 context maybe a more concerted and behind-the-scenes diplomatic push for clemency while a stronger and friendlier Indonesian president in Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono was in power might have achieved a humane outcome. If we are prepared to speak out though for Sukumaran and Chan, we must also speak for all who are facing the barbarity of execution. If not, Australia risks its message on capital punishment being viewed as a complaint born of parochial convenience rather than a consistent and widely prosecuted position of ethics and humanity. It would be hoped, if there is any positive to come from events of recent days, that those 8 prisoners strapped to wooden boards in front of an Indonesian firing squad in the middle of the night may serve as a touchstone for a more consistent global push for an end to this barbarity. (source: Courier-Mail) ********************* Bali 9 duo shown mercy... after Catholic university names scholarships after them in bid to abolish death penalty - but PM says move is 'questionable' Australian Catholic University will award undergraduate scholarships Indonesian students will be eligible to apply and study in Australia Must submit an essay on the theme of 'the sanctity of human life' It has surprised the Prime Minister who believes the move is 'questionable' Mr Abbott told radio 2GB that it was an 'odd thing for the university to do' Vice-Chancellor hopes it will help in a 'small but deeply symbolic way' ACU is opposed to the death penalty and campaigned for mercy Chan and Sukumaran were executed in Indonesia on Wednesday An Australian university has announced plans to award 2 scholarships to Indonesian students in recognition of reformed Bali 9 ringleaders Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran. The Australian Catholic University (ACU) was part of the global campaign that advocated for mercy for the 2 Sydney men before they were killed by firing squad on Nusakambangan island, in Indonesia, on Wednesday. Vice-Chancellor Professor Greg Craven said ACU is opposed to the death penalty and hopes that the scholarships will help in a 'small but deeply symbolic way' to be part of the 'ongoing contribution toward the eventual abolition of the death penalty in Indonesia'. But the move has been labelled as 'questionable' by Prime Minister Tony Abbott who believes the university are sending a 'very unusual message.' The Prime Minister told Sydney radio 2GB that while forgiveness was part of the Christian faith, another part called for people to be their best selves and that this was an 'odd thing for the university to do.' 'We know that they were repentant, we know that they were rehabilitated, we know that they seem to have met their fate with a kind of nobility and all of that is admirable,' Mr Abbott said. 'But whether that justifies what has apparently been done is open to profound question.' Chan and Sukumaran spent a decade behind bars in Bali for their role in trying to smuggle 8.3kg of heroin into Australia from Indonesia in 2005. During that 10 years, Chan became an ordained Christian priest and Sukumaran a talented artist who conducted art classes to other inmates in Kerobokan jail. 'While our calls for mercy for Mr Chan and Mr Sukumaran were ultimately rejected, we strongly believe that hope remains for prisoners around the world who face a similar fate,' Mr Craven said. 'The death penalty is a violent, cruel and immoral punishment that has no place in our society. And yet it persists. In memory of Mr Chan and Mr Sukumaran, each of us can take action to end this punishment.' 'These will be awarded to academically qualified applicants upon the submission of an essay on the theme of 'the sanctity of human life",' Mr Craven said. 'The scholarships would be a fitting tribute to the reformation, courage and dignity of the 2 men.' Sukumaran and Chan wanted their executions to have a greater meaning and hoped the awareness would bring an end to the death penalty, their lawyer has revealed. Julian McMahon saw the Australians hours before their executions, when they were determined to be strong as they said their goodbyes to their families. Mr McMahon, who has spent years defending and raising awareness of their rehabilitation since their crime 10 years ago, remained on Nusakambangan island and heard the shots that killed them on Wednesday. He spoke to the witnesses and confirmed reports the pair were concerned for the 6 other prisoners there with them. Chan, who wore the jersey of NRL club Penrith, did a roll call of their names to check each was okay. Both men led the group in song. 'In dying really they did their best thing that they did in their life because for the last few years of their life their intention was to improve things for other people,' Mr McMahon said on Thursday. 'They wanted to support the people around them and to make it clear that executing prisoners was a fundamentally wrong thing to do. 'They would be pleased that there was so much publicity surrounding their deaths because they want their deaths to have some purpose and meaning far greater than simply the story being about them. 'They want to help other prisoners on death row in other places. 'They want people ... to care enough about what has happened to do something about the death penalty.' Mr McMahon said he realised they weren't perfect men but said in recent years they had become wonderful. They took pride that important Australians and ordinary people supported them because it validated for them the hard work they'd done to improve themselves. It had been a battle to live well in prison, the lawyer said. For example, Sukumaran had to constantly defend his prison art workshop from drug gangs. The pair's lawyer said their death shows the 'complete and absolute futility of state-sponsored killing of prisoners' Julian McMahon, the lawyer for Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran, said they wanted their executions to have a greater meaning and hoped the awareness would bring an end to the death penalty. The pair's many acts of kindness are only now becoming known, including an orphanage Chan helped establish and the way Sukumaran defended the women's block from gang members when guards were absent during a riot at Kerobokan. Mr McMahon said their families appreciated the professionalism of the guards in Nusakambangan's Besi prison who were kind to the men in weeks that could have been unbearable. The pair won their trust and within the 2 months they were there, Chan became a key person in the chapel and Sukumaran had such respect from the guards he was able to access paints and canvasses to do his final works. The families were grateful for this, even if decisions from higher up made things difficult. Mr McMahon questions why at so many turns, Indonesian authorities disregarded continuing legal process and asserted his clients' executions would go ahead regardless, 'deeply political manoeuvres clashing with the rule of law'. Mr McMahon took from Nusakambangan the memory of the eight prisoners farewelling their families and friends before their deaths. They were beautiful, warm people, he recalled, who in some cases merited serious punishment for their crimes but not death. 'To me it exposes the complete and absolute futility of state-sponsored killing of prisoners, it's a complete nonsense,' he said. (source: Daily Mail) MALAYSIA: Aussie grandma Maria Elvira Pinto Exposto could face death penalty An Australian grandmother accused of drug trafficking in Malaysia faces a possible death sentence after tests confirmed the substance found in her bag was crystal methamphetamine. Maria Elvira Pinto Exposto, 52, was arrested on December 7 last year at Kuala Lumpur airport allegedly carrying 1.1kg of the drug, also known as ice, court documents showed. The Sydney woman was travelling to Australia. She had flown in on a flight from Shanghai and was in transit before catching a connecting Malaysian Airlines flight to Melbourne. She was arrested at the customs counter as she attempted to exit the airport. Prosecutor Hasifulkhair Jamaluddin told the Malaysian Magistrate's court today tests conducted by a chemist confirmed the substance found in Exposto's bag was the drug. Magistrate Noor Hafizah Salim then ordered the case to be transferred to the high court. Malaysia has a mandatory death penalty by hanging for anyone found guilty of carrying more than 50g of a drug. Authorities previously said Exposto was trafficking 1.5kg of methamphetamine. Exposto, a mother of 4, appeared nervous when the amended charge was read to her. Her defence team has yet to enter a plea, preferring to wait for the case to reach the high court because the lower magistrate's court has no jurisdiction to hear death penalty cases. After the hearing, the 52-year-old was led out of the detention room in handcuffs, the Australian told reporters that she was innocent and nodded her head 3 times. "Yes (I am innocent)," she said with a smile. No date has been set for the high court hearing but defence lawyers said the trial could begin later this year. "We are confident that we can show her innocence at the trial," Muhammad Shafee Abdullah, her counsel said. Exposto's lawyers claim the grandmother was a mule who was duped into carrying a bag -- which she believed contained only clothing -- by a stranger who asked her to take it to Melbourne. She had travelled to Shanghai after falling for an online romance scam by a person claiming to be a US serviceman, according to lawyers. Customs officers discovered the drugs stitched into the compartment of a backpack. 2 Australians were hanged in 1986 for heroin trafficking -- the first Westerners to be executed in Malaysia. Few people have been executed in Malaysia in recent years. (source: news.com.au) PAKISTAN: The death penalty in Pakistan The death penalty debate is currently raging in Pakistan. Although Pakistan had never abolished the death penalty, it had imposed a moratorium on executions back in 2008. The government, however, decided to resume state-sanctioned executions after the tragic Army Public School massacre at the end of last year. Since the time that the moratorium has been lifted, however, nearly a hundred people have been hanged. The moratorium on the death penalty was initially lifted only for those convicted of terrorism, but in March this year, it was extended to cover all capital offences. According to human rights groups, Pakistan has one of the world's largest death row populations, comprising over 8,500 inmates, who are now facing death by hanging. Out of these, only a fraction (approximately 10 %) are being tried as terrorists. Therefore, lifting the moratorium on the death penalty for all those convicted and given capital punishment has instigated heated controversy. There is no overwhelming evidence for the effectiveness of the death penalty in preventing serious crimes. A study done by the UN in 2008 found that executions do not serve as a more effective deterrent to serious crimes than life imprisonment. However, executions still take place in several countries. Besides Pakistan, China, Saudi Arabia, Iran and the US are other countries where the highest numbers of executions take place. Pakistan is, however, one of the handful of countries which since 1990 has executed prisoners under 18 years of age at the time of committing a crime. Although it had subsequently increased the minimum age for executions to 18 years, the government seems adamant over hanging a convict who had committed a murder when he was still allegedly under 18 years of age this past month, before the president postponed the execution. Now that the moratorium has been lifted, some of the names on the list of planned executions include Mumtaz Qadri, who killed the former Punjab governor, but also Aasia Bibi, the woman whose life the governor died trying to protect. The Supreme Court has recently stepped in to suspend death sentences issued to 6 alleged militants by the military courts based on a petition challenging the fairness of their trials. The legality of the military courts has also been questioned and is currently under review by the Supreme Court. Opinion about the need for military courts remains divided. Some argue that the conventional court system is overburdened and too slow, and there is a heavy reliance on witness testimony and very little protection for judges and prosecutors. This makes terror cases hard to prosecute since extremists easily intimidate witnesses and lawyers into dropping charges. We have indeed seen many high-profile suspected perpetrators of sectarian and terrorism-related violence walk free after the failure of the judiciary to convict them. Conversely, others argue that the military courts themselves do not provide fair trials, and their trial process is neither public nor transparent. Moreover, non-terrorism related offences have also been tried under the Anti-Terrorism Act in order to expedite trials. The justification of resuming executions as a way to tackling the country's law and order challenges has also come under question. Supporters of the death penalty in Pakistan argue that it is the only effective way to deal with the scourge of militancy. Those opposed to the death penalty point out that those committed to dying for their cause will not be deterred by the threat of death. Moreover, they point out that the overall judicial system in the country is seriously flawed. The frequent use of torture to extract confessions and the lack of adequate investigative, including forensic capacity, are some of the reasons why many innocent people may have been wrongly sentenced to death. It seems that the government's decision to completely lift the moratorium on the death penalty, after stressing that only convicted terrorists would be hanged, has opened up a much bigger Pandora's Box. (source: The Express Tribune) INDIA: Supreme Court confirms death penalty for 2 from UP The Supreme Court Thursday confirmed the death penalty for a woman and her lover for killing 7 members of her family, including a 10-month-old child. Shabnam and Saleem, the two convicts, wanted to marry but Shabnam's family was against this alliance. The 2 drugged Shabnam's entire family and then hacked them to death on April 15, 2008, in Almora District of Uttar Pradesh. According to the prosecution, while Shabnam held the drugged, Saleem hacked them to death with an axe. The incident took place in Bawankhera village of Amroha. They were sentenced to death by the lower courts which was appealed against by the duo. Advocate Dushyant Parashar, who was appointed as amicus curiae in the case, had sought commutation pointing out Shabnam had given birth to a child during her incarceration. Rejecting the plea, a bench led by Chief Justice of India H L Dattu said: "You (Shabnam) are also a mother. But you didn't show any mercy or affection to your family. Even you killed 10-month-old baby of your brother. We can't grant any relief." (source: Indian Express) From rhalperi at smu.edu Sat May 2 11:50:49 2015 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Sat, 2 May 2015 11:50:49 -0500 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, PENN. N.C. ALA., LA., TENN. Message-ID: May 2 TEXAS: DA Will Seek Death Penalty In Deadly Double Shooting McLennan County District Attorney Abel Reyna announced Friday his office is seeking the death penalty for a man who is accused of capital murder in a May 13, 2014 double shooting. Todric McDonald, 28, is accused of killing Justin Javier Gonzalez, 24, and Ulysses Gonzalez, 30, both were shot to death inside an apartment at the Pecan Tree Apartments in the 2600 block of Grim Avenue. The 2 victims were cousins. Reyna said the killings were particularly brutal, but could not shed any light on the motive for the shootings. Online McLennan County Jail records show McDonald is held in lieu of $1,506 million in bonds on the capital murder and 6 other charges. Neither man actually lived in the apartment but had been there visiting friends, Waco police Sgt. W. Patrick Swanton said at the time of the shootings. They were inside the apartment when 1 or more suspects entered and gunfire erupted, Swanton said. Both men were pronounced dead at the scene. McDonald was arrested on May 16, 2014, after a short chase that reached speeds of 85 miles per hour on a city street. A female and a toddler were in the car with him, police said. McDonald also was named in an indictment charging evading arrest in a vehicle in connection with a chase on the day of his arrest and for 1 count of aggravated assault and 2 counts of aggravated robbery in separate incidents, also reported in May. The aggravated assault charge stems from another shooting incident that happened in the 2300 block of Morrow just 5 hours before the double murder happened. A co-defendant in that shooting, Tony Olivarez, also was named in an indictment charging aggravated assault. Olivarez remains held in the McLennan County Jail in lieu of $504,000 bond. (source: KWTX news) PENNSYLVANIA: Death penalty case moves forward against Ashtabula man accused of causing fatal injuries to baby The death penalty case is moving forward against a 23-year-old Ashtabula man accused of causing fatal injuries to a 6-month-old baby while camping in Washington County, Pa., authorities said. Chad Chadwick's defense attorneys are reviewing the discovery and obtaining experts to review the baby's medical records, said Mark Aaron, district attorney in Clarion County, Pa. Chadwick was arraigned in May 2014 on charges of criminal homicide, conspiracy, aggravated assault, endangering the welfare of children, simple assault and reckless endangerment, according to court records. Chadwick was on a holiday camping trip with his girlfriend's infant nephew and 2 other children Labor Day weekend 2013, babysitting for the children's parents, who live in Geneva, the baby's family members have said. Police said the youngest of the three children, 6-month-old Zeke Hamilton, was later found in a car seat, and had suffered injuries to his head, chest and arms. Zeke was rushed to Children's Hospital in Pittsburgh, and spent 11 weeks in a coma. He died Nov. 15, 2013. The Allegheny County medical examiner ruled the death a ???non-accidental blunt force trauma to the head," reports show. Pennsylvania State Police arrested Chadwick in January 2014 at home in Ashtabula, with the help of local law enforcement, Ashtabula Police Chief Robert Stell has said. Aaron has said he is seeking the death penalty based on the aggravating circumstance that the victim of the homicide was a child under 12 years of age. No date has been set for Chadwick's trial. (source: Star Beacon) NORTH CAROLINA: North Carolina lawmakers approve bill to resume executions North Carolina lawmakers on Wednesday approved a measure aimed at resuming executions after nine years. The law removes the requirement to have a doctor present at all lethal injections and instead would allow nurses, physician's assistants or paramedics to oversee lethal injections in the state. North Carolina's House of Representatives passed the legislation in an 84-33 vote. The measure still must pass the Senate. Currently there are 149 inmates on death row in North Carolina. The state has not executed any inmates since 2006, partially due to conflicts with policy changes of the North Carolina Medical Board. The Medical Board believes physician participation in capital punishment is a departure from the ethics of the medical profession. However, in September 2007 a state judge ruled that the North Carolina Medical Board does not have authority to discipline doctors that participate in state death penalty procedures. Lethal injection and execution methods have been at the forefront of the death penalty debate for the past few years. Earlier this week the US Supreme Court heard oral arguments on the constitutionality of Oklahoma's lethal injection procedure. Oklahoma became the face of the legal injection drug debate last year after death row inmate Clayton Lockett died of an apparent heart attack shortly after doctors called off a failed attempt to execute him using a lethal injection drug called midazolam. Also in April the Delaware Senate voted to repeal the death penalty, but the legislation includes an exemption for the 15 inmates currently on Delaware's death row. In March Utah Governor Gary Herbert signed a bill to restore the firing squad as a method of execution, making Utah one of the few states with that option. Like in Oklahoma, if drugs used for lethal injections are unavailable, a firing squad would be allowed. (source: jurist.org) ALABAMA----female may face death sentence Judge to decide Lisa Graham's fate on May 28 A Phenix City woman convicted of capital murder for her actions in hiring a worker to kill her daughter will find out whether she is sentenced to life in prison or death on May 28th. In March, a jury recommended the death penalty for Lisa Graham after she was found guilty of capital murder in the 2007 killing. Judge Jacob A. Walker, III will either confirm the jury's recommendation and sentence her to death or sentence her to life in prison. During the sentencing phase, jurors heard from Lisa Graham's mother and a doctor who diagnosed Graham with depression and anxiety. Graham's attorney wanted jurors to consider her son, Kevin Graham, Jr., and lack of criminal history in the sentencing process. The prosecution said Graham's daughter will never be able to live her life since her own biological mother took that away from her. After an hour of deliberations, the jury came back with a 10-2 recommendation for the death penalty. Russell County District Attorney Kenneth Davis was thankful that closure had finally come. "Of course the first thing I think of is we have a resolution after 8 years. You have murder, terrible brutal murder, almost 8 years ago and you know it is well past time that there be a resolution. So I am thankful for that," Davis said. Graham was convicted of hiring Kenny Walton to kill her 20-year-old daughter Shea Graham. Police found her body on Bowden Road in Russell County in 2007. During the 5 days of testimony, Walton admitted on the stand to shooting Shea Graham 6 times the night of July 5th. The prosecution had a final plea to jurors to convict Lisa of capital murder while making its closing arguments. The defense hinted that Walton may have killed Shea for other reasons. (source: WRBL news) LOUISIANA: Prosecutor focuses on DNA samples in Carquest murder trial, testimony likely to continue throughout weekend Attorneys spent much of Friday listening to testimony from Louisiana State Police employees in the 2nd day of Lee Turner Jr.'s capital murder trial. A State Police firearms examiner, according to the Advocate, testified that 9 shell casings found inside an Airline Highway auto parts store warehouse where 2 employees were shot to death in 2011 were fired from a .380-caliber semiautomatic pistol discovered in thick brush behind the store. Turner, who was 21 at the time, is accused of shooting and killing his then co-workers Randy Chaney and Edward Gurtner at the auto parts store with intentions on robbing the store. Gurtner and Chaney were found shot to death shortly after the store closed on Sunday, March 27. Turner, who was hired less than 2 weeks before the incident, previously worked at other locations, one on Plank Road and another on Government Street. A State Police DNA crime analyst testified late Friday that he could not exclude Turner's DNA found on a safe inside the store or the handgun found at the scene. Crime analysts, according to East Baton Rouge Parish First Assistant District Attorney Tracey Barbera, cannot definitively say whether someone's DNA was found on a particular item but they can narrow down the possibilities. Attorneys will continue to hear witness testimony throughout the weekend. Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty for Turner, which would be the 1st death penalty prosecution in East Baton Rouge Parish since 2010. (source: Times-Picayune) ****************** Judge: Reeves not disabled, maintains death sentence Judge Mike Canaday on Friday ruled Jason Manuel Reeves is not intellectually disabled and can be put to death for killing a Moss Bluff girl in 2001. Reeves was convicted of 1st-degree murder in the death of Mary Jean Thigpen, the Moss Bluff child whose body was found in LeBleu Cemetery days after her disappearance in 2001. Reeves was sentenced to die in 2012, but his execution was delayed after his attorneys requested a review of Reeves' intellectual ability. A 5-day hearing was held in March 2015. The state argued Reeves is not intellectually disabled and should be put to death. The state noted Reeves was not diagnosed as intellectually disabled until after his conviction, and that the diagnosis came from experts hired by the defense. The defense claimed Reeves is intellectually disabled and therefore not eligible for the death penalty. (source: KPLC news) **************** Man indicted in death of Monroe woman A Ouachita Parish grand jury has indicted a Monroe man on a charge of 1st-degree murder in the death of 85-year-old Shirley Cagle in her home last week. Prosecutors say 26-year-old Robert Nelson could face the death penalty if convicted. Assistant District Attorney Neal Johnson said Thursday he hasn't decided whether the prosecution will pursue the death penalty. Cagle was well known in the community from her role as the long-time assistant director of the Ouachita Council on Aging. She was the sister of state Rep. Frank Hoffmann. Nelson was arrested last week after police responded to a burglary complaint. Monroe criminal defense attorney LaValle Salomon told The News-Star (http://tnsne.ws/1GBSduh) he expects to be retained by Nelson's family in the murder case. (source: Associated Press) TENNESSEE: Supreme Court to hear arguments on challenge to electrocution The Tennessee Supreme Court will hear oral arguments next week regarding whether a death row inmate can properly challenge the constitutionality of electrocution as a possible method of execution. The Court will consider only 1 issue of many that are part of a lawsuit by 34 death row inmates challenging Tennessee's death penalty protocol. The electrocution issue is before the Supreme Court as an interlocutory appeal - that is an appeal of only part of a case that is continuing in a lower court. The Court agreed to hear the State's request to dismiss the plaintiffs' challenge to electrocution as a method of execution. The State asserts that none of the plaintiffs are currently subject to execution by electrocution, making their challenges unready for litigation at this time Although there has not been a final decision in the case at the trial court level, some elements of the lawsuit have already been reviewed by the Supreme Court. In addition to hearing this claim regarding electrocution, the Supreme Court ruled in March that the state was not required to release to the plaintiffs the names of those involved in carrying out an execution in Tennessee. The Schofield case is among seven cases in which the Court will hear oral arguments in Knoxville on May 5 and 6. The others are: (source: local8now.com) ******************* Minister on death row recalls moments before men died----'What I saw ... was a lot of broken spirits and a lot of broken people,' Frank Bainbridge says. 'People who had committed terrible things - and had terrible things happen to them.' In the minutes before his execution, Robert Glen Coe finished his brief remarks and was asked by the prison warden if he wanted a prayer. Coe turned to the chaplain, Deacon Frank Bainbridge, and together they began to recite the Our Father. Then the chaplain read Psalms 23, a version Coe favored. "The Lord is my shepherd; there is nothing I shall want." Bainbridge remembers that day in 2000, when Tennessee carried out its 1st execution in 40 years, and he recalls what it felt like to take part in the intimate moments before a man's death. There had been many times before when Bainbridge questioned what he should be doing with his own life. But there, at the foot of the gurney to which Coe was strapped for lethal injection, Bainbridge sat. His left hand on a red Bible, his right hand on Coe's knee. "That was one occasion I knew I was exactly where I was supposed to be," the 79-year-old says. "I was his disciple in that setting." Coe is just 1 of the many Tennessee inmates to whom Bainbridge has ministered. On May 2, Bainbridge, a 35-year prison ministry veteran, will receive the inaugural Award for Compassionate Leadership presented by Dismas House of Nashville. Dismas is a transitional residential program that has helped more than 1,000 former offenders successfully re-enter society after leaving jail or prison. Bainbridge is a man who has assisted many prisoners who may never have the chance to leave. "What I saw, and what I found, was a lot of broken spirits and a lot of broken people," the now-retired minister says of his years sitting in maximum security cells. "People who had committed terrible things - and had terrible things happen to them." As Bainbridge speaks, stained glass windows in the Cathedral of the Incarnation cast rainbows on his face. It was at this Catholic church, four decades ago last Sunday, that Bainbridge received holy orders. Born in a house on Hayes Street, he converted to Catholicism at age 24, the year after he got out of the Marines. Not too many years later, he felt called to do more. The 1st mass for which he ever presided was at the old Tennessee State Penitentiary, where he visited for 13 years as a catholic Chaplin. After it closed in 1992, he moved his service to Riverbend Maximum Security Institution, which now houses the majority of the state's male death row inmates. There he would go at least 3 nights a week and share scripture with hardened men. He would visit them in their cells, small boxes for 2 men with a toilet and a sink, where he could stand in the middle and touch the wall on either side. On some occasions, he would hold communion services in a broom closet. He visited 1 prisoner every week, for 17 years. Some of these men were wounded, he says - sometimes as much as those they had wounded. They were men who, as children, had been beaten. Burned. Broken. If all a person experiences as a child is violence, he says, if all he is made to feel is worthless, then that is how he will grow up. "How can we expect them to turn out any differently?" he asks. He found that by giving these men something real, something part of him, they would open up. They trusted him with their emotions, and that, in turn, brought healing to Bainbridge. It confirmed his faith. With some he saw changed men, prisoners whose life sentences were long enough to clear their heads. Of course there were others, he says, where confinement made them mean. Men who became sociopaths. Some who need to be locked up forever. But even then, deep inside them, something beats. That rhythm is what called Bainbridge. And when he retired in 2011, he believed it was time to get out of God's way. He doesn't understand his role in it all. Then again, he says, "I guess I don't have to." What he does understand is this: "God heals us through each other," he says. With spirit and grace. -- About Dismas House Founded in 1974 by the late Father Jack Hickey, a Vanderbilt University chaplain, Dismas House is a nonprofit organization that provides transitional housing and support services to men coming out of prisons and jails. The Dismas House Forgiveness Dinner is a fundraiser for the organization. Deacon Frank Bainbridge, a 35-year prison ministry veteran, will receive the inaugural Award for Compassionate Leadership at the event. When: 6 p.m., Saturday Where: OZ Arts Nashville (6172 Cockrill Bend Circle, Nashville) Tickets: $150 per person. Purchase tickets or donate at www.dismas.org Electrocution discussion in Tennessee Supreme Court The Tennessee Supreme Court will hear oral arguments next week about whether a death row inmate can properly challenge the constitutionality of electrocution as a method of execution. The electrocution issue is before the Supreme Court as an interlocutory appeal - meaning it is only part of a case that is continuing in a lower court. It is one issue of many that are part of a lawsuit by 34 death row inmates challenging Tennessee's death penalty protocol. The Court agreed to hear the state's request to dismiss the plaintiffs' challenge to electrocution. The state asserts that none of the plaintiffs are currently subject to execution by electrocution, making their challenges not ready for litigation. Although there has not been a final decision in the case at the trial court level, some elements of the lawsuit have already been reviewed by the Supreme Court. In addition to hearing this claim regarding electrocution, the Supreme Court ruled in March that the state was not required to release to the plaintiffs the names of those involved in carrying out an execution in Tennessee. (source: The Tennessean) From rhalperi at smu.edu Sat May 2 11:52:04 2015 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Sat, 2 May 2015 11:52:04 -0500 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----OHIO, KAN., OKLA., NEB., CALIF. Message-ID: May 2 OHIO: Dean death penalty appeal to be heard Tuesday A Springfield man sentenced to death in 2011 is appealing his case to the Ohio Supreme Court, and is scheduled to argue that case Tuesday. Jason Dean, 40, contends his sentence was out of proportion to his role in a 4-day crime spree that ended in a murder. Dean was convicted in 2011 on 13 charges that included aggravated murder, attempted murder and aggravated robbery. Prosecutors have said Dean was the ringleader of a series of crimes in which then 16-year-old Joshua Wade shot and killed Titus Arnold during a robbery attempt. Arnold was a youth counselor who was robbed of $6 as he was leaving work. Court records show oral arguments are scheduled in the Ohio Supreme Court Tuesday. Dean's attorneys couldn't be reached for comment Friday. Dean's attorneys argued that, among other errors, prosecutors had little evidence that the crimes were calculated. They argue that evidence was based solely on testimony from Dean's former girlfriend, who also admitted she "lied repeatedly to the police about the facts of the case." They also argued Dean's sentence was out of proportion, because Wade, who killed Titus, only received a life sentence. But prosecutors countered as a juvenile, Wade was ineligible for the death penalty, and the sentencing options for the 2 cases "are fundamentally different." That argument is the crux of the case, said Andy Wilson, Clark County prosecutor. But he compared the case to the D.C. sniper case, in which John Allen Muhammad convinced a juvenile to commit a series of shootings across Virginia and Maryland in 2002. Muhammed was put to death, while the juvenile was sentenced to life in prison. "Jason Dean is the one who's responsible," Wilson said. "He's the one who provided the weapons. He's the one who provided the vehicles. He's the one who provided the motive. He's the one who took this kid under his wing and he pointed a gun into the chest of Titus Arnold and squeezed the trigger and it misfired. Had it not jammed, he actually would have been the trigger man." Court records show Dean and Wade were also accused of other crimes, including a shooting at a convenience store and a drive-by shooting on Dibert Avenue. Prosecutors said during the drive-by, several people, including a pregnant woman and a 1-year-old girl, were nearly killed. Wade was convicted in the case and sentenced to life in 2006. Dean was sentenced to death that same year, but the conviction was overturned in 2010 after the Ohio Supreme Court determined Clark County Judge Douglas Rastatter made rulings and statements during the trial that prevented Dean from having a fair hearing. Dean was sentenced to death again after an additional hearing in 2011, but the appeal from his attorneys cites 15 errors as grounds to overturn the death sentence. Dean's attorneys also argued there should have been separate trials for each of the significant incidents. Instead, prosecutors pulled the incidents into a single case to secure a death sentence, they argued. "As a result, the prosecution was able to secure Dean's conviction and death sentence by burying the jurors with an avalanche of bad facts, rather that by distinctly proving each charged offense," Dean's attorneys wrote in their appeal. But prosecutors argued in their rebuttal that Ohio law favors joining the cases when proper, and Dean's crimes were committed as part of a "course of conduct over a period of several days." "Here, the three shooting incidents were specifically alleged to be part of a 'course of conduct' that involved the 'purposeful killing of or attempt to kill 2 or more persons,'" prosecutors argued. "So, without doubt, the claims were properly joined." Court records show both sides will have 30 minutes to present their case Tuesday. (source: Springfield News Sun) KANSAS: US Supreme Court's death penalty reviews lead Kansas court to delay case from sheriff's death Kansas' highest court has halted its review of the capital murder case stemming from a sheriff's death because the U.S. Supreme Court is reviewing other death penalty cases from the state. The Kansas Supreme Court issued an order this week stopping proceedings in the case of Scott Cheever. He was sentenced to die for the 2005 shooting of Greenwood County Sheriff Matt Samuels during a drug raid. The Kansas court said both sides agreed the delay is appropriate because U.S. Supreme Court decisions in other cases could apply to Cheever's case. The nation's highest court has agreed to review Kansas Supreme Court rulings last year that overturned death sentences for 3 men. They included brothers Jonathan and Reginald Carr, who faced lethal injection over 4 killings in Wichita in 2000. (source: Associated Press) ************* Change of venue sought in F. Glenn Miller Jr. trial for Jewish center killings Attorneys for F. Glenn Miller Jr., accused of killing 3 people outside Jewish facilities in Overland Park last year, on Thursday filed 21 motions as they prepare for what could be Johnson County's 1st death penalty trial in more than a decade. The battle for F. Glenn Miller Jr.'s life has begun in earnest. Attorneys for the accused killer of 3 people outside Jewish facilities in Overland Park last year on Thursday filed 21 motions as they prepare for what could be Johnson County's 1st death penalty trial in more than a decade. Among the motions is a request for a change of venue because of extensive pretrial publicity in the case. Other defense motions cover issues including how jurors should be chosen, how police collected evidence and how courtroom spectators should behave. Miller, 74, also known as Frazier Glenn Cross Jr., is scheduled to go to trial beginning Aug. 17. Attorneys have estimated that trial could last 6 weeks. He is charged with capital murder in the shooting deaths of William Corporon, Reat Underwood and Terri LaManno on April 13 last year. Corporon, 69, and Underwood, his 14-year-old grandson, were killed outside the Jewish Community Center. LaManno, 53, was killed a few minutes later outside the Village Shalom care center. Miller, an avowed white supremacist and anti-Semite from southern Missouri, has stated publicly that he was trying to kill Jews. None of his victims was Jewish. He has repeatedly stated in court hearings that he wants the opportunity to explain in open court the reasons for his actions, and 1 of Thursday's motions asked that he be given that chance. Capital trials are conducted in 2 phases. If a defendant is convicted in the guilt phase, a 2nd penalty phase is held to determine whether the sentence will be life in prison or death. In their motions Thursday, Miller's attorneys asked that he be given the chance to address jurors in the penalty phase without being put under oath or subject to cross-examination. The defense also is requesting that jurors not be shown gruesome crime scene photos or photos of the victims before they were killed. Another motion also seeks to have potential jurors questioned by attorneys individually. The defense also wants prosecutors to be precluded from striking potential jurors because of their religious views on the death penalty. A hearing is scheduled for May 14 to begin taking up the motions. (source: kansascity.com) OKLAHOMA: Manufacturer asks Oklahoma to return execution drugs The Illinois-based manufacturer of a drug used in Oklahoma's lethal injection process is asking the state to return any supplies it may have obtained and not to use its products to execute prisoners. In a letter to Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt, drug manufacturer Akorn also said it was taking steps to ensure that the sedative midazolam is no longer made available to states for use in executions. The company said the painkiller hydromorphone, which Oklahoma doesn't use, also won't be available. "If your prisons have purchased Akorn products directly or indirectly for use in capital punishment we ask that you immediately return our products for a full refund," Akorn's general counsel, Joseph Bonaccorsi, wrote in the March 4 letter. Bonaccorsi and a company spokesman did not immediately return phone messages seeking comment Thursday. Akorn is one of several manufacturers of midazolam, a common surgical sedative that Oklahoma began using last year as the 1st in a 3-drug lethal injection protocol. It is not clear whether Oklahoma obtained its midazolam from Akorn. State officials are prohibited from revealing the source. Pruitt spokesman Aaron Cooper referred all questions about the drug to the Department of Corrections, which is responsible for obtaining the drugs used in executions. Corrections spokeswoman Terri Watkins said the department had obtained the drugs necessary to carry out 3 executions that have been delayed while the U.S. Supreme Court considers whether the use of midazolam is appropriate for executions. She declined to comment further. During oral arguments before the nation's highest court on Wednesday, an attorney representing the inmates argued midazolam is ineffective in preventing searing pain from 1 of the other drugs used in the process. Death penalty states like Oklahoma have been forced to find alternative drugs to use for executions because of opposition to the death penalty from drug manufacturers. During oral arguments on Wednesday that lasted for more than an hour, conservative Justice Samuel Alito said death penalty opponents are waging a "guerrilla war" against executions by working to limit the supply of more effective drugs. (source: KOCO news) ***************** Death Row Inmate Likely To Die By Nitrogen Gas ---- Richard Glossip would be the 1st American to be executed by nitrogen gas, although lawyers are expected to mount challenges. A death row inmate is likely to become the 1st American scheduled to die using nitrogen gas, even if he wins a case at the US Supreme Court. Richard Glossip and 2 other prisoners are appealing against the use of a controversial lethal injection drug. But even if the court rules in their favour, the state of Oklahoma is already making alternative plans to execute them. The Supreme Court was told last week that Midazolam is not a powerful enough anaesthetic to render prisoners unconscious, before 2 other drugs are injected to kill them. There have been several instances of prisoners taking longer than expected to die. Robert Dunham, the executive director of the Death Penalty Information Centre, told Sky News: "You've got inmates who are conscious, you've got inmates who are gasping. "One description is that an inmate was flopping around like a fish against the restraints. "That's someone who is clearly experiencing high levels of pain and we know that the lethal drug is akin to being burned from the inside out." That point was taken up by Justice Elena Kagan while questioning Oklahoma's Solicitor General in court. "It's like being burned alive," Justice Kagan said. "We've actually talked about being burned at the stake, and everybody agrees that that's cruel and unusual punishment. "So suppose that we said, we're going to burn you at the stake, but before we do, we're going to use an anaesthetic of completely unknown properties and unknown effects. "Maybe you won't feel it, maybe you will. We just can't tell. And you think that that would be okay?" The 9 justices who sit on America's highest court appear to be split on the issue. They will make a ruling in June and it's expected to be close. But conservative justices like Samuel Alito are known to be firmly in favour of the death penalty, and appeared to object to this case even being heard. "This Court has held that the death penalty is constitutional," Justice Alito said. "Those who oppose the death penalty are free to try to persuade legislatures to abolish the death penalty. Some of those efforts have been successful. "They're free to ask this court to overrule the death penalty. "But until that occurs, is it appropriate for the judiciary to countenance what amounts to a guerrilla war against the death penalty which consists of efforts to make it impossible for the States to obtain drugs that could be used to carry out capital punishment with little, if any, pain?" Oklahoma's Attorney General Scott Pruitt told reporters outside the court: "The state of Oklahoma, since the late 1970s, was the state that gave birth, gave life to the lethal injection process, as the most humane way to carry out capital punishment." Although Glossip was the main petitioner who was listed in the court documents, his name was only heard when the case was introduced. He was never mentioned again. He spoke to Sky News from death row in Oklahoma State Penitentiary. "If it's so humane then you have to explain what happened to the guy in Ohio who suffered. "You have to explain what happened to the guy in Arizona who suffered for 2 hours. "You have to account for (Clayton) Lockett here in Oklahoma who suffered for 45 minutes. If it's so humane why did those people suffer for so long." Last month the Governor of Oklahoma signed a law which allows death row prisoners to be executed with nitrogen gas if lethal injection drugs are not available. Glossip would be the 1st American to be executed using this method, although lawyers are expected to mount legal challenges before the sentence is carried out. (source: Sky News) NEBRASKA: Payment to members of Beatrice 6 advanced by Legislature----State settles for $300,000 with last of Beatrice 6 The state of Nebraska has settled a lawsuit with a Lincoln woman who spent 5 years in prison for her role in a Beatrice woman's rape and murder. Senators made points about DNA testing and the death penalty Friday before advancing a bill that would make payments to people for claims against the state. Those claims, advanced to a second round of consideration, included 3 by members of the so-called Beatrice 6, for wrongful conviction in the 1985 rape and murder of Helen Wilson in her Beatrice apartment. James Dean, Ada Joann Taylor and Debra Shelden would be awarded claims of about $1.15 million total under the Nebraska Wrongful Conviction Act. Others in the Beatrice 6 received money from the state in claims paid in 2011. "It's not a bill that we all want to pay," said Sen. Dave Bloomfield of Hoskins. "It's simply one of those bills that has to be paid." Omaha Sen. Ernie Chambers, who introduced a bill (LB268) that would repeal Nebraska's death penalty, said in the cases of Dean, Taylor and Shelden, the death penalty -- used to threaten and intimidate the defendants -- did not serve the interest of justice. It resulted, instead, in people pleading guilty or no contest to crimes they knew nothing about. As a result, he said, the state is now paying the last of a $2 million debt that doesn't come close to doing justice, Chambers said. Those who want to keep the death penalty want to continue to allow cops to lie and badger mentally ill people until they plead guilty, Chambers said. Consideration of new DNA evidence is what helped free the Beatrice 6. Lincoln Sen. Patty Pansing Brooks' DNA bill (LB245) that would lengthen the time limit, from three to five years, during which new evidence can be considered after conviction, passed recently and was signed by the governor. "That's part of being smart on crime and not necessarily tough on crime," she said. "We have to be able to let people who are wrongfully incarcerated to be able to have a chance to plead their case." Total payout for Dean, who served 5 years and nearly 5 months, would be about $320,000 and for Taylor, who served 19 years and nearly 8 months, would be about $534,000. Debra Shelden, who served 4 years and nearly 9 months, would be paid $300,000. Each has already received $50,000. In 1989, a jury convicted Joseph White of the 1985 sexual assault and murder of Wilson. He was the only 1 of the 6 defendants who refused to plead guilty to reduced charges to avoid the threat of the electric chair. Also included in the claims bill is a settlement on a racial discrimination lawsuit involving 5 black Nebraska State Penitentiary guards who said they were subjected to race-based harassment and retaliation at work from other prison employees. Their lawsuit was originally dismissed in 2012 by U.S. District Judge Richard Kopf, who said they hadn't met the demanding standard for a hostile work environment set by case law. Last year, the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals sent the case back for trial, and it was settled last summer. About $777,000 would be paid out to the claimants -- Jaryl Ellis, Michael Hunter, Paul Zeiger, Tiffany Johnson and Aaron Delaney -- and their attorneys at Keating O'Gara law firm. (source: Lincoln Journal Star) CALIFORNIA: Pulling the plug on death penalty It's come down to this: Death penalty foes who have consistently done everything they can to block California from executing those on death row now want the death penalty declared unconstitutional because the state doesn't put them to death quick enough. They argue lingering on death row for an uncertain execution is cruel and inhumane punishment. In Nebraska, the legislature wants to do away with the death penalty because it costs $3 million to put someone on death row in that state compared to $1.1 million for life without parole. The argument goes like this: Think of what the state could do with the money they save. But remember one thing: Life in prison doesn't mean life in prison in California. Such prisoners are paroled all the time including a number who got a 2nd chance to kill someone else and ended up on death row. Then there is life without parole. While no inmate who has received life without parole has ever been paroled, there needs to be ironclad guarantees that the state will rigorously defend any constitutional challenges to such sentences. In the past, constitutional officers from the governor to the attorney general have been less than faithful about defending and implementing the death penalty despite voters having spoken clearly on the subject at the ballot box numerous times as well as the United States Supreme Court weighing in. It is not a leap in logic to believe those currently against the death penalty would shift all of their efforts to chipping away at life without parole sentences should they succeed in getting the death penalty off the table in California. The main question should be whether the death penalty is effective at deterring future murders. The answer is a resounding "yes." There have been 114 death row inmates in California that have died since the death penalty was re-instituted in 1978. 14 were executed, 24 committed suicide, 1 was shot to death during a riot in a prison yard, another had a heart attack after being pepper sprayed, 2 drug overdosed, and the rest were of natural causes. There are still more than 750 death row inmates. So with only 14 executions out of 100 deaths, how could the death penalty be considered a success? Those who are against it argue the death penalty's existence doesn't deter people from murder others. True, but the point is those convicted and sentenced to death don't kill again meaning the death penalty has successfully prevented future murders. Whether they are executed, kill themselves, overdose, or die of natural causes they are were warehoused in such a manner not to continue killing. If you think this is wrapped logic, guess again. Raymond Edward Steele passed away last month on San Quentin's death row. He was 67. The preliminary indications are he succumbed to natural causes. Steele was on death row for the 1988 stabbing murder of Leann Thuman, a mentally disabled woman. But here's an inconvenient truth. It wasn't Steele's 1st rodeo as a hardcore criminal and murderer. He was previously convicted of raping a woman who lived next door to his aunt as well as for stabbing to death his 15-year-old babysitter who he plunged a knife into 8 times. Steele's road to death row isn't unlike the 750 plus folks he leaves behind. A number of them had murdered before and were sentenced to prison - sometimes life with parole - and got out and murdered again. Some are serial killers. Others the evidence is so overwhelming and their methods of killing are so heinous that they make terrorists seem like choir boys in comparison. An average Joe has a hard time understanding how the criminal justice system can find an individual guilty of the vicious rape of a woman as well as the stabbing death of a teen girl - 2 separate incidents - and then basically allow him to return to society so he can prey on others. The threshold for a death penalty conviction is so high not because of the fact the person ultimately is supposed to be put to death for their crimes but it is because of the crime they commit. Frankly, I have no problem with serial killers and child rapists/murders being sentenced to life without parole providing they are housed in the general prison population. If there are no extreme penalties for extreme crimes then there should be no extreme accommodations such as solitary confinement for those earning convictions in such cases. Certainly death penalty opponents could agree with that. I will gladly change my position on the death penalty and support life without parole providing those individuals convicted share cells with other life without parole convicts and receive no special treatment designed to separate them from the general population. That's not blood thirsty. It's being reasonable. If you want to take away the ultimate penalty for heinous crimes by arguing the costs don't justify it then you have to deliver to make sure the cost of housing such convicts is in line with other prisoners. Fair is fair. (source: Dennis Wyatt, Executive Editor--Manteca Bulletin) From rhalperi at smu.edu Sat May 2 11:52:43 2015 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Sat, 2 May 2015 11:52:43 -0500 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----USA Message-ID: May 2 USA: The weirdest moment from the Supreme Court's dramatic death penalty arguments The Supreme Court heard a case Wednesday challenging the use of a lethal injection "cocktail" in Oklahoma, and the arguments bordered on the ridiculous. Right away, conservative Justice Samuel Alito accused death penalty activists of mounting "a guerilla war on the death penalty." Then Chief Justice John Roberts suggested his liberal colleague Justice Sonia Sotomayor spent too much time talking after she grilled Oklahoma's solicitor general for a while. One point, however, stands out as the most absurd: the prisoner's lawyer Robin Konrad somehow concluded that burning someone alive "could perhaps be deemed constitutional," if there "was a way to ensure" that it was done in a "humane way," as Politico's Josh Gerstein noted. That was the lawyer arguing against Oklahoma's lethal injection methods. In the case, 4 Oklahoma inmates - although 1 has since been executed - allege that the state's use of midazolam as the 1st of 3 drugs in a lethal injection cocktail violates the Eight Amendment, which prohibits cruel and unusual punishment. The 1st drug in lethal injection cocktails is meant to render prisoners unconscious and unable to feel. But midazolam, as critics argue, doesn't always accomplish that goal. When Ohio used midazolam for the 1st time in early 2014 to execute Dennis McGuire, he struggled and gasped for air for nearly 10 minutes before his heart stopped. Arizona also used midazolam in Joseph Wood's lethal injection. It took nearly 2 hours for him to die. Not only is midazolam's effectiveness in question, it might also cause unbearable physical pain. During arguments Wednesday, Justice Elena Kagan compared being injected with the drug to being burned alive at the stake, which "everybody agrees [is] cruel and unusual," she said. "So suppose that we said, we're going to burn you at the stake, but before we do, we're going to use an anesthetic of completely unknown properties and unknown affects. Maybe you won't feel it, maybe you will. We just can't tell. And you think that would be okay?" Kagan inquired. That led to a back-and-forth between Kagan and Oklahoma's solicitor general. The issue of burning somebody alive came up again during Konrad's rebuttal, when Alito posed a hypothetical scenario: Even if the person being burned alive could feel no pain, would it still violate the Eighth Amendment? Konrad responded that it "could be" a violation, prompting yet another question from Alito. "But you're not sure that being burned alive - that you think there are circumstances in which burning somebody at the stake would be consistent with the Eighth Amendment?" Alito asked. That prompted a response from Konrad that seemed to contradict itself: "Well, what I'm saying is that this Court has - the founders say burning at the stake is unconstitutional. It creates an Eighth Amendment violation. It's cruel and unusual. But in your hypothetical, if there was a way to ensure that that was done in a humane way, there could perhaps be. That - I don't think that any State would go to try to do that, because we move forward evolving ..." "That's an incredible answer," Alito responded. "You think that there are circumstances in which burning alive would not be a violation of the Eight Amendment?" It's an odd exchange for a conservative justice and lawyer arguing against the death penalty to have. Most states had previously used pentobarbital, a drug approved for executions, in lethal injections - until its Danish manufacturer refused to continue selling the drug to the US because of its use in the death penalty. Former Attorney General Eric Holder, who admitted he opposes the death penalty, called for a national halt on lethal injection until the high court decided midazolam's relationship with the Eight Amendment. As a result of the Supreme Court's impending opinion, Oklahoma has suspended executions. The state, however, reinstated the use of the gas chamber to execute criminals in early April, a process only legal in four other states currently. Florida has also also suspended executions using midazolam until the Supreme Court's ruling. (source: businessinsider.com) *************** No, Justices Alito and Scalia, death penalty politics aren't the issue Oral arguments before the Supreme Court earlier this week over Oklahoma's lethal-injection protocol took an unusually harsh tone (which Dahlia Lithwick parses nicely here at Slate). What was more jarring, though, was the theme of statements - er, questions - by some of the judges about the backdrop to the execution challenge. The case involves 1 of the drugs Oklahoma uses to execute its condemned prisoners, and how that fits in with court-sanctioned protocols. Briefly, in 2008, the court ruled in Baze v. Rees that Kentucky's 3-drug protocol (first developed in Oklahoma) was constitutional because the 1st drug in the procedure, the barbiturate sodium thiopental, rendered the prisoner insensate to the agonizing pain caused by the 2nd drug, pancuronium bromide, which paralyzes, and the 3rd drug, potassium chloride, which stops the heart. Without being deeply anesthetized, the person being executed would feel an intense burning sensation, experts have said. The court ruled that the 3-drug protocol starting with sodium thiopental sufficiently knocked out the inmate and so did not pose "a substantial risk of serious harm" or an "objectively intolerable risk of harm." Since then, international opposition to the death penalty, particularly among European Union countries, has led pharmaceutical companies to stop selling sodium thiopental for use in executions. States also used pentobarbital, which had a similar effect on the inmate, for the 1st drug, but that is now hard to procure for similar reasons. So states have been scrambling to find other ways to kill people. Ohio, Arizona and Oklahoma, among others, replaced that 1st drug with midazolam, a sedative doctors use to treat patients' anxiety before administering general anesthesia, or for minor outpatient procedures. But according to experts for the challengers to Oklahoma's lethal-injection protocol, the drug is insufficient to render the condemned insensate - and it has a ceiling effect, which means that after a certain amount of the drug is used, additional amounts are ineffective. Although midazolam was used without obvious incident in a dozen executions, it was part of three botched executions last year, including one in Oklahoma. That led to the current appeal by several Oklahoma death row inmates that using midazolam violates the standard set by the Baze ruling. The oral arguments on Wednesday descended into a rolling skirmish among the court???s conservative and liberal justices, with Justice Elena Kagan coming across as particularly harsh. But more worrisome was Justice Samuel Alito, who suggested that the strategy of the anti-death penalty movement should be weighed in determining the constitutionality of the protocol: "JUSTICE ALITO: Yes. I mean, let's be honest about what's going on here. Executions could be carried out painlessly. There are many jurisdictions, there are jurisdictions in this country, there are jurisdictions abroad that allow assisted suicide, and I assume that those are carried out with little, if any, pain. Oklahoma and other states could carry out executions painlessly. "Now, this Court has held that the death penalty is constitutional. It's controversial as a constitutional matter. It certainly is controversial as a policy matter. Those who oppose the death penalty are free to try to persuade legislatures to abolish the death penalty. Some of those efforts have been successful. They're free to ask this court to overrule the death penalty. "But until that occurs, is it appropriate for the judiciary to countenance what amounts to a guerrilla war against the death penalty which consists of efforts to make it impossible for the states to obtain drugs that could be used to carry out capital punishment with little, if any, pain? And so the states are reduced to using drugs like this one which give rise to disputes about whether, in fact, every possibility of pain is eliminated. "Now, what is your response to that?" Justice Antonin Scalia then piled on: "JUSTICE SCALIA: And I guess - I guess I would be more inclined to find that it was intolerable if there was even some doubt about this drug when there was a perfectly safe other drug available. But the states have gone through 2 different drugs, and those drugs have been rendered unavailable by the abolitionist movement putting pressure on the companies that manufacture them so that the states cannot obtain those 2 other drugs. "And now you want to come before the court and say, well, this third drug is not 100% sure. The reason it isn't 100% sure is because the abolitionists have rendered it impossible to get the 100% sure drugs, and you think we should not view that as -- as relevant to the decision that -- that you're putting before us?" Actually, it is irrelevant. Either the use of midazolam creates "a substantial risk of serious harm" or an "objectively intolerable risk of harm," or it doesn't, which is the constitutional question. The lack of sources, and the reason, for the states' preferred drugs has no bearing on the constitutionality of the chosen alternative. It's hard to say where the court will fall on this issue. It rejected by a 5-4 vote a stay request by Charles Frederick Warner, one of the original appellants in this case, and he was put to death in January. A few days later, the court agreed to hear this full appeal, which only takes the support of four justices - likely the 4 who voted for the stay. Whether those 4 votes can pick up a 5th is the big question. And even if they do and rule that the midazolam protocol is unconstitutional, the underlying battle over the death penalty itself continues. (source: Editorial, Los Angeles Times) ************** A Horrifying Day at Court----Death brings out the worst in the justices. In theory, what the 9 justices of the U.S. Supreme Court were all but shouting about Wednesday was midazolam hydrochloride, a sedative used by Oklahoma and other states as part of their lethal injection protocol. The very technical question before the court is whether midazolam reliably causes a deep, comalike unconsciousness in the prisoner, or whether it does not, allowing him to feel the excruciating effects of the other drugs used subsequently to end his life. The constitutional claim is that a failure to sedate the prisoner sufficiently would violate the Eighth Amendment's ban on cruel and unusual punishment. A series of botched executions in Oklahoma, Ohio, and other places in recent months has drawn public attention to the fact that we may - as Justice Sonia Sotomayor colorfully put it this week - create "a substantial risk of burning a person alive who's paralyzed, correct?" It looked at first like it would be a debate about the trial court's medical fact-finding, a discussion that would be more Gray's Anatomy than Black's Law Dictionary, but the arguments quickly blew up into a proxy war about ideology and politics and the ugly rift between the justices on how we feel about killing people in America. Oral arguments are usually spirited and enthusiastic. But they are rarely unpleasant and embarrassing. By the end of the hour of arguments in Glossip v. Gross, Chief Justice John Roberts had to step in and scold his colleagues for both their rancor and their rudeness to the oral advocates appearing before them. It was a cringe-worthy last day of arguments of the term, but in some ways perhaps a fitting one. There have been a lot of reports in recent years about the deep ideological fractures at the Supreme Court. The justices are as divided as they have ever been on issues ranging from race and religion to reproductive health, guns, and campaign finance reform. They like to tell us - to use Justice Stephen Breyer's preferred locution - that they are more than merely "9 junior varsity politicians." But Wednesday's performance certainly suggested that they were closer to 9 junior varsity high schoolers, with nasty tempers and bitter resentments. There is a bit of history here. In 2008, in Baze v. Rees, the Supreme Court upheld the use of a 3-drug cocktail used by most states to administer the death penalty. The supply of sodium thiopental, the barbiturate sedative states used to use, has since dried up because of boycotts from foreign suppliers and companies opposed to capital punishment. Oklahoma changed its lethal injection protocol last year to replace sodium thiopental with midazolam. Shortly thereafter, that state badly botched the execution of Clayton Lockett with an apparently insufficient dose of midazolam. He writhed and bucked on the gurney for 43 minutes, as he suffered an apparently agonizing death. Death row inmates Richard Glossip, Charles Warner, and other Oklahoma prisoners then filed an Eighth Amendment challenge to the use of midazolam in the protocol. They lost in the federal courts, which permitted the use of midazolam, so the prisoners sought a stay of execution at the Supreme Court, which was denied on Jan. 15. Justices Sotomayor, Breyer, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and Elena Kagan filed a rare and angry dissent from the court's refusal to hear the case. That same evening, Oklahoma used midazolam in the execution of Charles Warner. His last words were reportedly: "My body is on fire." The court agreed to hear the inmates' case a week later - minus the deceased Warner. Just to be clear who's on which teams in the Glossip argument, Kagan establishes with his lawyer, Robin Konrad, that the central issue in the case is that "there is this huge range of uncertainty about what happens when someone is given this drug." Then Justice Samuel Alito comes out gunning for Konrad about the tactics of death penalty opponents: "Why is Oklahoma not using sodium thiopental?" he asks. Konrad starts to respond. "You don't know?" interrupts Alito. "Let's be honest about what's going on here." Explaining that capital punishment is highly controversial, he asks, "Is it appropriate for the judiciary to countenance what amounts to a guerrilla war against the death penalty, which consists of efforts to make it impossible for the states to obtain drugs that could be used to carry out capital punishment with little, if any, pain?" In other words, Alito wants Konrad to explain why her client isn't somehow reasonably on the hook for the scarcity of really good execution drugs. As Justice Antonin Scalia frames it: All the really effective drugs have been rendered unavailable "by the abolitionists putting pressure on the companies that manufacture them so that the states cannot obtain those other drugs." Justice Anthony Kennedy soon interrupts to demand an answer to this question, pointing out that Konrad has been interrupted several times and still hasn't given an answer to the question about the "abolitionists" who are really to blame for the fact that we can't kill people more efficiently in America. Breyer has to step in to remind Konrad, "It's not you. You didn't purposely hide these other kinds of drugs." And Roberts wonders idly (and quite creepily) whether Konrad has an opinion on the constitutionality of a new Oklahoma law that would asphyxiate prisoners with nitrogen gas. It goes downhill from here. When Oklahoma's solicitor general, Patrick Wyrick, attempts to explain why the state protocol is constitutional, Kagan calls the reasoning of the district court judge on at least 1 issue "gobbledygook." When Wyrick begins to read from the record, Sotomayor stops him, saying outright: "I have a real problem with whatever you're reading because I'm going to have to go back to that article." She adds: "I am substantially disturbed that in your brief you made factual statements that were not supported by the cited sources and, in fact, directly contradicted" them and warns "so nothing you say or read to me am I going to believe until I see it with my own eyes." She lays out three areas where, in her view, the state altered or fudged data to support its argument. Wyrick keeps trying to explain, but she, as well as Kagan and Breyer, simply don't let him finish a thought. Breyer accuses Wyrick's expert - 1 of whose witness reports consists largely of printouts from the website Drugs.com - of shoddy science: "The key refutation of your expert rests on zero," he says. Wyrick keeps trying to talk. Kagan grows more and more furious. "Suppose that we said we are going to burn you at the stake, but before we do, we are going to give you an anesthetic before we burn you alive," the usually very temperate Kagan asks Wyrick. "Maybe you will feel it; maybe you won't." When Wyrick's light goes on to show that he is out of time, Roberts addresses him directly: "Mr. Wyrick, to an extent that's unusual even in this court, you have been listening rather than talking. And so I'm happy to give you an extra 5 minutes, if you'd like." It's the kind of public reprimand you rarely hear at the court, and whether it was directed at Sotomayor alone or the scrappy triumvirate of Kagan, Breyer, and Sotomayor, it's the kind of sentiment that the chief justice must think to himself a good deal on the bench but that he rarely allows himself to speak aloud. As Wyrick concludes his remarks, the liberal justices glower from their respective bad-justice chairs. Nobody likes to be called an asshole by the chief. In Konrad's rebuttal, the animosity spikes up again when she tries to address the burning-at-the-stake hypothetical. Alito interjects that this is "an irrelevant point." Kagan retorts that "potassium chloride is burning someone alive; it's just doing it through the use of a drug." The 2 look like they could happily administer to each other a little snort of lethal injection at this point. The tension in the chamber is palpable and unpleasant. One side genuinely thinks the issue here is unscrupulous death penalty abolitionists and their bullying tactics. The other openly accuses the state of Oklahoma of lying in its pleadings. Roberts worries almost obsessively about appearances at the court - appearances of partisanship and politicization, and also about justices who take ideological swats at one another in public. In September, in a speech at the University of Nebraska, he said he was worried that the partisan rancor in Washington might "spill over and affect us. ... That's not the way we do business. We're not Republicans or Democrats." Judges are different in his view; they are always supposed to be above that kind of thing. But as long has been said at the court, death is different too. It seemingly brings out the very worst in us all. Often when you catch the chief in a situation like Wednesday's - in which the justices' gloves are off and their back teeth are showing - you get the sense that he wishes he weren't the only grown-up in the room. Or perhaps more correctly, that he didn't always have to be. (source:Dahlia Lithwick, slate.com) ***************** Lawyers debate sanity defence in Colorado movie theatre massacre trial Harrowing accounts from survivors have dominated the 1st week of Colorado's cinema massacre trial, and, amid the tears, a much more detailed picture of gunman James Holmes has emerged. A judge sealed much of the key evidence in the mass-shooting case but both the defence and prosecutors sought to fill in the gaps regarding Holmes' character. Holmes' public defenders and the prosecutors seeking the death penalty for the 27-year-old former neuroscience graduate student painted starkly different pictures of the accused in the Arapahoe County District Court located in Denver. Attorneys presented previously unreleased entries from a notebook Holmes' sent his psychiatrist, as well as videos of the southern California native undergoing sanity exams, and reportedly trying to injure himself in his jail cell. In his opening statement, Arapahoe County District attorney George Brauchler depicted Holmes as a craven killer of superior intellect who planned and carried out the massacre because of his "longstanding hatred of mankind". Holmes pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity to multiple counts of 1st-degree murder and attempted murder after killing 12 people and wounding 70 at a midnight screening of the Batman film The Dark Knight Rises in Denver on July 20, 2012. In court, Mr Brauchler revealed 2 court-appointed forensic psychiatrists deemed that Holmes was sane at the time. In 1 video shown to jurors, Holmes told a psychiatrist the wounded victims were "collateral damage". "I only count the fatalities," he said. Mr Brauchler also disclosed that when Holmes dyed his hair red, it had nothing to do with the bizarre appearance of the Joker, a reference to the Batman films. Holmes coloured his hair and bought black contact lenses to make himself stand out, the prosecutor said. And he posted selfies of his new appearance on adult dating sites. Mr Brauchler also divulged Holmes had a girlfriend, the "1st love of his life" and his "1st sexual experience", but said they split up a few weeks before the rampage. "I don't see a future with you," she wrote in an online chat with the defendant, which the prosecutor read to the court. Mr Brauchler also read mundane emails Holmes sent to his parents, discussing everyday topics, including the weather, a funny movie and opening a savings account all while steadily amassing an arsenal of firearms, ammunition and bomb-making materials. 'Nobody noticed. Why? Because he was getting straight As' Defence lawyers laid out their diagnosis for why he launched the attack. Attorney Daniel King said both the defendants' grandfathers and an aunt suffered from serious mental illness, and as an 11-year-old Holmes tried to take his own life. "Nobody noticed," Mr King said. "Why? Because he was getting straight As." The public defender showed his own videos, including one of a naked Holmes running headlong into his jail cell wall, and another of him standing on his bed before toppling back and slamming his head on the floor. "It sounded like Mr Brauchler was suggesting that Mr Holmes might have done this for notoriety," Mr King told jurors. "Look at the video, and you tell me if you would do this for notoriety." Mr King said Holmes thought the killings would somehow boost his self-worth, or "human capital". "He still believes this stuff today, despite the fact that he's been medicated for over 2 years," Mr King said. The attorney rejected the state's argument the defendant's detailed preparations proved he was sane. "That's the crucible of insanity, not planning," Mr King said. Holmes was expressionless in court, wearing a pale blue shirt and glasses, and tethered to the floor beneath his attorneys' desk. Gesturing at his client, Mr King told jurors Holmes' "aloof or distracted" demeanour was caused by the drugs he was given, which Mr King said treated but did not cure his schizophrenia. Holmes suffers delusions to this day, Mr King said. "He thought President Obama was communicating with him through the television," he said. After his arrest, Holmes was moved to a "rubber room", the public defender added, where he was observed eating lunch meat between 2 flattened plastic foam cups, licking walls, sucking his thumb, and often "crying and ranting". Testimony is set to resume on Monday. (source: ABC news) ******************** A shocking number of mentally ill Americans end up in prison instead of treatment The U.S. has 10 times more mentally ill in its prisons than in psychiatric hospitals. In New York, a man with schizophrenia spent 13 years of a 15-year prison sentence in solitary confinement. In a Minnesota county jail, a man with schizophrenia stabbed out both of his eyes with a pencil in his cell. A study of 132 suicide attempts in a county jail in Washington found that 77 % of them had a "chronic psychiatric problem," compared with 15 % among the rest of the jail population. In a country where the mentally ill are often incarcerated instead of treated, these kinds of incidents are far too common. According to a report by the Treatment Advocacy Center, which includes the anecdotes above, American prisons and jails housed an estimated 356,268 inmates with several mental illness in 2012 - on par with the population of Anchorage, Alaska, or Trenton, New Jersey. That figure is more than 10 times the number of mentally ill patients in state psychiatric hospitals in the same year - about 35,000 people. In a speech yesterday, Hillary Clinton urged the U.S. to reduce its prison population. "It's a stark fact that the United Stations has less than 5 percent of the world's population, yet we have almost 25 percent of the world's total prison population. The numbers today are much higher than they were 30, 40 years ago, despite the fact that crime is at historic lows," she said. A heart-breaking truth is that part of this increase is due to a widespread failure to treat mental illness. After public psychiatric hospitals in the early 20th century came to be criticized for inhumane and disturbing treatments, beginning in the 1950s there was a movement to deinstitutionalize mental health and treat patients in more community-based treatment centers. At their highest peak in 1955, state mental hospitals held 558,922 patients. Today, they hold about 35,000 patients, and that number continues to fall. For various reasons, these community treatment plans proved inadequate, leaving many of the mentally ill homeless or in jail. According to the Department of Justice, about 15 % of state prisoners and 24 % of jail inmates report symptoms meet the criteria for a psychotic disorder. In its survey of individual states, the Treatment Advocacy Center found that in 44 of the 50 states and the District of Columbia, the largest prison or jail held more people with serious mental illness than the largest state psychiatric hospital (see map below). The only exceptions were Kansas, New Jersey, North Dakota, South Dakota, Washington and Wyoming. "Indeed, the Polk County Jail in Iowa, the Cook County Jail in Illinois, and the Shelby County Jail in Tennessee each have more seriously mentally ill inmates than all the remaining state psychiatric hospitals in that state combined," the report says. Unsurprisingly, many prisons are poorly equipped to properly deal with mental illness. Inmates with mental illnesses are more likely than other to be held in solitary confinement, and many are raped, commit suicide, or hurt themselves. The movement to deinstitutionalize the mentally ill began from a place of humanity, but it hasn't ended there, at least not yet. The Treatment Advocacy Center report questions how much we've really learned about treating the mentally ill in the last 200 years, pointing out that people with mental illness were routinely confined in prisons and jails from 1770 to 1820. "Because this practice was regarded as inhumane and problematic, until 1970, such persons were routinely confined in hospitals. Since 1970, we have returned to the earlier practice of routinely confining such persons in prisons and jails." (source: Washington Post) ***************** A look at federal death penalty cases over the last 2 decades Soon jurors in the trial of convicted bomber Dzohkhar Tsarnaev will be tasked with deciding whether he should live or die. Seventeen of the charges that the 21-year-old was convicted of carry the possibility of the death penalty. Tsarnaev's case is one a relatively small number that the federal government has chosen to seek that penalty on since it was reinstated back in 1988. Over the last 27 years the federal government has taken 293 defendants to court in federal death penalty trials. Only 79 of those defendants were sentenced to death by a jury. And of those only 3 have actually been executed. All of those executions taking place at the Federal Correctional Complex in Terre Haute, Indiana by lethal injection. If convicted Tsarnaev would join around 60 others on death row. In terms of how long it could take to execute Tsarnaev, it all depends on the appeals process. Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh was executed 4 years after his sentence. The death penalty happening so quickly because McVeigh stopped fighting appeals. It took 8 years for the other 2 people who have been executed in the past 2 decades. More than 1/2 of the federal prisoners on death row have been waiting more than t10 years for their reviews to be heard. The death penalty is illegal in Massachusetts, this case is federal which is why it can be tried in the state. The last time a person was executed for a non- federal case in the Baystate was 1947. (source: ABC news) ********************** Legacy of lynching endures in 'Death Belt' Christians celebrate life and the budding seeds of God's new creation through Easter. We jubilantly celebrate light, life and freedom this liturgical season. We see light in the darkness of inhumanity because we interpret the world through the cross and suffering of Jesus, who is the seed of new life. As M. Shawn Copeland observes in Enfleshing Freedom, the cross becomes cheap grace or a simplistic solution to the problem of evil if we do not interpret the cross in light of the "unmeasured suffering and anguish" of lynching in America. Lynching is inextricably tied to how racial injustice and the death penalty are performed in the United States today. Copeland invites us to remember, in the words of James Cone, how "the lynching tree can liberate the cross from false pieties of well-meaning Christians. ... The cross can redeem the lynching tree, and thereby bestow upon lynched black bodies an eschatological meaning for their ultimate existence." Solidarity begins, Copeland rightfully contends, in the intentional remembering of the black victims of lynching, who, with Jesus, are martyrs for freedom in this land. The Equal Justice Initiative in Montgomery, Ala., finds in its new study, "Lynching in America: Confronting the Legacy of Racial Terror," that "an astonishing absence of any effort to acknowledge, discuss, or address lynching" remains in the communities where this form of racial terror was most prevalent. Most astonishingly, this includes our churches. Forgetfulness of lynching and the death penalty in America demonstrate an appalling apostasy on behalf of Christians who tolerate this evil. This legacy endures in the states of Texas, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, Florida and my home state of Louisiana. Scholars call these "Death Belt" states because of the high correlation they find between the history of lynching against African-Americans and today's disproportionate arrests, prosecution, and sentencing to death of African-Americans. We deem these unworthy of life along with the economically poor and people who are mentally or psychologically disabled. The correlation between the practice of lynching and the death penalty goes down to the parish/county level. Phillips, Ark., leads all counties in the nation with 243 lynchings between 1877 and 1950, and the Louisiana parishes of Caddo, Lafourche, Tensas and Ouachita round out the top five counties nationally. Today, Caddo leads Louisiana in death penalty convictions. Caddo provides a case in point of the relationship between lynching and the death penalty. It also offers hope. The following is not the impassioned plea of a death row inmate fighting for his life or an extreme left-winger: The clear reality is that the death penalty is an anathema to any society that purports to call itself civilized. It is an abomination that continues to scar the fibers of this society and it will continue to do so until this barbaric penalty is outlawed. Until then, we live in a land that condones state assisted revenge and that is not justice in any form or fashion. These are the words of a former district attorney who routinely and proudly sought the death penalty in Caddo Parish. At least, until he recently recognized that he sent an innocent man to death. A.M. "Marty" Stroud III, formerly the first assistant district attorney in Caddo Parish, performed a rare, courageous act: He publicly apologized to Glenn Ford for wrongfully convicting him more than 30 years ago and called on the state of Louisiana to provide a modicum of justice by paying restitution. In a statement published in the Shreveport Times, Stroud forthrightly admits, "We are simply incapable of devising a system that can fairly and impartially impose a sentence of death because we are all fallible human beings." Ford has claimed innocence ever since he was first arrested and charged with fatally shooting a Shreveport jewelry store owner during a 1983 robbery. Ford was released from Angola's death row on March 11, 2014, after the state admitted its wrongful conviction. Louisiana's state attorney general, Buddy Caldwell, is denying restitution to Ford. Although Ford is dying of cancer, he is fighting for the compensation in order to pave the way for restitution for future exonerees. In apologizing to Ford, Stroud said: "I end with the hope that providence will have more mercy for me than I showed Glenn Ford. But, I am also sobered by the realization that I certainly am not deserving of it." I am sobered with Stroud and wonder: Whose side are we on? This Easter season, do we stand on the side of the system -- the machinery of death -- or do we live Easter hope by proclaiming "liberty to captives" (Luke 4:18)? An ultimate question of our faith rests in whether and how we remember Jesus in the condemned of our past and present: the depth of our shared witness to the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. (source: National Catholic Reporter) *************** Reflections on Lethal Drugs, Sleeping and Waking Up I have always loved the Supreme Court. As a law student, I made pilgrimages to the Court to listen to arguments. It fortified me and inspired me for the hard work and sacrifice ahead. I proudly became a member of the Supreme Court bar and had the privilege of participating in briefs before the Court. Waiting in line yesterday to hear the arguments in Glossip v. Gross, I felt that familiar sense of anticipation: justice is possible here. At issue was whether Oklahoma can use a drug called Midazolam in a 3 drug protocol used to kill prisoners by lethal injection. There was a disconnect between the nitty-gritty discussion about what it takes to kill a prisoner and the beauty and nobility of our surroundings: Midazolam, the 1st drug administered, is supposed to render a prisoner unconscious and keep him or her unconscious until potassium chloride, the killing drug, has done its work. Everyone agrees that a prisoner will die a horrible death if he or she is conscious when the potassium chloride is used. Potassium chloride feels like liquid fire. But while Midazolam might reliably put a prisoner to sleep, there is no reliable scientific data to support the notion that a prisoner will remain "asleep" when the potassium chloride starts to burn through the body. Pain will wake up the prisoner. A series of botched executions in 2014 and much clinical and scientific evidence supports this chilling conclusion. With no substantive response to Midazolam's uncertain utility, Oklahoma's lawyer made technical legal arguments about who had the burden of proof. When asked why a 3rd, paralyzing drug was used, he answered almost without realizing it: "to keep the prisoner from moving." It saddened me to see the Court forced to sift through this rubble. It made me wonder. Who is it that Oklahoma is really trying to put to sleep? And what will it take to wake up? Should the prospect and reality of an innocent person being executed shock our systems to jolt us awake? Should daily protests and palpable anger reflecting the fact that a significant segment of the citizenry has no confidence that it will be treated fairly by police, the criminal justice system or the courts provide the twinge that rouses us? Should higher murder rates in regions of the country that use the death penalty with greater frequency enable us to discern reality from dream? Some doze undisturbed. Or drift deeper into trance imagining that a return to firing squads and electric chairs will make us more civilized. If we are not asleep, we must take the execution status quo by the shoulders and shake it hard to wake up. We have the muscle to do it. According to the PEW Research Center, opposition to the death penalty continues to increase--now at 38%. Popular support for the death penalty continues to decline. Now just 56% of the public supports the practice in the abstract. And the devil is truly in the details. I don't know what the Supreme Court will decide. However the Court rules, this struggle will not be over. Using Midazolam in executions is a questionable practice at best. Let's make sure however, that it doesn't have long-term sedative effects on the public's consciousness. The death penalty is preventing our nation's forward progress. It does not enhance public safety. It distracts us from addressing the root causes of crime and violence. It undermines our values of fairness and equality before the law. Make some noise. Join the 90 Million Strong Campaign now. Learn how you can become engaged in ending the death penalty! Follow me at diannatncadp. (source: Diann Rust-Tierney, Executive Director of the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty----Huffington Post) ************** What Would Be Your Last Meal? For 600 Executed Prisoners, One Painter Memorializes Their Answers "He told us he never had a birthday cake, so we ordered a birthday cake for him," said a prison official in 2007. The cake and some pizza was an Indiana man's last meal request before he was executed on a Friday morning in May. The name of this man and the crime he committed is discoverable within a few clicks on Google. But that would be missing the point, according to Julie Green, an art professor at Oregon State University. Since 2000, Green has painted 600 plates depicting the last meals of death row inmates, "The Last Supper." In cobalt-blue mineral paint, she notes on each plate the state and date of the execution alongside the meal request -- but no name, no crime -- before the ceramic dish is kiln-fired at 1400 degrees. "It is a memento mori representing a lot of suffering," Green said. "By putting a name, it makes it less accessible." Some painted plates display more lavish meals, as seen by a Florida death row inmate's 2006 request for lobster tail, butterfly shrimp, a baked potato, strawberry cheesecake and sweet tea. Other painted plates demonstrate a yearning for the comforts of home or childhood, like the 2014 request for a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Or macaroni and cheese, which Green has painted 10 times. Or fried chicken, which she has painted 84 times. Burgers, 89 times. Other plates don't show any meal at all, indicating the inmate may have refused a last meal or made no request. "Food in general is a connection for me," Green said. "It resonates with people." The genesis of the project occurred during Green's morning ritual of toast and tea, as she read an article about a death row inmate's last meal. "Why is this in the newspaper?" she asked herself. "You're giving somebody a choice, and then you're going to execute them? That's very strange to me." 15 years later, the growing gallery of painted plates is coming to The Mary and Leigh Block Museum of Art at Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill. (May 9 to August 9). The university holds a special place in the history of capital punishment. In 2003, former Gov. George Ryan commuted all Illinois death sentences, making his historic announcement at Northwestern's law school, home to the Center on Wrongful Convictions. At a seminal conference in 1998, the center featured 29 exonerated death row inmates, calling to the governor's attention critical errors in the justice system. In 2011, former Gov. Pat Quinn abolished the death penalty in Illinois altogether. Green's collection builds on this history, sparking discourse. "The narrative is the work being done around Chicago on social justice," said Elliot Reichert, curator of special projects at the Block Museum. "We are trying to invite a lot of people into a larger conversation." The museum is encouraging dialogue through a series of events, a justice-focused community curriculum that it is developing and a comment book that travels with the exhibition, inviting perspectives of all kinds, like these: "As a mother, it was very sobering to read the last request by a man for his mother's cooking. I can't imagine making a final meal for anyone." "Morbid. No art value." "Why no display of the names of the victims or these criminals and their families?" The conversation has no end in sight, as Green is committed to adding 50 plates to "The Last Supper" every year, or as long as capital punishment persists. 32 states and the federal government allow the death penalty, despite waning public support, falling from 78 % in 1996 to 55 % in 2013, according to the Pew Research Center. In 2014, an unprecedented U.S. death row study found that more than 4 % of defendants sentenced to die are innocent. But for Green's work, hope comes in the form of 1 painted plates -- fst meals rather than last meals. They represent 2 men, former death row inmates who were exonerated and released. Bucking her own trend of static blue-and-white plates, Green painted them in full color. Since 1973, 152 inmates have been exonerated from death row, according to the Death Penalty Information Center. Beyond (and including) death row, an exoneration happens every 3 days in the United States, with the toll at more than 1,500 since 1989. "We do not have the death penalty in Illinois anymore, but that hasn't gotten us out of the woods," said Sara Sommervold, an intake attorney at Northwestern's Center on Wrongful Convictions. "It is a cause and an issue that is close to the heart of many of the people that are here." For the Indiana man whose 1st birthday cake came moments before his lethal injection, his last human moment will live on, immortalized on a painted plate, 1 supper in a sea of dishes. (source: Alison Flowers; Journalist and contributor to Chicago's NPR station----Huffington Post) From rhalperi at smu.edu Sat May 2 11:53:27 2015 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Sat, 2 May 2015 11:53:27 -0500 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide Message-ID: May 2 IRAN----executions 4 Prisoners Hanged in Arak Prison In the morning of Sunday 26th April, 4 prisoners were hanged in Arak city. According to the report of Human Rights Activists News Agency in Iran (HRANA), they were executed in the courtyard of Arak prison. There is no information about their identity and charges, also authorities and official institutions have not announced these executions, yet. In addition to the high number of executions in Iran which has been always criticized by human rights activists and international institutions, almost secret executions and executions without any transparency and official notifications, have made executions in Iran, more complex and have added to the uncertainty in this area. ******************** A Report about the Status of Bahrooz Alkhani, Death Row Prisoner Psychological condition of Behrooz Alkhani, death row prisoner who is imprisoned since 5 years ago has been alarming. According to the report of Human Rights Activists News Agency in Iran (HRANA), Behrooz Alkhani, who has been alleged to connection with PJAK and participation in assassination of Khoy's prosecutor and has been sentenced to death, is now facing serious problems in prison of Ormia and judicial authorities refrain from sending him to hospital. A close relative of Behrooz Alkhani stated that the most important request by him and his family at the moment is sending him to a hospital and getting health care: "Due to physical and psychological tortures during detention and execution sentence, he is suffering from psychological problems and depression, and even when his family go to meet him, he is not in a good mood to see them and has told them that 'you do not need to come to visit me.' The prosecutor refrains to send him to hospital because of kind of his charges, but this is not right, to deprive him from hospital and treatment until he die in prison, just because he has been sentenced to death." Behrooz Alkhani's case was referred to the Supreme Court due to his appeal, and the Supreme Court did not upheld the verdict that was issued by branch 1 of the Revolutionary Court in Ormia and referred the case to Branch 10 of the Appeal Court and his sentence was confirmed again in this court. Then with his new appeal, his case was sent back to the Supreme Court and the Court has not yet issued a final ruling. This prisoner, also in a separate case on charge of keeping weapon, was sentenced to 10 years imprisonment. His relatives said that the weapon has not been confiscated by intelligence agents when he was arrested. (source for both: HRANA News Agency) **************** Death sentence: Bravo! On the central square of the town of Kermanshah, Iran, 2 pedophiles, who raped a 9-year-old boy, were executed by hanging publicly. One of the perverts filmed the hideous crime on video. A crowd of people gathered on the square to watch the execution. As the 2 criminals were being hanged, the crowd was chanting: "Thank you, court!" and "Bravo!" As many as 145 people have been executed in Iran since the beginning of the year. Iranian officials assert that the authorities execute only most dangerous perpetrators, whose crimes are fully solved and proved. According to official statistics, there were 179 people executed in Iran in 2010. In other words, the number of executions in the country grows. Most often, Iranian courts execute criminals for drug-related and sex crimes. This year, over 85 from 145 people were executed on charges of drug trafficking and rapes. It is worthy of note that Iran practices death penalty for homosexual activities. Adultery, especially committed by women, is considered a grave crime in Iran too. It has been recently reported that an Iranian court found a young Iranian female, Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, guilty of committing adultery. The woman was sentenced to death penalty by stoning. The woman has been living in prison since 2006; her execution has been delayed indefinitely. The sentence triggered an international scandal: even the UN General Assembly took the side of the poor Iranian woman. Icelandic Foreign Minister Ossur Skarphedinsson stated that his country was ready to grant political shelter to the woman. Iranian justice looks quite original from the contemporary point of view. Majid Mohavedi, a young Iranian, threw hydrochloric acid at the face of his beloved woman after she refused to marry him. The court decided that the man must be punished similarly. As a result, the court sentenced the man to have acid dripped in his eyes to blind him. According to Iran's Islamic laws, such punishments are allowed after causing bodily harm to an individual. In Iran, even underage individuals can be sentenced to death penalty. 11 people were executed in the country on May 27th. According to Iranian news agency IRNA, the criminals were convicted of drug use and trafficking, armed robbery, kidnapping, rapes and murders. Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has recently spoken about the need to toughen punishments for sex crimes committed against children. The president particularly put forward a suggestion to consider the issue about chemical castration for pedophiles. In Iran, they do not castrate, but hang pedophiles. Many Russians would probably chant "Bravo" to executions of pedophiles too. Pharmaceutical prophylaxis of sex crimes is practiced in many states of the United States of America: California, Florida, Georgia, Texas, Louisiana, Montana, and others. Such measures are used in many countries including Canada, Israel, Britain, France, Germany, Denmark, Sweden, Poland and Norway. In the USA and Poland, the chemical castration of pedophiles is an obligatory procedure. Iran is not the only country that uses death penalty for sex crimes committed against children. This type of punishment is practiced in South Korea, Iraq and Saudi Arabia. In other countries, such convicts are isolated from the society to life or for an indefinite period of time. It is worthy of note that the number of death penalties in China is a lot larger than in Iran. The Celestial Empire holds the world leadership at this point. China has taken several steps during the recent years to cut the number of death sentences. In general, death penalty was legally abolished in 31 countries of the world. China, Iran, Saudi Arabia, the USA and Yemen take the lead on the number of death penalties in the world. According to official information, there were 527 death sentences executed in 2010. It is lower than in 2009, when there were at least 714 executions conducted. However, as unconfirmed information says, there were several thousands of people executed in China in 2010. (source: Pravda) SUDAN: Detained South Sudanese pastors on hunger strike 2 South Sudanese pastors who are still in the custody of Sudan's Security and Intelligence Services since nearly 5 months ago in Khartoum reportedly began a hunger strike on Tuesday in protest against their detention. On 21 December last year, Reverend Yat Michael Ruot, a visiting South Sudanese pastor from Juba, was arrested after Sunday worship. Rev. David Yein Reith of the Presbyterian Evangelical Church was also arrested on 9 January as he returned to his home at the Gerif West Bible School in Khartoum from a prayer meeting. His arrest may have been linked to a letter he delivered to the Office of Religious Affairs in Khartoum to inquire about the arrest of Pastor Yat Michael, according to his relatives. Defence lawyers told the Khartoum-based Al Tariq electronic newspaper yesterday that the Sudanese security had opened a criminal case against the two religious leaders under articles 26, 50, 51, and 53, 62, and 125 of the Sudanese penal code. The detained priests were referred to prosecution in March and that they are still waiting for trial up until now. The charge under article 50 of the Sudanese penal code (undermining the constitutional system) could result in the death penalty, according to the defence lawyers. (source: radiotamazuj.org) PAKISTAN: Saulat Mirza's execution being deferred for another month Interior Ministry has prepared a summary to defer the execution of former MQM worker Saulat Mirza for another month. Saulat Mirza was awarded death penalty in May 1999 for the murder of Managing Director, KESC Shahid Hamid. Sources said the summary is being sent to Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif who will forward it to the president for his orders so that fresh death warrants are not issued for Saulat Mirza's execution. The government has decided to delay the execution in order to widen the scope of murder of Shahid Hamid after the report of Joint Investigation Team which investigated the former MQM worker in Machh Jail. In the light of the JIT report, the sources said that the scope of the investigation would be widened and MQM leaders identified by Saulat Mirza would also be investigated. (source: Daily Times) ************** Justice served: Man, son sentenced to death Additional District and Sessions Judge Tahir Abbas on Friday sentenced a man and his son to death after they were convicted of abducting and killing a man. The judge also fined them Rs100,000 each. They would have to undergo an additional sentence of 6 months if they failed to pay. Prosecution said Bashir Ahmed got suspicious that Muhammad Shahid, a neighbour, was having an affair with his daughter. They said Ahmed and his father Shahnawaz abducted Shahid when he was on his way to a market. They said the men first beat him, then doused him in petrol and set him alight. Prosecution said the man was seriously injured and taken to a hospital where he later died. They said police presented arrested the men soon after and presented their challan in court. After examining evidence and witnesses, the court awarded them death penalty and imposed fine of Rs100,000 each. (source: Express Tribune) PHILIPPINES: IBP asks gov't to 'institutionalize' help for jailed Filipinos abroad The Integrated Bar of the Philippines (IBP) is willing to provide legal assistance to Filipinos jailed abroad but has asked the government to first "institutionalize" its help mechanisms for Filipinos languishing in foreign jails, some of whom are on death rows. IBP president Vicente Joyas said the government needed to first make a complete list of the number of Filipinos charged with criminal cases in foreign countries and those already spending time in jail. According to Joyas, IBP is willing to enter into a memorandum of agreement with any government agency to enable the lawyers' group to act on behalf of the jailed Filipinos and coordinate with their counterpart bar associations abroad. "The government's legal assistance to our countrymen facing criminal cases abroad is inadequate," he said here on Thursday. Joyas said the government would only be forced to move into action at the last minute if the convicted Filipino was already staring death in the face. He said a competent lawyer should be there from the very start of the court hearing. Joyas noted that in the case of Mary Jane Veloso, who had been jailed for 5 years after she was convicted of a drug trafficking case in Indonesia, the Aquino administration only provided full legal assistance when she was about to be executed via firing squad. Collective appeal It was the last-ditch efforts by President Benigno Aquino III, human rights workers and international personalities and a collective appeal by the Filipino people that won for Veloso a reprieve early on Wednesday, he noted. He said providing the right legal representation early into the cases could save innocent Filipinos, most of them overseas Filipino workers victimized by human traffickers and international drug syndicates. Charles Jose, Department of Foreign Affairs spokesperson, has said around 88 Filipinos are facing the death penalty abroad. He said 1/2 of the Filipinos on death row, mostly in China and Malaysia, were jailed for illegal drugs, while the other 1/2 faced murder charges. Since 2011, 5 Filipinos have been executed in China for drug trafficking. In Veloso's case, she was arrested in an Indonesian airport on April 25, 2010, after authorities found packs of heroin weighing 2.6 kilograms hidden inside her suitcase. During the trial, she was only represented by an Indonesia court-appointed pro bono lawyer. An Indonesian court handed down her the death sentence on Oct. 11, 2010. Lawyer Edre Olalia, secretary general of National Union of Peoples' Lawyers (NUPL), said it took the government 3 years and 8 months to seek a judicial review for Veloso's case. NUPL came to Veloso's defense on April 7 in a last-ditch effort of her family to save her from the firing squad. Joyas said the last-minute legal help by the state in Veloso's case had long been the practice of the government in all other criminal cases of Filipinos overseas. He urged the government to continue its appeal for clemency to Veloso in exchange for her disclosures on the operation of the international drug syndicate that had victimized her. *********** Timeline: The case of Mary Jane Veloso Long before the story of Mary Jane Fiesta Veloso made headlines around the world, the Filipino maid's struggle for freedom already begun 5 long years ago. Veloso was apprehended at Audisucipto International Airport in Yogjakarta, Indonesia, on April 25, 2010, for possession of heroin weighing 2.6 kilograms. She was sentenced to death just 6 months after her arrest. 2 Indonesian presidents, 2 appeals, 3 clemency letters from President Benigno Aquino III and a powerful #SaveMaryJane online campaign later, Veloso was granted a reprieve at the 11th hour on April 29, 5 years after her ordeal began. INQUIRER.net lists in detail Veloso's 5-year ordeal, as told by National Union of Peoples' Lawyers. 2010 January - Mary Jane returns to the Philippines after working for 10 months as a domestic worker in Dubai. She returns to Manila without finishing her 2-year contract because her employer attempted to rape her. April 18 - Mary Jane is approached by her friend Ma. Kristina "Tintin" Sergio, a resident of Talavera town, and was promised a job as a domestic worker in Malaysia. She is illegally recruited. April 22 - Mary Jane and Tintin leave for Malaysia. When they arrive in Malaysia, Tintin tells her that the supposed job is no longer available but that she can still find work elsewhere. They stay there for a few days before Tintin sends her to Indonesia, allegedly for a 7-day holiday, after which she would go back to Malaysia for employment. April 25 - Mary Jane is apprehended by customs and excise authorities at Audisucipto International Airport in Yogyakarta, Indonesia, upon arrival due to alleged possession of 2.6 kilograms of heroin. April 27 - Mary Jane's parents receive a call from her in-laws informing them that Mary Jane arrived safely in Malaysia. They visit Tintin in Talavera and she tells them that Mary Jane's employer is "very kind." Tintin also gives them clothes and milk, supposedly bought by Mary Jane for her youngest son, Mark Darren. May 9 - Mary Jane calls her family to wish her father a happy birthday. May 11 - Mary Jane's sister, Darling, receives a cryptic text message from her telling her to take care of her children. May 12 - Darling receives another cryptic message from Mary Jane, prompting the family to call her. Mary Jane then tells them that she is in jail. A few hours after, they call her again and she tells them about the events that transpired before she was apprehended in Indonesia. May 13 - Mary Jane's family goes to Tintin's house in Talavera. Tintin tells them to "keep silent, don't tell anyone and don't approach the media.??? Tintin also allegedly tells them that should they fail to keep quiet, Mary Jane and the rest of the family will be in grave danger because "she (Tintin) belongs to an international drug syndicate." Tintin also allegedly tells them that the syndicate will spend millions to get Mary Jane out of jail. August - Mary Jane's family decides to go to Manila despite Tintin???s warning to ask for help from some media outfits. They also go to the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) to report Mary Jane's case. They meet case officer Patricia Mocom, who promises to assist them and help Mary Jane. Since then, the family religiously goes back to DFA Manila to request for updates on Mary Jane's case. They also seek the help of their mayor and governor, as well as the National Bureau of Investigation, police and authorities in Cabanatuan City. They are told by the NBI that they cannot file any complaints against Tintin due to lack of evidence. Oct. 4 - Indonesian public prosecutor Sri Anggraeni presents in the Sleman district court the recommendation for life imprisonment as penalty for Mary Jane's offense. Mary Jane is represented by court-appointed pro bono lawyer Edy Haryanto. Oct. 11 - The district court of justice of Sleman in Yogyakarta sentences Mary Jane with the death penalty. Oct. 22 - The Philippine Embassy in Jakarta reportedly files an appeal with the appeals court of Yogyakarta. Oct. 25 - Mary Jane's family receives a call from her to wish her son a happy birthday. Since then, they are able to communicate with Mary Jane regularly via phone. They tell Mary Jane to write an affidavit and send it via mail, detailing the events that led to her arrest, to be used for the complaint they want to file in the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) against Tintin. Oct. 27 - The Philippine Embassy recommends the hiring of a private lawyer for Mary Jane for the appeal stage, prompting the Office of the Undersecretary of Migrant Workers' Affairs to authorize the disbursement of $5,000 from the legal assistance fund to hire the services of Rudyantho & Partners Law Office. November - The family receives a post mail from Mary Jane containing photos but no affidavit. They call Mary Jane, who is in turn surprised that her affidavit did not reach the family. She says she will send them her affidavit again soon. December - The family receives another post mail from Mary Jane, again containing photos and a bandanna from a priest, but still no affidavit. They immediately report this to Mary Jane, who confirms that she sent her affidavit along with the rest of the mail's contents. 2011 The family reports the missing contents of Mary Jane's mail to Joseph Ladip of the PDEA. Feb. 10 - The court of appeals of Yogyakarta upholds Mary Jane's death penalty sentence. Feb. 21 - Embassy-hired lawyer Rudyantho files a memorandum of appeal in the Supreme Court of Indonesia on behalf of Mary Jane. Feb. 22 - The Philippine Embassy reportedly appeals the case in the Supreme Court in Jakarta. May 31 - The Supreme Court upholds Mary Jane's death penalty. Aug. 23 - President Aquino intervenes a year after Veloso has already been sentenced to death, through a request for clemency with then Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhyono, who imposes a moratorium on executions during his term. Oct. 10 - Philippine Ambassador to Indonesia Maria Rosario Aguinaldo forwards Aquino's letter of clemency to the Indonesian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. 2012 Oct. 11 - The Veloso family receives a hysterical call from Mary Jane. She begs them to help her because her sentence has been upheld in all courts. She tells them that she is to be executed in a week's time. On the same day, the family rushes to the DFA. They are able to talk to Patricia, who tells them that the news is false and that the DFA has not received any news or reports from Indonesia. The family also goes to the PDEA in another attempt to file a case against Tintin. They are told that they cannot file due to lack of evidence. Oct. 12 - The family calls Mary Jane to tell her about what Patricia said. She tearfully asserts that what she told them is true and it is already all over the news. They call Patricia but she again denies Mary Jane's claims. A few minutes later, Patricia calls them back and tells them that the news is indeed true. 2013 April - Mary Jane calls her parents and tells them to apply for passports because her police friends, Puri and Buta, and her fellow inmates have agreed to sponsor their visit to her in jail. June 5 - Mary Jane's parents and eldest son Mark Danielle leave for Indonesia. They stay there for almost a month and are able to visit Mary Jane daily during the duration of their stay. June 29 - The family arrives back in Manila. July - Mary Jane sends her sister, Maritess, her handwritten affidavit via courier LBC. 2014 Dec. 30 Indonesian President Joko Widodo issues Presidential Decision No. 31/G-2014 rejecting the request for clemency on behalf of Mary Jane. 2015 January - The family receives a call from Mary Jane. She tells them to seek assistance from anyone willing to help because she is scheduled for execution soon. Maritess calls the DFA and is informed that Patricia has been replaced by Violet Ancheta as case officer for Mary Jane's case. Violet tells them the news is false. Jan. 19 - Lawyer Rudyantho files the application for judicial review of Mary Jane's case in the district court of justice of Sleman, Yogjakarta. Jan. 28 - Foreign Secretary Albert del Rosario hands a letter to Indonesian Foreign Minister Retnu L.P. Marsudi at the Asean (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) Foreign Ministers Retreat in Kota Kinabalu, requesting Indonesian authorities to give due course to the application for judicial review of Mary Jane's case. Feb. 4 - Marsudi replies to Del Rosario, ensuring that all available legal measures have been undertaken in accordance with Indonesian laws. Feb. 9 - President Aquino reportedly appeals Mary Jane's case to Indonesian President Widodo during the latter's state visit to the Philippines. Feb. 16 - The DFA forwards to the Indonesian Embassy in Manila a copy of President Aquino's letter to Widodo on the petition for judicial review of Mary Jane's case. The DFA also forwards said letter to the Philippine Embassy in Jakarta. Feb. 18 - Mary Jane's parents, her sister Maritess and her 2 sons are able to visit Mary Jane in Indonesia through the DFA. They are accompanied by Violet. Feb. 22 -The family returns to the Philippines. Before they return, Chito Mendoza of the Philippine Embassy asks for Mary Jane's handwritten affidavit from Maritess. March 3 - The Sleman district court holds the 1st hearing, where the defense informs the court of the reasons for the application of judicial review relating to the lapses in the proceedings at the trial court in 2010: 1) the problem in translations, 2) the qualifications of the court-appointed translators and 3) the language barrier. (source for both: inquirer.net) *************** Boxer saves convicted Filipino drug trafficker on Indonesian death row----Manny Pacquiao wrote a plea to Indonesia President to spare the life of a Filipino woman who was sentenced to death for drug trafficking His focus would surely be on the May 2 mega-fight with Floyd Mayweather, but Manny Pacquiao still had time to plead for someone's life. Indonesia is known for their stance against drug related crimes which comes with a death penalty. A woman from the Philippines where Pacquiao also comers from faces the death penalty after being convicted of drug trafficking and sentenced to death in October 2011. Mary Jane Veloso was caught in April 2010 at Yogyakarta Airport in Indonesia with 2.6kg of heroin and was due to be executed on Tuesday, April 28. A last minute postponement saved her due a plea from Pacquiao to the President of Indonesia and another twist in her case. "His Excellency, President Joko Widodo, I am Manny Pacquiao. On behalf of my countrman, Mary Jane Veloso, and the entire Filipino people, I am begging and knocking on your kind heart that Your Excellency will grant executive clemency to her by sparing her life and saving her life from execution," the statement read. "Mr President, on 2 May I'll be fighting in Las Vegas, Nevada, against Floyd Mayweather. It is considered the fight of the century. It will be a great morale booster if, in my own little way, I can save a life. I am dedicating this fight to my country and the entire Asian people, to which the Phillipines and Indonesia belong. Thank you, Mr President. Although it is not known how much of a factor Pacquiao's plea played in Veloso's death postponement, the good cause by the boxer can never be forgotten. (source: pulse.ng) AUSTRALIA: Former judge Ken Crispin says Australia should end cooperation with countries involving death penalty cases A former Supreme Court Justice wants Australia to stop all police cooperation with countries on cases involving the death penalty. Ken Crispin said newly revised guidelines for Australian Federal Police are too weak and would not guarantee there would not be a repeat of the circumstances in the Bali Nine case. Convicted Australian drug smugglers Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran, who were executed by firing squad in the early hours of Wednesday morning, were arrested by Indonesian authorities after a tip-off from the AFP in 2005. Mr Crispin said he wanted Australia to stop all law enforcement cooperation with foreign jurisdictions on cases that carry the death penalty. "We should have a general policy that we do not provide information to other countries that may lead to the death of our citizens," Mr Crispin told Saturday AM. "That doesn't seem to me to be a terribly controversial proposition." The former Supreme Court justice rejected suggestions the move would hurt Australia's own law enforcement efforts. "There is no reason to imagine that we are going to be starved of information merely because we act on our principles and refuse to cooperate in cases where people are likely to be executed," Mr Crispin said. "That is a price that is too high to be paid." But he conceded a new policy would need some limited, specific and rigid exemptions. "If we were to learn that somebody was about to carry out a terrorist attack on Jakarta that was likely to result in widespread death and injury we may have to bite the bullet and provide that information, notwithstanding the fact that somebody would be executed," he said. The retired judge said when Federal Police finally publically respond to this week's executions he wanted an assurance that a similar case would not happen. He said their guidelines needed to again be revisited. "There seems to be a conflict between the current AFP guidelines and the ministerial direction and that should be resolved as a matter of urgency," Mr Crispin said. "Secondly, I think that the mere statement that members of the Australian Federal Police should take into account the fact that the death penalty should not apply is far too weak. "This is not a case in which there should be merely a totally unfettered discretion." (source: ABC news) From rhalperi at smu.edu Sat May 2 11:54:10 2015 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Sat, 2 May 2015 11:54:10 -0500 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide Message-ID: May 2 INDONESIA: British grandmother on death row: Woman convicted of smuggling cocaine faces firing squad ---- After 8 people are executed in Indonesia for drug smuggling, a British woman awaits the same fate. Mostly she passes the time with knitting. Her partner and 2 sons do not seem to be much in evidence and family contact is limited to her loyal sister. One of her few close friends was executed on Wednesday and neither lawyers nor the British Government can do much for her now - no wonder Lindsay Sandiford wants it all to be over. To most Britons Bali is the paradise island, an idyllic holiday destination. To Sandiford it is a squalid sinkhole where she will end her days - and probably soon. The 58-year-old grandmother has been on death row in Bali's Kerobokan jail for more than 2 years after being convicted in December 2012 of smuggling cocaine into Bali. In January 2013 she was sentenced to death, which in Indonesia means facing a firing squad. Several legal appeals have bought her some time but they have also prolonged her ordeal. After learning that her final appeal to Indonesia's supreme court in 2013 had failed she seemed more resigned, saying: "I'm not sure if I'm frightened. "I just hope my death is painless. "We're all going to die, it's just that I know it won't be old age or illness that kills me." A spate of executions in January, among them 4 foreigners, reportedly left her depressed and listless. According to an unnamed prison official: "Sometimes she talks about death. "Sometimes she discusses any opportunity to escape the execution and at other times she just seems to have surrendered." After the execution this week of another eight prisoners, all of them convicted of drug offences like Sandiford and including her "dear friend" the Australian Andrew Chan, Sandiford is said to have declared: "I just want to get it over with." She may not have long to wait. While protesting in general terms against the death penalty the British Government has declined to pay for Sandiford's legal costs after her own funds ran out, or to intervene in her case beyond appealing for clemency. And so Lindsay Sandiford sits in the sweltering cell that contains her whole world: a sprung mattress (a luxury compared with the reed mats other inmates sleep on), a few clothes, bottled water and her knitting. The toilet is a hole in the floor, the washing facilities a bucket and tap. Her only glimpse of the outside world is a small courtyard and garden where prisoners hang their washing. The women's block in Kerobokan was intended for 39 prisoners but now holds 100 in 10 cells measuring 10ft by 8ft. The prison has a chapel, a mosque, a tennis court and art room but since women are kept confined to their own block it is doubtful they ever get to use them. The only time they can leave is when they have visitors or for court appearances. Prison life is dangerous with inmates at the mercy of gangs. Death row is in fact a death tower, a set of cells arranged in a circle and facing each other but it is believed that Sandiford remains in the women's block. How has this middle-aged mother, grandmother and former legal secretary ended up in this sorry predicament? There is, it seems, more than one version of Lindsay Sandiford. Originally from Redcar, North Yorkshire, she lived in Cheltenham where she brought up two sons, Louis and Elliot and worked as a legal secretary. In 2007 she moved to the Himalayas with her partner Shiva Ram and built up a good business selling jewellery and pashminas to upmarket shops including Harrods and Harvey Nichols. I just hope my death is painless----Lindsay Sandiford However in Cheltenham they remember another Lindsay Sandiford: a "neighbour from hell" who clashed with the authorities over her 2 out-of-control boys. The elder son Louis served 6 years for robbery and, as for her life abroad, others claim she was a major supplier of hashish and cocaine to Bali's expat community. According to Sandiford she was coerced into smuggling 10.5lbs (4.8kg) of cocaine from Bangkok to Bali because drug gangs in England were threatening to kill her son Elliot, then 21. "I knew they were asking me to do something dodgy," she said. "They weren't asking me to bring in tulips or balls of cheese but I didn't know if it was money, gold, jewellery, guns, marijuana or heroin. She flew into Bali on May 19, 2012, and was stopped by customs officers who found the packs of cocaine with a street value of 1.2million pounds. Sandiford claims she was tied to a chair and had a gun held to her head before she agreed to help the police. "The narcotics police promised they would protect me. "Instead they put an orange suit on me and marched me out in front of the prison telling everyone I had sung like a bird." Despite co-operating with the police in December 2012 Sandiford was sentenced to death. This shocked even the prosecutor who had asked for a 15-year jail term but the judge ruled that the amount of cocaine justified the ultimate punishment. Appeals to the Indonesian high court and then to its supreme court have failed despite well-wishers donating thousands to pay for her defence. But then Sandiford is said to be a difficult defendant who has gone through at least 6 lawyers. British QC Felicity Gerry, who was instrumental in saving a Filipina woman from the firing squad, has visited Sandiford in Kerobokan and also appealed to the Foreign Office to intervene. Apart from her staunchly loyal sister Hilary, Ms Gerry appears to be virtually the only support Sandiford has. "If we have a woman who was coerced and manipulated then the UK Government has a duty to assist," said the lawyer. "I went to the Foreign Office in March with Mrs Sandiford's sister but since then there has been only silence." Even if reprieved Sandiford faces years in the hellhole of Kerobokan, brutalised and removed from all she loves. Who is to say that is preferable to midnight gunfire in the place the Indonesians call Execution Island? (source: The Express) ************** Widodo's Desperate Executions Indonesia makes no secret that drug-dealing convictions there carry the death penalty, but until this year the law rarely enforced. Indonesia makes no secret that drug-dealing convictions there carry the death penalty, but until this year the law rarely enforced. Indonesians sometimes joke that their country, which stretches roughly the distance from Anchorage to Washington, D.C., is the biggest invisible place on earth. It attracts international attention only through the thunderous destruction of a tsunami, the blast of a terrorist bomb, or, most recently, the crack of executioners' rifles. Shortly after midnight on Thursday, a police firing squad shot through the heart 1 Indonesian, 2 Australians, 4 Nigerians, and 1 Brazilian (who is said to have suffered from mental illness), all of whom had been convicted of drug smuggling. 1 French citizen and 1 Filipino were spared at the last moment, but may still be executed. Preceding the shots was another deafening noise: the nationalist chest thumping of Indonesian President Joko Widodo. Widodo portrayed appeals for mercy from Australian, French, and Brazilian leaders, as well as from United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, as affronts to Indonesia's national integrity. "This is our legal sovereignty," he told foreign reporters who asked what effect the executions would have on relations with other countries. "Don't ask me that again." Widodo was effectively saying to Indonesian voters, "Just watch me face down those bullying foreigners." This message, of course, comes not from a position of strength but one of weakness. But Indonesia isn't just any nation. Its 250 million people are scattered across 13,500 islands, belong to over 3 hundred ethnic groups, and speak twice that many languages. They are governed by over 500 district heads and parliaments, who are chosen in elections contested by 12 national and 3 local political parties. As a nation, Indonesia is held together through patronage networks and elaborate horse-trading, much of it brokered through the political pooh-bahs in Jakarta. Widodo heads a minority coalition in the national parliament. That's not insuperable in Indonesia's deeply transactional political system, but, as an outsider to both Jakarta and the political elite, the President finds it hard to wheel or deal his way out of the gridlock that the opposition gleefully drives him into. As a result, he's unhealthily reliant on the power brokers in his own political party, notably former President Megawati Sukarnoputri, the daughter of Indonesia's 1st President, Sukarno. She's sulky about the popularity of a man she treats as her underling (he's often seen to touch his forehead down to her hand, as one does to a respected elder or teacher), and she has put many obstacles in his path. Most notably, Megawati engineered a situation, too complicated to relate, that put the President on the wrong side of a damaging conflict between the deeply unpopular police and the respected anti-corruption commission. Widodo has needed to reassert his credibility with Indonesian voters, to show that he's more than just Megawati's puppet, that he's still fighting for the interests of ordinary Indonesians. But because he can't get much done in the legislature, he has chosen quick wins that can be had solely through executive power. Executing foreign drug dealers is one of those. So is actively lobbying for clemency for Indonesian nationals who are on death row in other countries, such as Saudi Arabia. The sovereignty argument, it appears, only runs in 1 direction. Indonesia, like its Southeast Asian neighbors Singapore, Malaysia, and Vietnam, and like China, Iran, and Saudi Arabia, makes no secret that drug-dealing convictions carry the death penalty. Travellers arriving by plane (that's almost everyone in this island nation) are informed of the fact on every flight, and smoking guns grace banner ads from the Narcotics Control Board at all major airports. But until this year Indonesia rarely enforced the law. Over the 15 years before Widodo took office, 7 foreigners, and no Indonesians, were put to death for narcotics-related offenses. Under Widodo, in the past year alone 12 foreigners have been executed for drug smuggling, along with 2 Indonesians. The executions have been surprisingly popular at home. In a poll published the day before the latest round, 86 % of Indonesians said that they thought the government should proceed with the killings. Most respondents echoed Widodo's rhetoric: wicked foreigners are tearing at the fabric of Indonesian society by luring young people into using drugs. The President backs up these phantoms with shocking numbers. Over 50 young Indonesians die every day because of drugs, and some 4 million Indonesians are abusing drugs. So the President says, and so the Indonesian press reports. Killing drug dealers supposedly will wipe out this terrible scourge and save a generation. Widodo's death statistics, however, are so methodologically flawed that you could use them to teach critical data review to teen-agers. As for the prevalence of drug abuse, the most recent Indonesian survey that is in any way comparable with those of other countries shows that, in 2011, just 4 % of young Indonesians had ever tried drugs, including not only cannabis, speed, and heroin but also glue (sniffed), cough medicine (drank excessive amounts), and headache pills (mixed with soft drinks). That's down by 1/2 from a similar survey 5 years earlier, and it pales in comparison with drug use among young people in the United States and Europe. In the U.S., 35 % of students of a similar age report having used cannabis, and 16 % have used hard drugs, including ecstasy, coke, crack, LSD, and heroin. French 16-year-olds report even higher levels of drug use. Is Indonesia really facing a national catastrophe on the drug front? And, if so, is killing drug mules the best response? Other countries, with rates of drug use 10 times higher, don't seem to think so. They have other ways of reducing drug-related deaths: making sure that people suffering overdoses have access to life-saving naloxone, for example; providing injectors with easy access to sterile equipment so that they don't get fatal infections; and offering less dangerous drugs, such as methadone, to help people get off more dangerous ones, such as heroin. (The U.S. is not a leader in drug-abuse harm reduction, but it is doing better than Indonesia.) These policies will all do more to reduce drug-related deaths than killing dealers, especially when the dealers are trying to take drugs out of the country, and off the local market, as was the case with the 2 Australians killed on Thursday. That was not the only anomaly in their cases. The Australians' former lawyer and the wife of one of the Nigerian prisoners both claimed that Indonesian judges had asked for bribes in exchange for lighter sentences. In the case of the Australians, the judges are said to have rescinded the offer after being told by Jakarta to hand down a death sentence (if true, that would also be illegal). The Brazilian smuggler had an established diagnosis of schizophrenia, which, like any other mental illness, should have swept the accused out of the path of a death sentence. These legal issues alone should be enough to trigger full reviews, and there are similar oddities in most of the other cases. Widodo, however, is far too weak politically to have hesitated over these issues. He desperately needed to signal his strength at home, and he could most easily do that through the crack of the firing squad. He doesn't give a fig how it sounds to the rest of the world. (source: The New Yorker) *************** Common sense of the death penalty - Purna Cita Nugraha "We would not permit the death penalty for criminals, but allow the murder of thousands innocents." Maybe those are the perfect words to capture President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo's response to such modern-day public opinions abroad in regards to the execution of 8 death row inmates earlier this week. President Jokowi in one of his media interview asked the press to expose more on the victims of drug trafficking rather than capitalizing on sympathy of those who had poisoned thousands of members of Indonesia's young generations. Although the executions have been widely opposed abroad, most people in Indonesia are seemingly OK with capital punishment, arguing that it is a matter of sovereignty and is guaranteed by its respective law. The classic debate between pros and cons has come back to the fore. The opposite side brings along strong arguments on human rights, miscarriage of justice, as well as international trends on abolitionism and discrimination. The other side takes its tough position on sovereignty, retribution, justice, due process of law and law enforcement. At this point, the sanity of our prejudice is once again tested. It will lead to a question of which way our common sense will guide us. There are at least 3 senses that can help us to respond to the question. First is the sense of diversity. In a world where forms of difference are commonly accepted and dialogue between very different nations is essential, it is important to uphold the respect for difference. Be it abolitionist or retentionist, this is part of these differences. And most people agree that both sides have their standpoints, values and arguments and that neither abolitionist nor retentionist is on the losing or wrong side of the road. According to the Lowy Institute, in a country that has already abolished capital punishment, like Australia, more than 30 % of its people say the executions of Australian nationals Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran should have gone ahead and 26 % of Australians believe that the death penalty should apply to drug traffickers. It showed us that even in an abolitionist country, there are still dissenting voices of retentionism. Second is the legal sense. The fact that the death penalty is still considered part of positive law both nationally or internationally has provided states with the right to enforce the death penalty in accordance with their national interests. The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), of which Indonesia is a party, permits the use of the death penalty in limited circumstances. Article 6 of the ICCPR states that the 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 can only be carried out pursuant to a final judgement rendered by a competent court. As for Indonesia, the death penalty remains part of ius contitutum and can only be applied with respect to a court's decision. Third is the sense of protection of the common good. The state has the right to apply the death penalty for serious crimes because it must protect the common good. Common sense sometimes says that if we are to consistently defend the right to life, we must oppose capital punishment. But, by supporting common rights to use capital punishment in certain cases, we are actually continuing to defend innocent life, protecting the common good from grave crimes. Theodore Roosevelt once said that in regard to capital punishment, the trouble is that emotional men and women always see only the individual whose fate is up at the moment, and neither his victim nor the many millions of unknown individuals who would in the long run be harmed by what they ask. Indeed, the decision to use the death penalty is serious and must not be lightly imposed. But the state does have the right to use the death penalty as the ultimate punishment and last resort. In the end, if our common sense leads us to what we call active controversy and debatable territory, we need to rely more on our own wisdom. It is up to the government and wisdom of its nation to determine what is right for them. As for now, Indonesia under President Jokowi strongly believes that the reinstated death penalty is the right decision to address the severe drug problem in Indonesia. (source: The Jakarta Post) ******************* Death to all pleas: the executioner's wrong Last week justice became travesty. When Indonesia killed Andrew Chan, Myuran Sukumaran, and six others, the punishment did not fit the crime. The punishment became the crime. Chan had found God, Sukumaran had found art. Once they were blind to these things, then the light came; once they could see, now is darkness. The condemned on their final steps to the firing squad sang Amazing Grace. Who sings now for this Indonesian government? President Joko Widodo says: "There shouldn't be any intervention towards the death penalty because it is our sovereign right to exercise our law." He's right. It is their sovereign right to exercise their law. The pity, and the tragedy, is that in exercising their rights, they have exorcised their moral culpability. Australia recalls its ambassador and Indonesia sees it merely as a few ripples on the ocean of international affairs. A week has almost passed. On the Wednesday morning, just hours after the executions, a family friend of Chan's said: "I think the anger's going to come for a lot of us, it's not here yet. It's just sadness." Prime Minister Tony Abbott concurred, saying to Australians, "You are absolutely entitled to be angry" before as if talking to himself, "we've got to be very careful to ensure that we do not allow our anger to make a bad situation worse". Chan's brother Michael, after seeing his sibling for the last time, said the final goodbye was "torture". This then was the world that opened up to family and friends in the past few days: lamentation, grief and loss. No one would want this eternal embrace. Even if the wounds heal over, under the surface there is still the hole where a life used to be, always falling away. There is no justification for a state to kill a drug smuggler. There is no cultural, religious, political or societal reason to do so. Chan and Sukumaran, on being found guilty of heroin smuggling, deserved to be in prison, and a long time at that. They had been hoping to make a profit on other people's misery and addiction, and the best they could say in defence is that at the time, like most crims, they didn't think of the consequences of their actions. They certainly didn't think they'd get caught. But did they, because of their actions, deserve to die; that is, to not exist? It is here that hopefully the Australian Federal Police might shed light soon on why they didn't wait until they had entered this country to arrest them. Yes there were agreements in place, but did no one think, wait a minute if we pass this information on, odds are someone might be executed. Ministerial directions to the AFP to take account of a country's stance on the death penalty when seeking co-operation seem to bend in the wind. There is no universal template for what is the heinous crime whose only response can be state-sanctioned death. Crimes against humanity notwithstanding, justice served by execution varies around the globe - from the US to Saudi Arabia, China and Indonesia. What then is justice? It depends on your point of view, where you are standing. Justice has several pillars - punishment, deterrence, retribution and rehabilitation, for instance. The latter presupposes that people can change. Chan and Sukumaran were the proof of this. And yet, being where they were, that is caught in the steel trap of a truculent politician, it meant nothing. For Widodo, to deny death its day would have been, in effect, to denounce his own political word - and to cripple the spine of campaigning that delivered him the presidency. The French philosopher Simone Weil wrote that "there is one, and only one, thing in modern society more hideous than crime - namely, repressive justice". Chan and Sukumaran were already off the street, indeed, they had been for a decade. They were no longer a threat to society. How they were dealt with then, in the end, came down to deterrence (showing others what may befall them) and retribution (which is more muddied since they were caught taking drugs out of the country). Sukumaran told The Age's Michael Bachelard: "We were attempting to take drugs out of Indonesia not importing [them]. We failed. We f---d up. We were wrong, we know that. We're paying for that. Our families are paying for our mistake. "We've changed. We've done so much in the last six to seven years, more than most prisoners in prisons all over the world ... What use will executing us be? It won't stop the drugs here. It will just be a cover so the big people [can] continue doing what they are doing. We've changed. We don't deserve to be executed. Our families shouldn't have to suffer like this." The Jakarta Globe in an editorial on April 24 said: "A day that no rational, compassionate human being could ever wish for appears to be at hand ... fellow human beings are gunned down in a hail of bullets because the Indonesian government wants to make a barbarous point. "Why persist with a practice as savage as the death penalty when much of the world cries out against it? What can Indonesia gain from this?" Certainly, to the rest of the world it has lost more than it has gained. For the exercise of its authority, defiantly so, it has diminished itself. It may not care. From Widodo's public stance, this is the case. And yet Indonesia appeals to other countries not to execute its citizens found guilty of crime. When it comes to executions, the sanctity of life as a principle is marked or put into practice by its degree of usefulness. This is, of course, how hypocrisy works. American writer Ambrose Bierce defined it thus: "Hypocrisy: prejudice with a halo." This past week, we can alter it to "extreme prejudice". Or as Shakespeare had Hamlet say to Ophelia: "God has given you one face, and you make yourself another." Not long past midnight the faces of Chan, Sukumaran and the other condemned prisoners, were frozen in the past. Time had ceased for them. Some people believe the past is always receding. Others, that it is never far behind, always about to catch up. Some try to forget their past, some can't. But in everyone the past and the present are one. And it is this blending that creates a future. Except for Chan and Sukumaran. Death became them overnight. While we were saying good night last Tuesday, putting the dog and cat into the laundry, having a last look at the night sky and its canopy of stars, setting the alarm for the early start the next day, on an island prison a clock was ticking. The next morning one alarm did go off, and we arose to face another day. On an island prison, another clock stopped. The coffins had already been brought out, the mourning had begun. Overnight Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran became death. (source: Commentary, Warwick McFadyen, Brisbane Times) ************************* 2 Still at Risk of Imminent Execution see: http://www.amnestyusa.org/sites/default/files/uaa30514_5.pdf (source: Amnesty International) ******************** Executed Indonesian May Have Been Denied Justice by Clerical Blunder: Supreme Court Jakarta. Zainal Abidin, the sole Indonesian among a batch of 8 drug offenders executed on Wednesday, may have been denied justice because of a bureaucratic blunder, the Supreme Court has revealed. On its website, the final court of appeals said on Thursday that the case review that it received from Zainal - and subsequently rejected 2 days before he was put to death - had been submitted 10 years late. The Palembang District Court in South Sumatra initially convicted Zainal in August 2001 to 18 years in prison for possession of 58.7 kilograms of marijuana. Prosecutors, who had sought the death penalty on trafficking charges, mounted an appeal with the Palembang High Court, which duly handed down the death sentence less than a month later. In May 2005, Zainal???s lawyers filed a case review, or PK, a final form of appeal that is heard by the Supreme Court. In keeping with procedure, the case review was filed with the original court hearing the case, which was expected to forward the case to the Supreme Court. However, the Palembang District Court did nothing with the case for nearly 10 years, until April 8 this year, when it grew increasingly apparent that Zainal would be among the next batch of inmates to be put to death. "The Supreme Court's assistant clerk for special crimes did not receive the PK until April 8, 2015," chief clerk Soeroso Ono said in the statement on the website. "That means that from May 2, 2005, until April 2015, the case was not in the hands of the Supreme Court clerk. The Supreme Court had less than a week in which to hear the review, from April 21, 2015, when it reached the judges, to April 27, 2015, when the ruling was handed down." Soeroso said it was worrying that the Palembang District Court had failed to forward the case to the Supreme Court for nearly a decade, and urged courts across the country to be more meticulous about sticking with judicial procedures. However, there was no explanation from the Supreme Court for why it had not sought to stay Zainal's execution, given that his case review was still being heard when prosecutors notified him about the impending execution. Legal analysts have also expressed concern that the court's rejection of the case review may have been influenced by the time pressure that the judges were under, and that had the review been heard in 2005, as it was supposed to, the outcome might have been different. (source: The Jakarta Globe) **************** EU Parliament Calls For Indonesia's Immediate Moratorium On Death Penalty Members of all European Parliament political groups condemned the recent execution of 8 people in Indonesia on Thursday, and called for an immediate moratorium on the death penalty there. In a debate on Thursday with international cooperation Commissioner Neven Mimica, MEPs stressed that even though they respect Indonesia's sovereignty and its fight against drug trafficking, the death penalty can never be justified. MEPs urged the Indonesian authorities to abolish the death penalty, suggesting that it be replaced with other sanctions, such as life imprisonment. Many also questioned whether the people executed and those still on death row, among them a French citizen, really had fair trials. They cited the execution of Brazilian Rodrigo Gularte, despite his alleged mental illness, and a lack of lawyers and interpreters. Some MEPs referred to Hungarian Prime Minister Victor Orban's recent statement about a possible restoration of the death penalty, saying that Europe should be proud of its ban on the death penalty and should fight any attempt to reintroduce it. Several underlined that the death penalty is inhuman and has not been proven to prevent crimes. Commissioner Mimica added that the EU is using all possible instruments, including assistance to combat drug trafficking and political pressure, to prevent recourse to the death penalty in any circumstances. (source: Eurasia Review) NORTH KOREA: Kim Jong Un's N. Korea Prefers Mass Executions By Anti-Aircraft Cannons North Korea has been executing its political prisoners and unwanted elite by firing squad for decades. But a shot to the heart apparently isn't brutal enough for Kim Jong Un, who's reportedly using anti-aircraft cannons to kill dissidents, according to at least 1 watchdog group. The Committee for Human Rights in North Korea and All Source Analysis Inc. (a company that specializes in Image Intelligence), say the picture below, taken on October 7 last year of a military training range about 12 miles north of Pyongyang, proves that the country is now using anti-aircraft heavy machine guns for executions. At this small arms firing range, half a dozen ZPU-4 towed anti-aircraft guns can be seen lined up in a row about 30 feet from a viewing area. Behind the guns are said to be personnel and other equipment, while military trucks, a trailer, and a bus can be seen parked on a nearby driveway. Beyond the guns muzzles, at a distance of about 100 feet, are said to be a row of people lined up waiting to be killed by the AAA guns turned executioner's tool. The report accompanying the photo above offers a solid analysis that highlights how they came to the conclusion that the satellite caught this high-level human slaughter. This included a comparative analysis of pictures taken days after the horrific satellite image was snapped. It doesn???t take a military analyst to look at a ZPU-4 and realize that there is no reason anyone would be playing target practice at a hundred feet on a flat plane with such a weapon, especially against a backstop rated for pistol and light rifle fire. Horrifically creative forms of execution - all of which are a public affair to various degrees - have been a cottage industry in North Korea's political machine for many decades. Having prisoners try to escape falling mortars and even using flame-throwers on supposed dissidents have also been reported during the last 3 iterations of the "Kim Dynasty." The most recent execution via mortar round was supposedly the result of a very literal interpretation from a 2012 order given by Kim Jong Un to execute the Vice Minister of the Army in a way that "no trace of him would be left behind, down to his hair," at least according to state-ran media. O Sang-hon, a minister at the Ministry of Public Security was recently executed by flame thrower as a result of helping higher-up power brokers in the Party keep their "illegal" business transactions secret. Oh and those guys that had the business transactions to keep secret in the first place, including long-time high ranking bureaucrat and Kim Family confidant, Jang Song-taek? They were all executed as well by various horrible means. (source: foxtrotalpha.jalopnik.com) NIGERIA: Not Afraid To Die; 19 Nigerians Have Attempted Smuggling Drugs To Asia Since January 2014 The National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) said it has stopped 20 people from smuggling drugs out of Nigeria. The agency, in a statement on Thursday, said since January 2014, 19 Nigerians and a Ghanaian have been arrested in Nigerian airports attempting to smuggle 106,914 kilogrammes of narcotics. "16 of the suspects were apprehended at the Murtala Muhammed International Airport Lagos while 4 others including a Ghanaian were caught at the Akanu Ibiam International Airport Enugu,??? reports quote NDLEA Chairman, Ahmadu Giade to have said. "Their final destinations are Malaysia, China and Thailand where drug trafficking is punishable by death." 3 Nigerians - Sylvester Obiekwe Nwolise, Raheem Agbaje Salami and Okwudili Oyatanze - were among 8 people executed by Indonesian authorities over drug-related offences during the week. Giade, while commiserating with their families, urged relevant authorities to intensify anti-drug abuse campaign efforts. "I sincerely sympathise with the families of the executed drug convicts. "This is a moment of sober reflection on the illicit activities of drug trafficking syndicates. This brings to the fore the bigger picture of those in foreign prisons, those arrested here and others preparing to smuggle drugs. "It is a wake-up call for stakeholders to step up their counter-narcotics efforts. Apart from drug trafficking being a criminal act, narcotic smuggling poses a serious threat to public health and safety." A breakdown of the drugs nabbed from the 20 suspected smugglers showed that 83.08kg was seized at the Lagos airport while 23.834kg was intercepted at the Enugu airport. The seized drugs included 89.024kg of cannabis, 9.375kg of methamphetamine, 3.450kg of amphetamine, 2.89kg of heroin and 2.175kg of cocaine. The only Ghanaian among the suspects, Musa Idrisa, also known as Charles Udenehi, was going to Bangkok, Thailand, with 450 grams of cocaine he had ingested. Among those arrested were three females, including Chidinma Okafor, a professional dancer, caught with 3.450kg of amphetamine hidden in a pair of jeans trousers while attempting to board a flight to Malaysia; Eze Maureen caught with 6.200kg of cannabis on her way to China; and Alade Muyinotu found with 1.725kg of cocaine and 1.715kg of heroin on her way to China. Despite knowing the penalty for being caught with hard drugs in Asia, some Nigerians still smuggle drugs to the continent. According to Harm Reduction International (HRI), a drug-focused NGO, 32 countries impose the death penalty for drug smuggling. All, except America, Cuba, Sudan and South Sudan are in Asia or the Middle East. However, executions are extremely rare in most of these countries. 14, including Cuba and America have the death penalty in their laws for drug traffickers but do not apply it. HRI's most recent analysis show that only in 6 countries - China, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Vietnam, Malaysia and Singapore - are drug offenders known to be routinely executed. Indonesia may be added in the next analysis following recent drug-related executions in the country. (source: Information Nigeria) ************** Nigeria urged to act as child bride languishes on death row----Amnesty International leads calls condemning the Nigerian government for keeping child bride Maimuna Abdulmumini behind bars The Nigerian government is violating its own laws by keeping a child bride on death row for murdering her husband almost a year after a regional court dismissed the sentence handed down to her, according to a coalition of human rights campaigners. Maimuna Abdulmumini, 22, accused of burning her husband to death as a teenager, remains in prison today despite the Economic Community of West African States (Ecowas) Court of Justice ruling in June 2014 that the decision by a court in the north of the country to impose the death penalty was a violation of her fundamental rights. As the 1 year anniversary of the ruling approaches, Amnesty International has released a strongly worded statement calling on the Nigerian government to curtail forced marriage as a matter of urgency and abolish the death penalty. "Nigeria has a great deal of work to do to improve its record on human rights, particularly when it comes to the rights of women and girls," says a spokeswoman for Amnesty International UK. "The gender gap last year was shocking. According to the UN???s Gender Equality Index, Nigeria featured 152 on the list of 187 countries. "An immediate way in which the new government can improve the human rights situation is to abolish the death penalty, and do more to stop early and forced marriage taking place." Avocats Sans Frontieres (ASF), who filed the case with the Ecowas court and has campaigned for Abdulmumini's release for over a year, add that "it would be unacceptable for Maimuna Abdulmumini to remain on death row". Abdulmumini was 13 when her husband, Ibrahim, burned to death in their marital home. For the 5 months they were married, their relationship was characterised by systemic abuse, according to Abdulmumini's lawyers. In response to questions posed by the Guardian and asked through her legal team, Abdulmumini herself said that her husband was "violent" to her in the the time they were married and suffered from a mental illness. After a legal process dragged on for five years, Abdulmumini was convicted of murder and sentenced to death in December 2012. She has been in prison at Katsina state jail ever since, her mental state gradually deteriorating as she shares an already cramped cell with 5 other condemned women. "Although our team has been at her side during all the proceeding initiated before the Ecowas Court, one can hardly imagine how frustrating it is for Maimuna Abdulmumini not to see yet the practical impact of the judgement," explains Angela Uwandu, from ASF Nigeria. Born and raised in small village in Katsina state, in northern Nigeria, Abdulmumini received a limited formal education in a 2-classroom school. Her only lessons were focused on learning the English alphabet and studying Islam, with her subject being Arabic. When she turned her 13, her parents told her she would be married. In northern Nigeria, where senators marry teenagers, this wasn't out of the ordinary; 17% of girls in the country are married before the age of 15, according to the charity Girls Not Brides. In the Muslim-dominated part of the country, nearly 1/2 of girls are married by the age of 15 and 78% are married by the time they hit 18. All of this is despite child marriage being prohibited under Nigerian law more than a decade ago. In 2003, the Child Rights Act, raised the minimum age of marriage for girls to 18, but due to the west African country's complex federalised system, only 24 of Nigeria's 36 states have passed the legislation. In the years following her husband's death and her trial, Abdulmumini remarried and had a child, Habiba. In a criminal trial in northern Nigeria, Abdulmumini's age at the time of the crime was not taken into account. This is despite the death sentence being prohibited for under-18s under international law. Oliver Robertson, the death penalty and alternatives project manager at Penalty Reform International, says "it is recognised worldwide that people must not be sentenced to death for crimes committed before they were 18." "This applies in all circumstances, regardless of whether local laws state that girls are considered adult when they marry." Mr Robertson suggests that Nigeria is failing to meet its obligations under international law in its handling of the case. "The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, which Nigeria has ratified, is unequivocal about this, stating: 'Neither capital punishment nor life imprisonment without possibility of release shall be imposed for offences committed by persons below 18 years of age'," he explains. "A key reason why the death penalty is banned for offences committed while a child is that children are still developing, and so are more able to reform and change. Killing them prevents any chance of making a better life for themselves, and for their family." Abdulmumini's case has so far failed to gain attention in the international media, beyond stories by the Guardian. This is in contrast to other death penalty cases in Nigeria which have been subject to lengthy campaigns by western NGOs. Last year, Amnesty campaigned successfully for the release of Thankgod Ebhos, a Nigerian man who spent 19 years on death row and was seconds away from being executed before an intervention by the Ecowas court. Traumatised by her time in prison and unable to see her young daughter, Abdulmumini is desperate to be free and reconnect with Habiba. As Robertson argues, states which have signed up to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child have an obligation to take into account the interests of children of prisoners when deciding on sentences. "Countries have an obligation under the Convention on the Rights of the Child to consider the best interests of the child in all situations that concern them: the possible execution of a child???s mother undoubtedly passes that test," he says. "Children are not bargaining chips used by defendants to gain support or sympathy. They are individuals with their own rights and needs, and these rights and needs must be considered by the court." (source: The Guardian) SAUDI ARABIA----execution Saudi behaeds another Pakistani on drug trafficking charge Saudi Arbaia beheaded a Pakistani convicted of drug smuggling on Friday, the 73rd execution in the kingdom so far this year. Shirin Khan was put to death in Riyadh province after being found guilty of smuggling heroin into the kingdom in swallowed balloons, the interior ministry said. In the whole of 2014, Saudi Arabia carried out 87 executions, and Amnesty International has spoken of a "macabre spike" in the kingdom's use of the death penalty this year. The Gulf has become an increasingly important market for illicit drugs in recent years, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime says. The Pakistani city of Karachi is a key transit point for heroin from Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia has carried out a spate of executions of Pakistani drugs mules. Rape, murder, apostasy, armed robbery and drug trafficking are all punishable by death under Saudi Arabia's version of Islamic sharia law. The cabinet has affirmed that the kingdom's legal system ensures "justice for all", Saudi Press Agency (SPA) reported. But Christof Heyns, the UN special rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, said in September last year that trials "are by all accounts grossly unfair" and defendants are often not allowed a lawyer. He said confessions were obtained under torture. The Gulf state has carried out around 80 executions annually since 2011. In comparison, Iran has executed more than 1,000 people since January last year, Ahmed Shaheed said the UN special rapporteur on Iran. (source: Daily Pakistan) ****************** 3 More Beheaded: Saudi Arabia Sees 'Macabre Spike' in 2015 Executions A Saudi national who murdered his father was among 3 people beheaded on Thursday, the interior ministry said, bringing the total number of executions in the kingdom this year to 72. Authorities executed Abdullah al-Balawi after his conviction for stabbing his father to death, the ministry said in a statement carried by the official Saudi Press Agency (SPA). SPA reported that the son had planned the murder, but it did not give his motives. Another Saudi, Fayez al-Atwi in Riyadh, was beheaded for gunning down a member of the security forces while he was on duty. The 3rd person executed was Abdullah al-Ruwaili, a Saudi found guilty of "smuggling a large amount of banned amphetamine pills," said the ministry. Both Balawi and Ruwaili were executed in the northwestern city of Tabuk. The 3 cases bring to 72 the number of death sentences carried out this year, compared with 87 for all of 2014, according to an AFP tally. Amnesty International has criticized a "macabre spike" in the use of the death penalty this year in Saudi Arabia, which the London-based watchdog group ranked among the world's top three executioners of 2014. Drug trafficking, rape, murder, apostasy and armed robbery are all punishable by death under the kingdom's strict version of Islamic sharia law. The interior ministry has cited deterrence as a reason for carrying out the punishment. In the first 3 weeks of August 2014, Saudi officials carried an average of more than 1 execution per day. 1/2 of the executions carried out last year were for non-lethal offenses, Amnesty International said. Beheadings are most common form of execution in Saudi Arabia, with the acts sometimes taking place in public. In January, activists leaked a video of an executioner beheading a woman accused of killing her stepdaughter. Saudi officials told CNN that beheadings are an integral part of their system of Islamic law, and the only violation that took place at the gruesome scene was the illegal filming of the act. The man responsible for the video was arrested and was to be tried, a Saudi official said, although months later, his fate in unknown. "We emphasize respect for the right to life as one of the fundamental rights guaranteed by the law. It should not make us forget the rights of other parties violated by the perpetrators, which has to be seen with the same degree of respect, Mohammed al-Muadi, of the government-backed Saudi Human Rights Commission, told CNN in January. While the kingdom does not appear to be affected by international pressure, there are private discussions that could lead officials to consider methods like lethal injection in the coming years, Saudi legal experts told CNN. According to Amnesty International, Saudi Arabia's more than 90 executions in 2014 trailed only Iran's more than 289 and China, which is estimated to have executed thousands, although numbers cannot be confirmed. Iraq's more than 61 executions were the 4th most, while the United States' 35 were the 5th most. The organization said there were 607 executions in 22 countries in 2014 - a decrease of 22% compared with the year before. (source: sputniknews.com) **************** 70 People Executed in Saudi Arabia This Year: Interior Ministry A Saudi national convicted of murdering his father was beheaded on Thursday, bringing to 70 the number of executions carried out this year in the kingdom, the interior ministry said. The number compares with 87 in the whole of 2014, according to an AFP tally. Abdullah Al Balawi was convicted of stabbing his father to death, said a ministry statement carried by the official Saudi Press Agency. He was executed in the northwestern city of Tabuk. Amnesty International has criticized a "macabre spike" in the use of the death penalty this year in Saudi Arabia, which the London-based watchdog ranked among the top 3 executioners in the world in 2014. Drug trafficking, rape, murder, apostasy, homosexuality and armed robbery are all punishable by death under the kingdom. (source: Tasnim News Agency) From rhalperi at smu.edu Sun May 3 13:33:29 2015 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Sun, 3 May 2015 13:33:29 -0500 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----PENN., VA., N.C., S.C., LA. Message-ID: May 3 PENNSYLVANIA: Attention turns to obscure state committee studying death penalty The committee hasn't met since 2012 and is running at least 2 years behind schedule. Its 27 members haven't been publicly announced, but critics already charge they have leaped to conclusions. The state Senate's Advisory Committee on Capital Punishment has until recently been little noticed, just the latest group to study flaws in Pennsylvania's death penalty, under which scores of inmates have seen their sentences reversed and no one has been executed against their will since John F. Kennedy was president. Once obscure, the all-volunteer committee is now prominent, elevated in the debate by Gov. Tom Wolf's moratorium on executions. Wolf announced the moratorium in February when he called the death penalty "error prone, expensive and anything but infallible." He said he will issue a reprieve to any prisoner facing the death chamber until the committee's report is released and acted upon. That means the panel could wield enormous power in determining the future of capital punishment in Pennsylvania, which houses the nation's 5th largest death row. And while previous investigations have suggested fixes to the process to make it fairer, some death penalty backers are bracing - and some opponents are hoping - for this committee to call for the law's outright repeal. "That would not surprise me," said Dauphin County District Attorney Ed Marsico, a committee member who supports the death penalty. "That is probably where this would end up." "I suspect that they will support the abolition of the death penalty," said Carol Lavery, Pennsylvania's former victims advocate and another committee member. The committee, approved by the Senate in 2011, is looking into 17 different aspects of capital punishment, including its cost, its impact on public safety, its potential for racial or economic bias, and whether there are sufficient safeguards against the innocent being executed. Glenn Pasewicz, executive director of the Joint State Government Commission, the agency spearheading the effort, does not anticipate the report will be "the seminal document that starts rolling forward with repeal." Sen. Stewart Greenleaf, a Montgomery County Republican who proposed the study, echoed that, saying the committee has not been asked to weigh in on the larger question of whether the death penalty should be sustained. That's an issue, he maintained, for lawmakers and public opinion to decide. Greenleaf is the co-chairman of a 4-member Senate task force that is overseeing the panel's work. But his Democratic counterpart, state Sen. Daylin Leach of Montgomery County, said that if the committee concludes the death penalty is too flawed to be justified, he expects it will voice that recommendation. "I don't think it does anyone any good to spend all this time and this effort on the data without giving anyone an opinion on what the data means," said Leach, a staunch critic of capital punishment. Since Wolf announced the moratorium, conservative lawmakers and other death penalty supporters have bristled over the committee's makeup, charging it is weighed against their views. According to a list provided by the Joint Commission, the panel includes judges, defense attorneys, prosecutors, clergy members, college professors, a relative of a murder victim, victims advocates, officials from the ACLU and 2 other nonprofits, and police and corrections representatives. "There's very few prosecutors or individuals who favor the death penalty on the committee as a whole," Marsico said, "so I don't expect a glowing review of the death penalty because of the makeup of it." Northampton County District Attorney John Morganelli, a vocal death penalty supporter who is not on the panel, charged that further studies are unnecessary and are driven by opponents who want to poke holes in the law. Morganelli said the best review that death sentences receive is through the courts, when a jury individually examines the facts of each case and appellate judges then scrutinize whether the decisions were justified. "These studies are a bunch of nonsense in my opinion," said Morganelli, a Democrat. "They are motivated by a desire to end the death penalty. They don't want to improve the death penalty." Greenleaf and Leach disputed that criticism, saying that no one should oppose efforts to better understand how the system is functioning. "Anyone who is for or against [capital punishment] should not be afraid of facts," Greenleaf said. A fact "doesn't lie. Whatever it is, it is." Said Leach: "At the end of the day, the death penalty is another government program, so let's evaluate it like any other government program." The report was originally due in December 2013. But selecting the panel's 27 participants took six months alone, and work has proven time-consuming, given the need for data collectors to go from county courthouse to county courthouse gathering statistics about homicide cases, when the death penalty is sought and when it is imposed, Pasewicz said. The hope is for the report to be completed by the end of the year, though it could stretch into 2016, Pasewicz said. So far, the committee has met twice as a whole, in May and August 2012, according to the Joint Commission. The panel's subcommittees have held two meetings and 15 teleconferences, the most recent in April 2014. For the report, the Joint Commission - a research wing of the Legislature - has been assisted by a state commission on fairness in the courts and by researchers from Penn State University. The study has no individual budget and no dedicated staff members, with the Joint Commission's 11 employees also juggling other state initiatives, Pasewicz said. Though the Senate resolution authorized the panel to conduct public hearings, it has no plans to do so, since the Joint Commission is not set up to hold them and lacks the power to subpoena witnesses or take testimony under oath, he said. Pasewicz said he anticipates hearings will be held in the Legislature after the recommendations are released. Given the contentious topic, Pasewicz said he doesn't expect unanimity from the panel. But, he said, everyone on the committee will be heard, pro or con. "It is a controversial issue. We want to make sure we have as many people at the meetings, at the conference calls, as we can," Pasewicz said. "We've been unusually sensitive to make sure that people were available and had a fair opportunity to participate." That's the hope of Lavery, the former victims advocate. She said that while she believes the committee is weighed against the death penalty, she expects it will still offer detailed information that can be used on each side of the debate. "The facts that will come out will be both in support and against," Lavery said. Matthew Mangino, another committee member, called the study a "fresh look" and said the panel has yet to reach its conclusions. "As in any aspect of the criminal justice system, there is always room for improvement in the process," said Mangino, a former Lawrence County district attorney who has written a book about the death penalty. "Can we improve the process, or should the process be halted? I think that those are legitimate questions for any task force that is examining the criminal justice system." 1 of the 4 senators on the task force overseeing the committee is Lisa Boscola, D-Northampton. Several attempts to seek comment from her were unsuccessful. 'Riddled with flaws' Pennsylvania has 185 prisoners on death row, but it rarely performs an execution. Just three men have been put to death in the modern era of capital punishment, and all were volunteers who abandoned legal challenges to their sentences. The last was Philadelphia "house of horrors" murderer Gary Heidnik, who was lethally injected in 1999. The reasons for the logjam are the subject of heated discussion. Capital punishment supporters blame an arduous appeals process, activist judges and what they characterize as overzealous tactics by anti-death-penalty lawyers. Former Chief Justice Ronald Castille, who retired at the end of last year, has been the most prominent voice. In a 2011 opinion, he accused federal public defenders of "obstructionist tactics" that try to sabotage Pennsylvania's law through abusive filings that clog the courts. Whether opponents "like it or not," two-thirds of the states have the death penalty, Castille wrote. "The difference of death does not mean that any and all tactics in pursuit of the defeat of a capital judgment are legitimate." Opponents of capital punishment cite the high number of death sentences that are reversed at appeal, typically due to mistakes by the defendants' attorneys at trial. They also highlight death-row exonerations across the country, including 6 in Pennsylvania. In recent years, economic arguments about the cost of the death penalty also have been increasingly trumpeted. Marc Bookman, a Philadelphia attorney who is active in the anti-death penalty movement, said that any honest study of capital punishment in the state will show that it is fatally flawed. "I don't have any idea what the committee proposals are going to be, but I do know the facts, which are that we have 252 reversals and no involuntary executions since 1962," said Bookman, executive director of the Atlantic Center for Capital Representation, which advises defense teams in death penalty cases. His deputy, Dana Cook, is a member of the panel. "It is my opinion that the death penalty has shown itself to be unworkable over a 30-year period," Bookman said. "So if the committee reaches a conclusion that the death penalty has been unworkable over 30 years, then I think they'll take the next step and say that the death penalty should be repealed." In just over a decade, two studies have been completed. The first, in 2003 by a state Supreme Court committee studying bias in the justice system, cited concerns that race played a major role in death sentences in at least some counties, among other critiques. The second, in 2007 by an American Bar Association team, warned the system was so flawed it risked the prospect that an innocent person could be executed. Neither effort called for a repeal of the law, as was done in studies in New Jersey and Maryland, bordering states that have abolished capital punishment in recent years. Jeff Sheridan, a spokesman for Wolf, said he would not speculate on whether the governor would support a repeal if the committee recommended one. Wolf wants to see what comes out of the panel, Sheridan said. "He does not know what will be in the committee's final product," Sheridan said. "What he does know is the system is riddled with flaws, is extremely costly and has been wrong too many times." Whether a repeal could gain traction in Pennsylvania's political climate is an open question. Chris Borick, a Muhlenberg College pollster and political scientist, doubts one would go far given Republican domination of both chambers. As a whole, the public is relatively divided over the death penalty, especially when it is pitted against life in prison without parole, the state's other punishment for first-degree murder, Borick said. But among GOP voters, capital punishment remains popular, and Republican lawmakers in safely conservative districts are unlikely to buck that support, he said. Borick predicts the committee will stop short of recommending the law's abolition, instead focusing on potential fixes to the system that could peel away reluctant Republicans - especially, he said, if they are framed as protecting the innocent while shoring up capital punishment for the guilty. "No committee wants to put something up, especially something that comes out of a governor's initiative, that is dead on arrival," Borick said. Kathleen Lucas, executive director of Pennsylvanians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty, also doubts the committee will come out in favor of repeal. But that's not because of political considerations, she said, but because she believes the panel hasn't been directly asked to answer that question. Lucas is convinced that, one day, the law will be abolished in Pennsylvania regardless. "It's a question of whether it happens in the next 5 years, or the next 10, or the next 20," Lucas said. In the meantime, Wolf's moratorium is being fought out in the courts. Philadelphia District Attorney Seth Williams sued Wolf in February over a reprieve the governor issued for Terrance Williams, a 2-time murderer who was scheduled to be executed for the 1984 robbing and fatal tire-iron beating of another man. Seth Williams called Wolf's move a "lawless act" that illegally subverted the state's death-penalty law. Lawyers for Wolf countered that the governor's power of reprieve is expressly granted in the state constitution. In a rare move, the state Supreme Court agreed in March to take up the dispute, though a hearing has yet to be scheduled. (source: Morning Call) ************* Death penalty trial to start Monday More than 3 years after Karissa Kunco's body was discovered in the woods in Mt. Pleasant Township, her alleged killer, Jordan Clemons, will go to trial Monday. Clemons, 26, formerly of Canonsburg, is accused of killing 21-year-old Kunco, of Pittsburgh, in January 2012 and dumping her body in a wooded area of Mt. Pleasant Township. Kunco was last seen alive Jan. 11, 2012. State police allege that after killing her, Clemons dragged her naked body into the woods along Sabo Road and covered it with leaves, brush and a tree stump. Kunco, whose throat was cut, had a protection-from-abuse order against Clemons. The pair dated. The prosecution is seeking the death penalty. Jury selection was completed over 3 1/2 days in March. Attorneys narrowed 151 potential jurors down to the 16-member panel - 12 jurors and 4 alternates. Defense attorney Brian Gorman declined to say if Clemons will testify during the trial. In the past, Gorman argued head injuries Clemons suffered while playing football and in several vehicle accidents, plus years of drug abuse, diminished his mental capacity. Any brain injury Clemons experienced could have been a factor in his ability to form criminal intent, Gorman said in court documents. Assistant District Attorney Chad Schneider plans to call more than 20 witnesses, including Kunco's father. On Tuesday, Washington County Common Pleas Judge Gary Gilman ruled the prosecution can use Kunco's PFA and statements she made to medical staff at St. Clair Hospital in Mt. Lebanon following an alleged Dec. 18, 2011, assault by Clemons. The evidence, according to court documents, will be used for the purpose of showing ill will, motive or malice, and assist in painting a picture of the former couple's relationship. Clemons also faces charges from a home invasion in Canonsburg Jan. 8, 2012, and is charged with flight to avoid apprehension in connection with the alleged assault of Kunco in December 2011. Clemons remains in Washington County jail without bond. (source: Observer-Reporter) ********************** Slain trooper's parents say they forgive suspected ambusher The parents of a slain Pennsylvania State Police trooper said Sunday they have forgiven his alleged killer and are relying on their deep faith to get them through the loss. Appearing at a church in the same Pocono Mountains region where Eric Frein spent 48 days on the run, Bryon and Darla Dickson said forgiveness has helped them move on and avoid becoming bitter. "It doesn't do you any good to hate somebody for whatever they have done to you, because all it does is eat you up. And in the end, what does it do for you? Absolutely nothing," said Bryon Dickson. Frein, 31, is charged in the Sept. 12 ambush that killed Cpl. Bryon Dickson II and critically injured Trooper Alex Douglass. The alleged gunman, an anti-government survivalist, led police on a tense, 6-week manhunt through the northeastern Pennsylvania woods before U.S. marshals caught him outside an abandoned airplane hangar, about 30 miles from the barracks where authorities say he opened fire during a late-night shift change. Frein has pleaded not guilty. Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty. After the service, Darla Dickson told The Associated Press she would accept whatever punishment is ultimately meted out to Frein if he is convicted, either the death penalty or life in prison. "Justice lays behind us at the grave, where my son's body is buried," she said. "And Eric Frein is chained to that place of justice. He has to be held accountable for what he has done." Addressing the congregation, Darla Dickson recalled the moment that every parent of a police officer or soldier dreads: the knock on the door. It came around 2:30 a.m., more than three hours after the ambush, when a trooper and chaplain brought word that her son had been killed in the line of duty. "What I experienced was just a disbelief beyond degree," she said from the stage of Community Church in Tobyhanna, about 10 miles from the home of Frein's parents, where the search was centered. "It was very surreal. I just could not even wrap my mind around it." She acknowledged that it hasn't been easy to forgive Frein, who authorities said did not know her son or Douglass. "There were days when we had to get up, and it was difficult to set one foot in front of the other and face the world," she said. But the Dicksons said their Christian faith has brought them great comfort - and teaches them that just as God has forgiven them, they are to forgive others. "Not keeping a record of wrongdoing gives you hope for tomorrow, a sense of love that displaces all evil in the world," Darla Dickson said. Their appearance came as the church celebrated "Blue Sunday," paying tribute to law enforcement. The pastor, David Crosby Jr., brought several state police troopers and local police chiefs on stage to cheers and applause from the congregation of hundreds. Crosby prayed for the safety and protection of law enforcement, as well as for "healing and restoration" in Baltimore, where rioting followed the death of a black man in police custody. Six police officers were charged Friday in Freddie Gray's death. Darla Dickson told the AP she doesn't think about Frein. Instead, she focuses on her son, a 38-year-old Marine veteran who left behind a wife and 2 young sons. "I miss my son. I grieve for him," she said. "But it's not the kind of grief that the rest of the world carries. I have that hope that I will see him again." (source: Associated Press) VIRGINIA: Pace of Death Sentences, Executions Slows in Virginia A prosecutor's decision not to seek a death penalty for the man accused of abducting and killing a University of Virginia student is emblematic of capital punishment's decline across the country and in the state that once operated one of the busiest execution chambers in the nation. Virginia has sent only 6 people to death row in the last 9 years after sending 40 over the previous 8 years, according to statistics compiled by the Death Penalty Information Center. As a result, the state only has 8 inmates awaiting execution - down from a high of 57 in 1995 - and unless something changes, Jesse Matthew Jr. won't be joining them. Matthew is charged with 1st-degree murder in the death of 18-year-old Hannah Graham. He also is charged with abduction with intent to defile, which is the first of 15 offenses listed in state law that can elevate a murder count to capital murder. Albemarle County's chief prosecutor has declined to say specifically why Matthew, who is due in court for a hearing on pretrial matters Tuesday, was not charged with capital murder. Matthew's case, perhaps the most high-profile murder case in Virginia since the 2002 Washington-area sniper shootings that left 10 dead, is playing out as the death penalty is on the wane. Virginia has slipped from 2nd to 3rd nationally - behind Texas and Oklahoma - with 110 executions since the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated capital punishment in 1976. No executions are currently scheduled. Legal experts say there are many reasons for the deceleration of the death penalty in Virginia, but perhaps the biggest is the establishment in 2004 of four regional capital defender offices staffed by attorneys and investigators who devote all their time to death penalty cases. "In the past, an awful lot of people who ended up on death row had abysmal representation," said Steve Northup, a lawyer and former executive director of Virginians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty. "Prosecutors were able to take advantage. Now prosecutors know capital defendants are going to be well represented." It's no coincidence, experts suggest, that the sharp downturn in death sentences began the year the capital defender offices opened. The year before, Virginia sent 6 people to death row. No more than 2 death sentences have been imposed in any year since. A recent study by University of Virginia law professor John G. Douglass concluded that the number of capital murder charges has declined, but not as rapidly as the number of death sentences. Virginia prosecutors obtained an average of 34 capital murder indictments a year between 1995 and 1999, but only 22 per year from 2008 through 2013. The percentage of those cases going to trial fell from 38 % in the late '90s to 19 %, suggesting more cases are being resolved by plea negotiations resulting in punishment less than death. "Virginia prosecutors have not abandoned the death penalty," Douglass wrote. "Instead, increasingly, they bargain with it." Douglass agrees with others who cite establishment of the state-funded capital defender's offices, which operate on a budget of $3.5 million a year, as one of the reasons Virginia's death row has been steadily shrinking. "A capable and vigorous defense no doubt accounts - at least in part - for the increased willingness of prosecutors to resolve capital cases short of death," Douglass wrote. Doug Ramseur, the central region's capital defender, said one of the reasons more cases are being plea bargained "may be recognition that juries are giving out the death sentence less." That's due in part to a growing acceptance of life without parole as a reasonable alternative to death, Ramseur and other experts said. "When a jury is assured a truly dangerous individual will never be released from prison, they feel more comfortable turning down a death penalty," said Michael Stone, who succeeded Northup as head of the state's leading anti-capital punishment organization. The case of Washington-area sniper Lee Boyd Malvo is one high-profile example, Stone said. Prosecutors sought the death penalty, but the jury sentenced Malvo to life without parole. Stone said Malvo almost certainly would have been sentenced to death if life without parole had not been an option. Experts also say public opinion about the death penalty is shifting, partly because more than 150 people sentenced to die have been exonerated. "That has shaken the confidence of jurors and the public so they are willing to convict people but not sentence them to death as much," said Richard Dieter, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, a Washington-based advocacy gropu that opposes capital punishment. Dieter noted in a recent report that national Gallup polls show support for the death penalty has tumbled from 80 % in 1994 to 63 %. Meantime, death sentences nationally have declined from a peak of 315 in 1996 to 72 last year. Even Texas, by far the execution leader with 524 since 1976, has seen death sentences dwindle to fewer than a dozen a year after peaking at 43 in 1994. The trend has not escaped the notice of New York Law School professor Robert Blecker, one of the nation's most outspoken capital punishment supporters. "I'd like to think it has to do with prosecutors becoming more discriminating and not going for death on every death-eligible crime, only going for it for the worst of the worst of the worst," Blecker said. The wishes of the victim's family and the huge amount of time and money required to pursue a death penalty are other factors to consider, Dinwiddie County Commonwealth's Attorney Ann Cabell Baskervill said, although neither concern is dispositive. Baskervill is seeking the death penalty for Russell E. Brown II, who is charged in the shooting death of Virginia State Trooper Junius A. Walker. The trial is set for next year. "If you think you're not going to be successful, it's foolish to seek it," Baskervill said of the death penalty. "As a steward of resources and what society wants, that comes into play. It's an awful lot to drag the community through, especially when it could go the other way." (source: Associated Press) NORTH CAROLINA: NC bill to restart executions pushes an unjust penalty Last week, Indonesia's government descended into barbarism by executing 8 prisoners for drug offenses. Last week, the U.S. Supreme Court debated whether botched executions violated the Constitution's prohibition of cruel and unusual punishment. Last week, Nebraska's Republican-dominated legislature moved to abolish that state's death penalty. And last week, of all weeks, the North Carolina House voted to clear the way for the resumption of state-sponsored killing. Legal challenges have locked North Carolina's execution process for nearly a decade. During the unofficial moratorium, evidence of the brutality and errors surrounding executions has become overwhelming. But that didn???t stop House Republicans from pushing through a bill that would eliminate what has become a major obstacle to carrying out the death penalty here - the lack of doctors the law requires to attend executions. Getting past doctors In 2007, the N.C. Medical Board decided that doctors who participate in executions violate the ethics of their profession. By a vote of 84-33, the House passed a bill Wednesday that sidesteps the need for doctors by expanding the list of medical personnel who can monitor executions to include physician assistants, nurse practitioners, registered nurses and emergency medical technicians. A doctor would still need to be nearby to certify the death. Since coming under Republican control in 2011, this legislature has made going backward its preferred direction on issues of taxation, voting rights, environmental regulation, education funding, gun laws and women's health. But its effort to restart executions is especially retrogressive with an added element of macabre. The death penalty is unnecessary, unjust and irreversible. Its use now is only an act of vengeance against a few prisoners who happened to be convicted in death penalty states and whose lawyers failed to negotiate the many legal options that could have spared them. Prosecutors say the death penalty is a useful tool for negotiating with suspects, but an absolute penalty cannot be both fairly applied and negotiable. The death penalty is fast becoming an anachronism, the act itself fading into the past along with its discarded instruments, the noose, the firing squad, the gas chamber and the electric chair. 32 states still have death penalty statutes, but only a few have carried out regular executions since the Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976. Of the 1,407 executions since then, the great majority - 1,114 - were in the South - and more than 1/2 of those - 636 - were carried out in Texas and Oklahoma, according to the Death Penalty Information Center. North Carolina executed 43 prisoners during the period, but none since 2006. The state has 149 prisoners on death row. The erratic application of the death penalty makes it unfair and its unfairness is dangerously compounded by its finality. Wrongly convicted people could be executed and likely have been. Since the reinstatement of the death penalty, the emergence of new evidence has led to the exoneration of 152 death row inmates, 7 of them in North Carolina. The most recent exoneration came last September with the release of Henry Lee McCollum after almost 31 years on death row. McCollum said as he left prison, "You've still got innocent people on North Carolina death row. That call for help wasn't heard in the state House on Wednesday. Instead, Leo Daughtry, a Smithfield Republican and sponsor of the bill, said North Carolina should get back to executing death row inmates because the law allows it. "If we do have (the death penalty), we need to enforce the law," he said. Drop an unjust law A push impose a penalty so flawed and so serious should be based on more than "because we can." Laws are not enforced for their own sake. They are enforced because they serve justice or the public good. When a law fails to do that, it should be repealed or struck down. That is what should happen in North Carolina and has happened since 2007 in Illinois, New Jersey, New York, New Mexico, Connecticut and Maryland. Furthermore, Daughtry???s bill does not enforce the law. It changes the law so that North Carolina can more readily resume executions. The state Senate should reject this bill and, if necessary, Gov. Pat McCrory should veto it. Lives, perhaps even innocent lives, will depend on it. (source: Editorial, News & Observer) SOUTH CAROLINA: Death penalty a 'barbaric practice' I have some concerns about Frank Wooten's April 25 column. We should realize that there is no humane way to kill a human being. An execution not only brutalizes the person being executed and the people doing the killing, it brutalizes the society sponsoring it. I was particularly disturbed by Mr. Wooten's suggestion to use the killing of a human being as a fund raiser. If it was meant as a joke it was in poor taste, and if it was a serious suggestion it would be a deeply disturbing road for society to head down. Instead of bracing ourselves for more ridicule, perhaps we should consider joining the majority of civilized governments and the increasing number of states abandoning the barbaric practice of societies killing their citizens. Ron Kaz South Carolinians Abolishing the Death Penalty Flint Street Charleston (source: Letter to the Editor, Post and Courier) LOUISIANA: Community has tragic loss Our community's tragic loss of Ouachita Council on Aging's Shirley Cagle is one that will be felt for a long time. For more than 3 decades Cagle, sister of Rep. Frank Hoffmann, served countless seniors in her capacity as assistant director and a leader and innovator in the nutrition program. "Shirley was a wonderful lady. She cared about helping other people. She was up in age but she still worked and wanted to do things for other people. This is extremely sad and we will miss her but we know she is in a great place," Hoffmann said. Cagle, 85, was murdered last week in her home during an apparent robbery. Robert Nelson, 26, of Monroe, the man accused in the crime, has been indicted with 1st-degree murder. The case against Nelson will be deliberated by a jury of his peers. Because of the serious and heinous nature of this crime - a woman beaten and cut in her home over a television set, with a fire started in an attempt to cover it up - we appreciate the 4th District Attorney's Office seeking the strongest penalty possible. Assistant 4th District Attorney Neal Johnson said the DA's office hasn't decided whether the prosecution will pursue the death penalty. A 1st-degree murder conviction without the death penalty carries a life sentence. Nelson, who has other pending felony charges, was arrested by Monroe police when they responded to a burglary complaint at Fort Miro apartments on Oliver Road. Police said while they were questioning Nelson about the burglary, he confessed to killing Cagle at her Isabelle Street home, which is near Oliver Road. Sadly, we're sure Cagle would have tried to help anyone, including the person who had took her life. We appreciate the words of Janet Durden, president of United Way of Northeast Louisiana, who worked alongside Cagle for the majority of her career. "Shirley enjoyed every single day. She loved life and she loved people and she gave of herself to every person she met," Durden said. "She has been the rock at the Council on Aging for 30 plus years. She will be missed more than words can describe." (source: The editorials in this column represent the opinions of The News-Star's editorial board, composed of General Manager and Executive Editor Kathy Spurlock, Business and Politics Reporter Greg Hilburn and Education Reporter Barbara Leader.) ******************* Baton Rouge judge rules jury can hear testimony of previous abuse in trial of father accused in boy's beating death When Xzayvion Riley's father stands trial in the June 2012 beating death of the 8-year-old Baton Rouge boy, a jury will be allowed to hear about the broken leg he suffered in his father's presence 4 months earlier and about repeated punches his father is accused of delivering to him outside a day care center 2 months before he died, a judge ruled Friday. But 2 other alleged incidents of abuse, 1 dating as far back as 2008, when Xzayvion was 4, will be off-limits at Michael Robertson's 1st-degree murder trial, state District Judge Don Johnson decided. Robertson's attorneys, who pledged to appeal parts of Johnson's ruling, said in a statement the abuse claims against Robertson "are either entirely false or take accidental injuries out of context." Prosecutor Will Morris said the East Baton Rouge Parish District Attorney's Office has mixed feelings about the judge's decision and is considering an appeal. "We're generally happy with it," Morris said. Robertson, 49, and Xzayvion's mother, Lavaughn Riley, 35, are each charged with 1st-degree murder in his June 12, 2012, death. Robertson was Lavaughn Riley's boyfriend at the time. They will be tried separately. No trial dates are set. Prosecutors have yet to say if they will seek the death penalty against either Robertson or Riley. The East Baton Rouge Parish Coroner's Office classified Xzayvion's death as a homicide, finding he died of "overwhelming infection" caused by a ruptured bowel from blunt-force trauma to his abdomen. An autopsy documented 60 external signs of recent and old trauma, including abrasions, bruises and a human bite mark. Robertson has denied any involvement in his son's injuries, sheriff's officials have said. Prosecutors claim Robertson injured Xzayvion's mouth with a belt in November 2008; choked him and shoved his head into a toilet in August 2010; broke his leg in February 2012; and repeatedly punched him outside Pierson's Brilliant Minds Learning Center in April 2012. Morris has referred to the alleged incidents as an escalating pattern of abuse leading up to Xzayvion's death. Brilliant Minds Learning Center owner Evelyn Pierson testified last summer at a pretrial hearing that she saw Robertson punching Xzayvion in the parking lot of her facility in April 2012 but did not report what she witnessed. Riley also testified last year that she heard her son's leg pop in February 2012 while he tried to get away from Robertson during what she called horseplay. But Xzayvion's oldest sister testified her brother and Robertson weren't playing around when her brother tried to crawl under a bed to escape from Robertson. Johnson ruled the alleged fall 2008 incident inadmissible at trial, as well as Xzayvion's statements in 2010 that his father choked him and put his head in a toilet. But the judge said prosecutors can use as evidence Riley's statements that she held her son down in 2010 while Robertson hit him with an open hand on the stomach. Xzayvion's oldest sister told deputies that Robertson beat her brother with his fist the day before he died, an affidavit of probable cause states. Morris said prosecutors are not barred from using that evidence. After the alleged 2010 incident, a safety plan was put in place by the state Department of Children and Family Services to limit Robertson's involvement with his son, Morris has said. The plan was in place until April 2011. (source: The Advocate) From rhalperi at smu.edu Sun May 3 13:34:05 2015 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Sun, 3 May 2015 13:34:05 -0500 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----OKLA., KAN., UTAH, ARIZ., CALIF., USA Message-ID: May 3 OKLAHOMA: Death row inmate could become the 1st prisoner in US history to die by nitrogen gas A death row inmate could become the 1st American prisoner to die by nitrogen gas after he launched a case to stop another controversial lethal injection being used. Richard Glossip and 2 other prisoners who are scheduled to be executed are engaged in an appeal to the US Supreme Court against the use of the lethal injection drug Midazolam. But it is likely that Glossip's execution will still go ahead even if he wins the case because the state of Oklahoma has already made alternative plans to kill him. The drug at the heart of the case is a sedative called midazolam, which the 3 convicted murderers - Richard Glossip (pictured), John Grant and Benjamin Cole - contend is unsuitable for use in executions because it cannot achieve the level of unconsciousness required for surgery. Last month the Governor of Oklahoma signed a law that allows death row prisoners to be executed with nitrogen gas if lethal injection drugs are not available. This means that even if officials cannot use Midazolam, they can turn to nitrogen gas as an alternative. The case lodged with the Supreme Court against Midazolam came after convicted murderers - Glossip, John Grant and Benjamin Cole expressed opposition to its effectiveness. They argued that midazolam is unsuitable for use in an execution because it doesn't achieve the level of unconsciousness required for surgery. During an interview from death row in Oklahoma State Penitentiary Glossip told Sky News: 'If it's so humane then you have to explain what happened to the guy in Ohio who suffered. 'You have to explain what happened to the guy in Arizona who suffered for 2 hours. 'You have to account for (Clayton) Lockett here in Oklahoma who suffered for 45 minutes. If it's so humane why did those people suffer for so long.' Robert Dunham, the executive director of the Death Penalty Information Centre, told Sky News: 'You've got inmates who are conscious, you've got inmates who are gasping. 'One description is that an inmate was flopping around like a fish against the restraints. 'That's someone who is clearly experiencing high levels of pain and we know that the lethal drug is akin to being burned from the inside out.' But Oklahoma's Attorney General Scott Pruitt said: 'The state of Oklahoma, since the late 1970s, was the state that gave birth, gave life to the lethal injection process, as the most humane way to carry out capital punishment.' The drug has already been used in executions in Oklahoma, Florida,Ohio and Arizona. However, despite the difference in opinion, it will now be up to the justices on the Supreme Court to decide what should be done. The 9 justices will answer whether the use of midazolam violates the Constitution's Eighth Amendment prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment. Justice Elena Kagan flagged up the description that 'It's like being burned alive.' She said: 'We've actually talked about being burned at the stake, and everybody agrees that that's cruel and unusual punishment. 'So suppose that we said, we're going to burn you at the stake, but before we do, we're going to use an anaesthetic of completely unknown properties and unknown effects. 'Maybe you won't feel it, maybe you will. We just can't tell. And you think that that would be okay?' The justices will present their ruling in June but they seem deeply divided. Conservative justice Samuel Alito is known to be a staunch supporter of the death penalty. Justice Alito said: 'This Court has held that the death penalty is constitutional. Those who oppose the death penalty are free to try to persuade legislatures to abolish the death penalty. Some of those efforts have been successful. 'They're free to ask this court to overrule the death penalty. But until that occurs, is it appropriate for the judiciary to countenance what amounts to a guerrilla war against the death penalty which consists of efforts to make it impossible for the States to obtain drugs that could be used to carry out capital punishment with little, if any, pain?' The inmates are on death row after Glossip arranged for his employer to be beaten to death, Grant stabbing a correctional worker to death and Cole killed his 9-month-old daughter. (source: Daily Mail) KANSAS: Kansas court puts capital case from sheriff's death on hold Kansas' highest court has halted its review of the capital murder case stemming from a southeast Kansas sheriff's death because the U.S. Supreme Court is reviewing other death penalty cases from the state. The Kansas Supreme Court issued an order this week stopping proceedings in the case of Scott Cheever, who was sentenced to die for the 2005 shooting of Greenwood County Sheriff Matt Samuels during a drug raid. The Kansas court raised the issue itself earlier this month and said U.S. Supreme Court decisions in other state cases could apply to Cheever's case. Both the state attorney general's office and Cheever's attorney agreed in brief responses to the Kansas court that a delay was appropriate. The nation's highest court has agreed to review Kansas Supreme Court rulings last year that overturned death sentences for 3 men, Sidney Gleason and brothers Jonathan and Reginald Carr. The Carr brothers were convicted of killing 4 people in December 2000 in Wichita after committing other crimes against them and a woman who survived the ordeal. Gleason was convicted in Barton County for the February 2004 killing of Miki Martinez and Darren Wornkey in Great Bend. Martinez was a potential witness against Gleason in an earlier crime, and Wornkey was her boyfriend. The Kansas court has not upheld any death sentence since the state reinstated capital punishment in 1994, and its last legal executions, by hanging, were in 1965. The state's highest court in 2012 overturned Cheever's capital murder conviction. It said Cheever's right against self-incrimination was violated by prosecutors who used a court-ordered mental evaluation from a different trial against him. But the U.S. Supreme Court in 2013 overturned the decision, noting that Cheever's own expert raised the issue of whether methamphetamine use had damaged his brain. It ordered the Kansas court to review the case again. (source: Associated Press) - *************** Change of venue sought in F. Glenn Miller Jr. trial for Jewish center killings The battle for F. Glenn Miller Jr.'s life has begun in earnest. Attorneys for the accused killer of 3 people outside Jewish facilities in Overland Park last year on Thursday filed 21 motions as they prepare for what could be Johnson County's 1st death penalty trial in more than a decade. Among the motions is a request for a change of venue because of extensive pretrial publicity in the case. Other defense motions cover issues including how jurors should be chosen, how police collected evidence and how courtroom spectators should behave. Miller, 74, also known as Frazier Glenn Cross Jr., is scheduled to go to trial beginning Aug. 17. Attorneys have estimated that trial could last 6 weeks. He is charged with capital murder in the shooting deaths of William Corporon, Reat Underwood and Terri LaManno on April 13 last year. Corporon, 69, and Underwood, his 14-year-old grandson, were killed outside the Jewish Community Center. LaManno, 53, was killed a few minutes later outside the Village Shalom care center. Miller, an avowed white supremacist and anti-Semite from southern Missouri, has stated publicly that he was trying to kill Jews. None of his victims was Jewish. He has repeatedly stated in court hearings that he wants the opportunity to explain in open court the reasons for his actions, and one of Thursday's motions asked that he be given that chance. Capital trials are conducted in 2 phases. If a defendant is convicted in the guilt phase, a 2nd penalty phase is held to determine whether the sentence will be life in prison or death. In their motions Thursday, Miller's attorneys asked that he be given the chance to address jurors in the penalty phase without being put under oath or subject to cross-examination. The defense also is requesting that jurors not be shown gruesome crime scene photos or photos of the victims before they were killed. Another motion also seeks to have potential jurors questioned by attorneys individually. The defense also wants prosecutors to be precluded from striking potential jurors because of their religious views on the death penalty. A hearing is scheduled for May 14 to begin taking up the motions. (source: Kansas City Star) UTAH: No humane way to kill I am a Democrat social-work student from California. For as long as I can remember, I believed in the death penalty, despite all the mounting evidence that the justice system is deeply flawed. Still, I had reservations because I thought: "We need to hold on to the death penalty for people who truly are guilty." And then I read last month about Utah's reintroduction of the firing squad. Policymakers argue that it's just in case lethal injections are banned by the courts, or in case the injections are no longer available. In fact, many proponents of the law in Utah claim that a firing squad is a more "humane way" of execution. The firing squad, in order to protect capital punishment, makes the case for why the United States must end its policy. The brutality of a firing squad is inescapably "cruel and unusual punishment." We cannot continue to hold ourselves up as a just and righteous nation that fights for the rights of the marginalized and vulnerable in the world while we kill our own citizens when it fits our moral code. Suzanne Campbell Irvine, California (source: Letter to the Editor, Deseret News) ARIZONA: Taxpayers deserve to know true cost of Arias prosecution Recently, Dan Peitzmeyer of Death Penalty Alternatives for Arizona debated Maricopa County Bill Montgomery on "Arizona Horizon," a news show on KAET Channel 8. Both gentlemen did a commendable job in presenting their respective positions. However, it was disconcerting when Mr. Montgomery flippantly claimed that the total costs for prosecuting Jody Arias was merely $133,000. His assertion is grossly misleading. Mr. Montgomery previously refused to disclose how much the prosecution has cost his office, and has provided no documentation to support this $133,000 sum, despite the fact that it's public record. I urge Mr. Montgomery to allow access to the records of his office so the taxpayers can know how much of their money was spent while pursuing the death penalty (unsuccessfully for Ms. Arias), in this case. The total prosecution costs are still not in. More invoices are waiting to be submitted and the prosecutor's "paltry" sum of $133,000 was only for travel expenses and witness fees. It does not include the costs of any of the prosecution's staff as typically, each attorney is supported by an entire team of staff including investigators, paralegals, secretaries, clerks, law clerks, victim witness staff, etc. Deputy County Attorney Juan Martinez was not an army of 1 in a case that has gone on since June 4, 2008. Costs were accumulated by the County Attorney's Office throughout those 7 years. The case still is not over. Defense attorneys will appeal and the state will oppose, so costs for both sides will continue to rise. Also not included are the costs to the jail, law enforcement, courts and the 2 juries. >From a fiscal point of view, we should be thankful that Ms. Arias did not receive the death penalty, especially in light to the massive cuts in spending because of our current fiscal crisis. Had she been sentenced to death, there would have been costs to the Department of Corrections, Attorney General's Office, court-appointed attorneys for all appeals and post-conviction relief petitions, costs associated with appeals and post-conviction relief at the federal level and costs to the federal courts and costs to transport the defendant back and forth to all of the court proceedings. All of these costs would have been paid by taxpayers. The Arizona Republic estimated that Arias's defense alone cost taxpayers $3 million - twice what it is estimated it would have cost the state to lock her up without parole if she lived 60 more years (EJ Montini column, March 12, 2015). It is time that we, the taxpayers, are fully informed as to how much the imposition of the death penalty costs us. I urge citizens, county officials and the Legislature to demand that Mr. Montgomery disclose the true cost to taxpayers. It is time we have a comprehensive study to discover how much of our hard-earned dollars are going toward the dubious expenditure of seeking the death penalty. Whether you think the death penalty is morally wrong or right, the one thing that we can agree on is that these massive expenditures could be better utilized to benefit all of us, instead of being used to seek the punishment of one. (source: Commentary; Tempe attorney Chuck Laroue, Esq., is a board member for Death Penalty Alternatives for Arizona----Ahwatukee Foothill News) *********************** Man wants no restraints in his trial in Arizona girl's death Prosecutors are opposing a motion that an Arizona man charged with killing an 8-year-old Bullhead City girl be allowed to appear in civilian clothes and without restraint at all court proceedings including his trial. Mohave County officials are recommending that Justin James Rector wear a stun belt or knee brace and be accompanied by 2 uniformed jail detention officers during all trial or jury proceedings. Rector is scheduled to stand trial in October 2016 on 1st-degree murder and other charges stemming from the September 2014 strangulation of Isabella "Bella" Grogan-Cannella. Her body was found in a shallow grave near her home. Prosecutors say they plan to seek the death penalty if Rector is convicted of first-degree murder. He's also charged with kidnapping, child abuse and abandonment of a dead body. (source: Associated Press) CALIFORNIA: Mother and stepfather sentenced to death for murder of their toddler after they beat him when he was scalded in the shower; Belinda Magana, 29, was sentenced to death for 1st-degree murder, child abuse and other charges----Hey boyfriend at the time, Naresh Narine, 43, also received the death penalty A Southern California woman and her boyfriend were each given separate death sentences for beating and refusing to provide medical care for a toddler after he had been scalded by hot water. Belinda Magana, 29, broke down as she described her son Malachi, but refused to admit she had caused her son's death. 'I just wanted to say to my family and everybody else that I'm truly sorry for the part that I did,' Magana said. 'Regardless of what anybody said, I didn't kill my son.' Naresh Narine, 43, who was dating Magana at the time, was found guilty along with her back in January, with juries recommending the death penalty. Both were sentenced for 1st-degree murder, torture, mayhem and child abuse. The Press Enterprise reports that Riverside County Superior Court Judge Bernard Schwartz called the couple's actions in the days before their son's death 'repulsive and disgusting.' If Malachi hadn't been allowed to die in 2009, Schwartz noted, he'd be 7 or 8 years old and 'would have been in school, playing with friends getting ready for summer vacation.' No one spoke for Malachi during the time allotted for victim impact statements, though Senior Deputy District Attorney Daima Calhoun said 'the jury speaks for him' through their verdicts. According to court testimony, Magana was out of the home when Malachi was scalded by a hot shower. The only treatment Malachi received was some ointment rubbed on his burns. Over the next 5 days, both Narine and Magana admitted, the couple hit the toddler because he was crying. Blunt force trauma and complications from the burns were factors in the boy's eventual death. The night of his death, the couple went to Apple Valley, about an hour's drive to the north, for a party before returning the next day and burying the body near a creek. (source: Daily Mail) ************** No New Trial for RivCo Man Who Murdered Wife, 3-year-old Daughter to Collect Insurance Payout----The California Supreme Court rejected the convicted murderer's appeal this week. A Riverside man sentenced to death for murdering his wife and 3-year-old daughter to collect life insurance proceeds on them will not get a new trial, the California Supreme Court ruled unanimously this week. Kim Raymond Kopatz, 60, was convicted in March 2001 of slaying 35-year- old Mary Kopatz and his youngest daughter, Carley. The same jury that found him guilty of 2 counts of 1st-degree murder with special circumstance allegations of taking multiple lives in the same crime and killing for financial gain recommended the death penalty for Kopatz, and a Riverside County Superior Court judge affirmed the recommendation. In his appeal, the defendant argued that the evidence given against him during his trial and penalty proceedings had a "cumulative prejudicial effect" that warranted a reversal of his conviction and sentence. Kopatz cited an interview with detectives a few hours after the victims??? bodies were discovered, arguing he should have received an advisement of his rights prior to sitting down with the 2 investigators. However, the Supreme Court found the nature of the question-and-answer session was informal and not a "custodial interrogation," thus not establishing grounds for a Miranda warning. Kopatz also argued that a witness' testimony about her now-deceased husband's statements regarding seeing Kopatz -- who insisted that he had never left his property -- walking around the morning of the murders was hearsay that should never have been admitted as evidence. The justices were not persuaded, noting the witness gave the same testimony during a preliminary hearing at which he appeared shortly before his death. The defendant decried the fact the victim impact statements given during the penalty phase of his trial were "so excessive and prejudicial that it resulted in a trial that was fundamentally unfair," according to the court's narrative. 7 of Mary Kopatz's relatives testified, describing how much they missed her and Carley and the pain they had endured after the murders. "The family members??? testimony properly explained the nature of their relationship with the 2 victims, the immediate effects of the murders and the residual and continuing impact of the (killings) on their lives," Justice Ming Chin wrote. The defense argued the Kopatz jury had been misdirected on the use of verdict forms, which contained several errors. The justices acknowledged one "technical" error, but noted it created a superfluity -- not a violation of the defendant's rights. The court also rejected the defendant's contention that the death penalty violates "humanity and decency" to the point it should not be applied. According to court papers, by April 1999, Kopatz had maxed out his credit cards, accruing $117,883 in debt playing the stock and commodities markets. The stay-at-home dad had plundered the family's bank accounts and was desperate for money. Life insurance policies on his wife and youngest daughter totaled $800,000, according to the court's narrative. On the morning of April 22, the defendant strangled Mary and Carley Kopatz in the family's single-story home in the 9100 block of Garfield Street. He dumped their bodies in his van and partially disrobed Mary Kopatz to make the crime appear to be a random sexual assault, robbery-murder that occurred while the woman and child were running errands. Kopatz parked the vehicle about a mile from his house. The bodies were discovered the same day, and following a weeks-long investigation, Kopatz was arrested and charged, according to court papers. (source: patch.com) USA: Is Oklahoma's use of lethal injection cruel and unusual? The U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments Wednesday in a case challenging the use of the lethal injection in the United States, following a number of botched executions. Lawyers for 3 death-row inmates in Oklahoma argued that the state's 3-drug protocol for executions violates constitutional bans on cruel and unusual punishment. The protocol includes the potentially unreliable sedative midazolam. Midazolam was used in the controversial execution of Oklahoma inmate Clayton Lockett in 2014. Lockett's execution took more than 40 minutes. Although he was sedated, Lockett's body writhed and he breathed heavily during the execution. Lockett eventually died of a heart attack. Midazolam was also used in 2 other prolonged executions last year in Ohio and Arizona in which prisoners appeared to suffer. Justice Elena Kagan asked Oklahoma officials May 29 during the arguments in Glossip v. Gross how they could justify using midazolam, which has not been proven to protect inmates from feeling the effects of the potassium chloride, which she described as "being burned alive from the inside." "So suppose that we said, we're going to burn you at the stake, but before we do, we're going to use an anesthetic of completely unknown properties and unknown effects," Kagan said. "Maybe you won't feel it; maybe you will. We just can't tell. And you think that would be okay?" Justice Samuel Alito countered that Oklahoma and other states have been forced to use midazolam because opponents of the death penalty have pressured drug companies to not produce or sell more reliable sedatives. "Let's be honest about what's going on here," Alito said. "Executions can be carried out painlessly ... is it appropriate for the judiciary to countenance what amounts to a guerilla war against the death penalty?" The Supreme Court last took up the issue of lethal injection in 2008. In that case, Baze v. Reese, the court ruled that the standard 3-drug protocol did not violate constitutional bans on cruel and unusual punishment. However, the court clarified that the 1st drug in any protocol must prevent inmates from experiencing the intense pain cause by the second and third drugs. The standard protocol approved in 2008 included sodium thiopental rather than midazolam. Archbishop Paul Coakley of Oklahoma City reaffirmed his opposition to the death penalty in comments to CNA May 1. "We don't end the cycle of violence by committing more violence," Archbishop Coakley said. "In all of these crimes, we lost a life, and the death penalty only serves to further devalue human dignity. When available, we should choose other non-lethal ways to ensure justice and protect society." When the court announced plans in January to re-examine lethal injection protocol, Cardinal Sean O'Malley of Boston prayed that "the court's review of these protocols will lead to the recognition that institutionalized practices of violence against any person erode reverence for the sanctity of every human life." "Capital punishment must end," said Cardinal O'Malley, who is also the head of the U.S. bishops' pro-life activities committee. Archbishop Thomas Wenski, who leads the U.S. bishops' committee on domestic justice said the execution at the center of Glossip and Gross reveals "how the use of the death penalty devalues human life and diminishes respect for human dignity." Pope Francis has also called for the abolishment of all forms of the death penalty. There are several possible outcomes to Glossip v. Gross. The court could send the case back to the district court for re-evaluation, or issue a ban on midazolam or clearer guidelines for lethal injection. The Supreme Court had already issued, on Jan. 28, a stay of execution for the plaintiffs in the case, pending its final outcome. In light of the controversy over the use of midazolam, several states are revisiting other methods of execution, including the electric chair, firing squad, or gas chamber. In March, Utah adopted a law legalizing a 5-person firing squad as the official back-up method of execution for the state, should it be unable to obtain the 3 drugs necessary for lethal injection. (source: The Catholic World Report) From rhalperi at smu.edu Sun May 3 13:34:46 2015 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Sun, 3 May 2015 13:34:46 -0500 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide Message-ID: May 3 NIGERIA: Death sentence not the best deterrent for drug trafficking - Lawyers Some Nigerian lawyers have joined the discourse on the recent execution of drug traffickers sentenced to death in Indonesia. Offering his views, activist lawyer, Festus Keyamo, opined that the death sentence should be discouraged, arguing that it is not the best way to curtail drug trafficking. "All over the world, many countries are doing away with capital punishments. They are not making death sentence as a punishment for any offence at all. I don't believe taking away people's life is a sure deterrent to other people committing the same offence. I believe death sentence should be reversed all over the world. It should be for a crime like terrorism, not drug trafficking," Keyamo said. Rather than imposing death sentence recommended that an offender should be given life sentence without parole. "By that, I mean, you will never be released from jail. At least, your relatives can still fly in to wherever you are to see you, maybe once in 6 months or so." On his part, another legal practitioner, Shina Loremikan, agreed with Keyamo that world is shifting from the death sentence. His word: "Scientifically, we have seen that death penalty has not reduced any crime that it is supposed to address. The sanction of death penalty only makes the potential offender to be more skillful and creative, knowing well that if caught, the penalty is death. Whereas, if the penalty for drug trafficking is reduced to life in jail, potential offenders are not likely to commit the offence, knowing that they would spend a whole lifetime in jail. Amnesty International that has been a frontrunner for human rights promotion for almost three to four decades have been pushing against the position of death penalties. "The prerogative is borne out of the fact that if by chance the wrong person is tried and convicted, he may have died when we later find out that he never committed that offence or that there was an error in the judgment imposed on him. So, it will be good for the society if death penalties are removed from the law books of nations." He, however, suggested that a longer jail term like 25 years imprisonment or even a life imprisonment would be better and more effective than death. "If the person committing the offence is of the average age of 30-35 years, by the time you give the person a 25-year jail term, it is like you are saying that his entire life should be spent in prison custody, and that will be more painful to him," Loremikan said. (source: sunnewsonline.com) INDONESIA: Drug smuggling Redcar gran vows to look executioners in the eye and sing Perry Como's Magic Moments A grandmother who is facing a firing squad has vowed to look the gunmen right in the eye before she is shot. Lindsay Sandiford, originally from Redcar, revealed she has started writing goodbye letters to her family, having run out of time and money to seek a reprieve. The 58-year-old former legal secretary has been on death row in Indonesia for more than two years after her conviction in December 2012 of smuggling 1.6m pounds worth of cocaine into Bali. In a moving statement written for The Mail on Sunday, she told how she would like to see her granddaughter, who was born after her incarceration, "but at the same time I feel it would be better if she doesn't know me". Ms Sandiford, who lived in Cheltenham before moving to India for 2 years, was writing after the execution last week of 8 convicted drug smugglers, including 2 Australians, 1 of whom was a close friend. She revealed that she plans to reject any offer of a blindfold as they did and sing the light-hearted song 'Magic Moments'. "The executions have forced me to think about how I am going to handle the situation when my own time comes. I won't wear a blindfold. It's not because I'm brave but because I don't want to hide - I want them to look at me when they shoot me. "I'll sing too, but not Amazing Grace (sung by her friend Andrew Chan). I'll sing Magic Moments by Perry Como. I had a boyfriend who used to change the lyrics of songs and play them on his Hammond organ to make me laugh. That was one of the songs he sang and it reminds me of those long-ago days." She also told of her decision not to see see her two-year-old granddaughter and to ask her family not to attend her execution. Explaining she didn't want the "macabre circus" of the media photographing her grieving family, she added: "I long to see her (her granddaughter) and to hold her, but at the same time I feel it would be better if she doesn't know me. When she grows up, I want her to know I wasn't bad person." She added that the only chance to avoid execution was to file for a 'pk' hearing, effectively a full retrial. However she doesn't have the money to fund it. The Supreme Court in London recommended the Government consider funding her appeal, but Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond refused. A Facebook campaign has been set up in an attempt to raise the cash. Ms Sandiford, said she was now the only death row prisoner left in Kerobokan prison and the Indonesian authorities want all executions for drug offences carried out by the end of the year. She admitted the drug smuggling offences, but claimed she was coerced by threats to her son's life, and has since appealed against her sentence without success. Her evidence helped secure the arrest of Julian Ponder, believed to be a major figure in a drugs syndicate who has since been convicted for drug trafficking. However, Ponder was not given the death penalty. (source: The Northern Echo) ************* When mercy has to take a back seat The island of Nusakambangan was the centre of attention last Tuesday as the long drawn out battle to save 8 convicted drug traffickers from execution in Indonesia finally came to an end. On one side was the Indonesian government bent on carrying out the execution as stipulated in the country's law while on the other side was the countries from which some of the traffickers came from, family members of the condemned prisoners and those who oppose death sentence. The pleas and demands, some of which bordered on threats, to spare the lives of the 2 Australians, 4 Africans, 1 Brazilian, 1 Filipina and an Indonesian on death row were of no avail. Why did Indonesia turned a deaf ear to all the entreaties to call off the executions despite the expected diplomatic fallout and revulsion they would bring? President Joko Widodo must have faced a lot of pressure with so many people pleading for mercy for the convicted prisoners and giving very sound reasons to spare their lives. In the midst of hand wringing and breast beating over the impending deaths of the prisoners, many lost sight of the fact that more was at stake than showing mercy to the drugs traffickers. Much as Joko Widodo would have liked to ace to the pleas of mercy, he had no alternative because stepping back would have compromised the sovereignty of the nation. It was not about Indonesia showing its strength to the world or Joko Widodo playing the tough guy to prove his mettle to his people. It was about upholding and implementing the law of the country especially when the drug traffickers already knew the consequence if they were caught and convicted. Everyone flying to Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore and several other countries in the region are amply warned about the death sentence for drug trafficking. Those caught have decided that the reward for smuggling drugs was worth taking this mortal risk and should be prepared to accept the price of being caught. However, those who were proven to have been duped into carrying the drugs should be and were usually spared the gallows or firing squad. Filipina Mary Jane Veloso was spared from facing the firing squad on this ground as a friend claimed at the 11th hour that she tricked Mary Jane into carrying the suitcase which contained the drugs. However, Indonesian Attorney General Muhammad Prasetyo warned that Mary Jane's reprieve was subject to the verification of her friend's confession. While it is a valid caveat on the reprieve as this could be ruse to save her, the world is hoping that it is true that this mother whose sons met her before her aborted execution was indeed a naive woman tricked into smuggling the drugs. The penalty for drug trafficking in Malaysia is also death penalty and this brings up the question of what would our government do if it were to face the same pressure from foreign countries to spare the lives of their citizens convicted of drugs trafficking in our country. Like Joko Widodo, our prime minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak would have to stand firm on the court's decision as buckling under foreign pressure would cast a long shadow over the nation's sovereignty. Condemning a person to death is a difficult decision and carrying out the sentence is made more difficult especially in the face of an international appeal for clemency. Alas, for the 7 who were executed their fate was sealed not by the Indonesian court but their decision to get into the lucrative but dangerous business of drug trafficking. The silver lining in the dark cloud of the execution of the 7 traffickers was their transformation from merchants of death to good citizens while in the death row. They went to their death singing praises to God and faced the firing squad without blindfolds. They might not have received the mercy they pleaded for in this world but dying as repentant sinners they will receive mercy from the God they turned to. (source: Editorial, The Borneo Post) ********************** Myuran Sukumaran could have fled Indonesia but chose to try to save others Myuran Sukumaran was tipped off about the arrest of the 4 Bali 9 mules and could have fled the country, but chose to return to a hotel where fellow Bali 9 members were waiting in an attempt to save the 2 men. According to information never revealed previously, the third in command of the Bali 9, Tan Duc Thanh Nguyen, has recalled "the greatest and most special moment that I will always remember about Myu is something no one will know". He says Sukumaran, executed last week by an Indonesian firing squad, acted selflessly to save fellow drug smugglers Si Yi Chen and Matthew Norman. "I wanna share something with all of you. In memory of Myu," Nguyen wrote in a message that was shared on Facebook. His fondest memory, said Nyguyen, was not something Sukumaran did in jail, or his art. "[It was] the fact that he cared and worried about the rest. Calm and collected. This is what I will always remember about him," Nguyen wrote. "Myu could of panicked and left the country." The revelation comes as the Australian Federal Police, which has been widely criticised for tipping off Indonesian police with information leading to the arrests in Bali and knowingly exposing the Bali nine to the death penalty, will hold a press conference on Monday. Commissioner Andrew Colvin, Deputy Commissioner Mike Phelan and Deputy Commissioner Leanne Close will discuss the AFP's work during the Bali 9 investigation. They will also discuss the AFP's guidelines in relation to death penalty matters in 2005 and the procedures the organisation operates under today. Nguyen told Fairfax Media he and Sukumaran were at Bluefin, a Japanese fusion restaurant in Kuta, the day of their arrest on April 17, 2005. Sukumaran was tipped off about the arrests of Martin Stephens, Renae Lawrence, Scott Rush and Michael Czugaj, the couriers for the Bali 9 syndicate who were apprehended at Bali's Ngurah Rai International Airport with heroin strapped to their bodies. "There is a reason why code system are used. To alert if something goes wrong and flee the country," Nguyen wrote. "Myu didn't pack up and left the country. No. He went back to the hotel where the other 2 were waiting. Moved them somewhere else, and telling them the most important thing at the moment was getting them out of the country safely. Calming them down and be aware [sic] what's happening." Of all the Bali 9, Sukumaran had the best chance of escaping after their operation had been compromised. He had been under surveillance by the Indonesian authorities but they did not know his name. He was known only to Indonesian police as "the black one" or "the negro". I Nyoman Gatra, an Indonesian police intelligence officer who led a surveillance operation after the tip-off from the AFP, told the Denpasar District Court in 2005 that Sukumaran had not been listed on an AFP alert letter sent on April 8 about a week before the Bali 9 were arrested. "At first I thought he was a bodyguard," he said at the time. Sukumaran, Nguyen, Chen and Norman were arrested the night of May 17, 2005, at the Melasti Beach Bungalows in Bali. Sukumaran wasn't actually in the room at the Melasti when it was raided by police, as has been previously reported. He was outside standing guard and was pushed into the room when the police stormed the hotel. Police discovered rucksacks containing 334 grams of heroin and a bag of pepper, to put sniffer dogs off the scent. Andrew Chan was arrested the same day on an Australian Airlines flight about to depart for Australia. He had no drugs in his possession but several mobile phones. Sukumaran and Chan were executed at 12.25am on April 29. Nguyen, who is serving life imprisonment in a jail in Malang, East Java, told Fairfax Media that after he wrote about what had happened he felt so much better. "I can finally let go now." (source: Sydney Morning Herald) AUSTRALIA: Australian federal police to break silence over role in Bali 9 executions ---- Pressure mounts on AFP to explain tip-off to Indonesia about Bali 9 drug smugglers as Labor says Australia needs to push for global end to death penalty The Australian federal police (AFP) leadership team will break their silence on Monday over the force's role in the Bali 9's arrest in Indonesia. The AFP commissioner, Andrew Colvin, and deputy commissioners Mike Phelan and Leanne Close will face the media in Canberra to discuss the organisation's work on the investigation, which led to the execution of Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran last week. The Labor leader, Bill Shorten, told reporters on Sunday his party's focus would be on pushing more firmly for an end to the death penalty in all countries. Pressure has been mounting on the AFP to explain its role in tipping off Indonesia about the Bali 9 drug-smuggling operation in 2005. Colvin will also discuss the AFP???s guidelines in relation to matters subject to the death penalty as they stood in 2005 and now. The federal government has said police are still taking the death penalty into account before tipping off foreign agencies about suspected Australian criminals, in line with guidelines Labor issued in 2009. Shorten said the AFP should be allowed to offer an explanation without speculation in advance. "I'm not going to start second-guessing the AFP, we'll wait and see what they have to say," he said in Melbourne. "It has barely been a few days since those dreadful executions took place and again, my first thoughts are with the families and friends, and the people who worked so hard to keep these 2 young men alive. "Labor stands opposed to the death penalty, wherever it occurs, and we are certainly determined to do more in the future to use Australia's diplomatic capital and our capacity in the world to help persuade all the nations that use the death penalty to reconsider that. "This was a futile death of 2 men who had rehabilitated themselves by all accounts. It achieved nothing, and I think if we are to be fair dinkum in the future, we need to talk not just to Indonesia, but we need to talk about opposing the death penalty internationally." The social services minister, Scott Morrison, told the Bolt Report's Andrew Bolt the relationship with Indonesia had been strained by the executions, but was still fundamentally strong. "I think we need to move through this issue," he said. "It won't be business as usual for some time and we understand how we all feel about this. "But the engagement under the surface which keeps the wheels turning in these relationships, I have no doubt is going to continue to turn." (source: The Guardian) ***************** Bali 9: Philip Ruddock calls for countries to abolish death penalty in wake of Andrew Chan, Myuran Sukumaran executions Former attorney-general Philip Ruddock says he is reaching out to other countries in an effort to abolish the death penalty. Bali 9 ringleaders Andrew Chan, 31, and Myuran Sukumaran, 34, were executed along with 6 others by firing squad on the prison island of Nusakambangan early on Wednesday morning. The 2 men were sentenced to death for their parts in a plot to smuggle 8 kilograms of heroin into Australia. Mr Ruddock said he had written to the high commissioners and ambassadors of all the countries whose nationals were executed in Indonesia. "[I wrote] to invite them to work with us in relation to the way in which we can constructively deal with these issues," he said. He said the discussion on capital punishment needed to start with the United States. "If the leading country in the world which we relate to still maintains executions, it's very hard to argue with Iran, China, Saudi Arabia who are the other countries that do execute, in some cases, thousands of people," Mr Ruddock said. Mr Ruddock said the greatest crime deterrent was the prospect of detention, not death. "The death penalty has long been known, through a lot of research that's been done by criminologists and the like, as having no effective deterrent value," he said. "It seems to me that part of the advocacy has to be informing people - if you want to do something about criminal activity, you really need to raise the effectiveness of your law enforcement." Mr Ruddock said he hoped the deaths of Chan and Sukumaran were not in vain. He said he had invited the parliamentary library to put together information for Australian delegations on how countries they visited implemented the death penalty. The issue of the death penalty had been successfully discussed with Vietnam in the past, Mr Ruddock said. "After I had [raised the issue] with Vietnam, they took away some of the offences for which execution could be sought," he said. However he did not agree with comments last week from Agriculture Minister Barnaby Joyce that a "discussion" about the death penalty was needed in Australia. Mr Joyce had said many of his constituents supported capital punishment. Saying he was "startled" by such sentiments, Mr Joyce said "the discussion we're having about others, we should also be carrying out domestically". Mr Ruddock said he would assist Mr Joyce with advice in approaching those arguments, but said research showed the death penalty had no deterrent value. (source: Radio Australia) ************************ Canberra should not rush to aid of overseas offenders I have lost a son to heroin, and thousands of others' lives have been ruined by this and other illicit drugs. I commend the AFP for ensuring that these smugglers were caught, and suggest it is high time we reconsidered the level of support offered to Australian citizens who offend overseas. Those who breach their obligations as Australian citizens should not expect the support of the Australian state. We have a policy of this type for jihadist activity; drug-smuggling merits at least similar treatment. David Barker, Bunbury, WA As an Australian working in Jakarta, I find calls to scale back co-operation with Indonesia frustrating and dangerous. A large number of extremists will be released from Indonesian prisons in the near future. Despite rehabilitation programs in Indonesian jails, it's a fair bet many of them will re-emerge unrepentant. Australia and Indonesia need each other now more than ever. We need our ambassador back here now. Lives may depend on it. Anthony Murphy, South Jakarta, Indonesia I oppose the death penalty but, following the executions in Indonesia, one issue remains largely undiscussed: capital punishment as deterrent. Views have been mixed on this matter and many criminologists argue that it???s not. It will be interesting to see whether potential drug-runners are dissuaded by recent events. And, if they should try nonetheless, what our reaction might then be. Greg Cary, The Gap, Qld Many people die tragically and needlessly but are soon forgotten. These two drug-smugglers, who no doubt knew that Indonesia had the death penalty, carried out their crime and would have peddled misery and death to many fellow Australians if they had succeeded. The outcry has been long and loud and now the Australian Catholic University is going to offer scholarships in commemoration of the pair. Many souls will be forgotten quickly but these will be commemorated. The relativity escapes me. Jim Vagne, Moggill, Qld As well as being right, ("We can't impose our value system", 2-3/5) Janet Albrechtsen could have mentioned that it is 800 years since the signing of the Magna Carta. Australia has only had 31 years since the death penalty was abolished and 48 years since it was last used here. Indonesia is a relatively new independent country. It is not helped by a noisy minority of Australians getting on their high horse and claiming to know what is right for everyone else in the world. Mike O'Brian, Mandurah, WA Isn't it time we stopped focusing on the executed drug runners? They knew what they were doing, what the laws of Indonesia are. To hold vigils and spend pages in newspapers and time on television is just trying to make heroes out of criminals who were certainly bad examples to show our children. Tessa Surany, Rose Bay North, NSW The ACU's decision to establish scholarships as part of some campaign against the death penalty is misconceived and likely to be counter-productive. It casts doubt over the sincerity of Australia's opposition to the drugs trade. Furthermore, the commonwealth funds places at the university. In any future case where an Australian government tries to persuade an Asian country that while Australia opposes the death penalty, its opposition to the drugs trade is total, its argument will be undermined by the fact that a university it funds provides scholarships recognising 2 heroin-smugglers. When politics and populism become not the means of achieving and promoting your objectives but the objective itself, right and wrong get lost. They most certainly have at the ACU. Philip Walker, Red Hill, ACT As an ordinary citizen and a Catholic, I abhor the death penalty, but I cannot fathom why anybody would want scholarships to commemorate these 2 misguided men. What next, the Tony Mokbel and Carl Williams scholarships for travel or sophisticated distribution networks? Abbott is correct. It is odd to say the least. Let the families mourn in peace. Patrick Franklin, Wishart, Qld (source: Opinions; The Ausdtralian) IRAN: Fate of 6 Kurdish activists sentenced to death by Iran unclear Families of 6 Kurdish activists who were sentenced to death in Iran for alleged links to outlawed Kurdish parties say authorities have not provided them with details about the fate of their loved ones since the activists were found guilty in February on charges of "enmity against God" and "corruption on Earth." Saman Nasim, Habib and Ali Afshari, Sirwan Nazhawi, Ibrahim Isapour and Younus Aqaiyan were relocated from Urumiyeh Sate Prison in March where they had been in custody after they were jailed over 4 years ago. Authorities have refused to disclose where the prisoners have been taken. "We should have been given at least a death certificate so that we can pronounce them dead," said one of the family members who wished to remain anonymous. "Authorities have kept us in the dark and it's painful." The family of activists Habib and Ali Afshari say intelligence officers in the city of Mahabad told them the 2 men had been hanged, but did not provide death certificates. Relatives of Sirwan Nizhawi and Ibrahi Isapour told Rudaw they know the 2 have been relocated to Tabriz. 1 of the convicted activists, Saman Nasim, was sentenced to death at the age of just 17 accused of being a member of a Kurdish organization. Nasim, now 22, told Amnesty International last year he had confessed under "prolonged torture." (source: rudaw.net) EGYPT: Freedom & Justice Party makes oral submissions to African Commission on Egyptian mass death penalties. Lawyers representing President Mohamed Morsi's Freedom and Justice Party were granted a private hearing by the African Commission to make submissions on the concerns over the imposition of mass death sentences in Egypt. Presenting arguments today in Banjul, the Gambia, on behalf of the FJP, Counsel Rodney Dixon Q.C. addressed the Commission, during its 56th Ordinary Session, on the serious violations of international law in Egypt since the coup. Leading British human rights lawyer, Tayab Ali, who advises the FJPs international legal team, supported submissions at the hearing. The Commission has previously issued Provisional Measures against the use of mass death sentences in Egypt. However, these Measures have been wilfully ignored by the Egyptian regime. In March 2015, Egypt executed Mr Mahmoud Ramadan despite the African Commission ordering the regime to suspend his execution a matter of days before it took place. Today's proceedings were held in private, between the parties and the Commission. However, as the lawyers have consistently stated in their public submissions, the Commission has been urged to take immediate and decisive action to halt the imposition of death penalties and for the Egyptian justice system to uphold fundamental human rights guarantees. Concerns about the imposition of mass death sentences in Egypt are gathering pace internationally. Leading human rights' organisations, such as Reprieve, have also presented arguments to the Commission and the African Union High Level Panel for Egypt has recommended the Commission to undertake a fact-finding mission to Egypt. After the hearing, Rodney Dixon Q.C. said "this is a ground-breaking moment in accountability for the Egyptian people. The African Commission have heard our submissions on behalf of those languishing in the most appalling prison conditions and facing the ultimate penalty following trials that fell far below internationally recognised standards. We have faith that the Commission will take all necessary steps to protect the well-being and, indeed, the lives of the thousands who remain detained in Egypt." Tayab Ali, who advises the FJP international legal team, said, "the African Commission is the last hope for justice for hundreds of Egyptians who have done nothing more than wanting a democratic Egypt. We are grateful to the African Commission for intervening in these cases and imposing interim measures. This is not an appeal in respect of an isolated death sentence; this is a part of a widespread and systemic imposition of capital punishment in order to quell peaceful democratic opposition. The judicial system is being used to prop up serious acts of state repression and the African Commission must continue to hold Egypt to account." The African Charter established the African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights. The Commission's Secretariat is located in Banjul, The Gambia. The Commission is officially charged with the protection of human and peoples' rights; the promotion of human and peoples' rights; and the interpretation of the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights. (source: Middle East Monitor) GLOBAL: Will we ponder the death penalty? It's one of those time-wasting questions that would be good for a long car trip, when I Spy gets too boring but you want to keep conversation clean enough for your Nan to play along, too. As human beings in 2015, what aspects of our lives today will we reflect on in the future with befuddlement and awe? There's the obvious stuff and actually it's fun to get Nan going because she'll remember some perfectly ridiculous examples from only a few years back. She might recall the way sportspeople used to smoke cigarettes in the half-time break or when a trip to Australia took 10 days at sea. She might bring up domestic life before Fisher & Paykel or when it wasn't altogether alarming to see a Prime Minister drunk on TV. You'll counter with some modern examples of stuff that will soon seem totally absurd: sleeve tattoos and those earlobe-stretching piercings, paddle boarding, Robin Thicke singles and bikini waxes for all (Don't act so naive, Nan). The conversation might turn deep. After discussing low-riding jeans, capital gains taxes (or lack thereof) and gluten freedom, you'll turn to more pressing examples about fossil fuels and carbon dioxide. "Nan, won't it seem absolutely absurd that once upon a time we actually burned coal?" And maybe this week if you were playing the game and were looking to the news for inspiration, you'd offer up an even darker example: maybe one day it won't be acceptable for any government to punish its criminals by putting them to death. Maybe Indonesia will change its laws. Saudi Arabia, too. Maybe America and the other 30-odd countries that "actively" practise the ultimate punishment might grow uncomfortable with just how primal, medieval, how grossly animalian state-ordered execution really is. Would we look back at capital punishment with bewilderment? The same way we question nowadays how anyone ever thought the world was flat? Probably not. Because for all our fashions and advances, politics and growth and change, in some departments we really haven't progressed in tens of thousands of years. Depressing, that. (source: Jack Tame; New Zealand Herald) From rhalperi at smu.edu Mon May 4 09:56:58 2015 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Mon, 4 May 2015 09:56:58 -0500 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----PENN., VA., N.C., FLA., LA., USA Message-ID: May 4 PENNSYLVANIA: Death penalty trial set for man in girlfriend's slaying Opening statements were expected Monday in the death penalty trial of a western Pennsylvania man charged in the stabbing death of his estranged girlfriend more than 3 years ago. 26-year-old Jordan Clemons, of Pittsburgh, is charged in Washington County in the death of 21-year-old Karissa Kunco. Her body was found in a wooded area of Mount Pleasant Township in January 2012 a day after Kunco's family reported her missing. (source: Associated Press) VIRGINIA: Death sentences, executions in Virginia since 1998 The death penalty has been on the decline in Virginia and nationally. The numbers of death sentences, followed by the number of executions annually in Virginia since 1998: -- 1998: Death sentences, 9. Executions, 13. -- 1999: Death sentences, 7. Executions, 14. -- 2000: Death sentences, 8. Executions, 8. -- 2001: Death sentences, 4. Executions, 2. -- 2002: Death sentences, 3. Executions, 4. -- 2003: Death sentences, 6. Executions, 2. -- 2004: Death sentences, 2. Executions, 5. -- 2005: Death sentences, 1. Executions, 0. -- 2006: Death sentences, 2. Executions, 4. -- 2007: Death sentences, 1. Executions, 0. -- 2008: Death sentences, 0. Executions, 4. -- 2009: Death sentences, 1. Executions, 3. -- 2010: Death sentences, 0. Executions, 3. -- 2011: Death sentences, 2. Executions, 1. -- 2012: Death sentences, 0. Executions, 0. -- 2013: Death sentences, 0. Executions, 1. -- 2014: Death sentences, 0. Executions, 0. [source: Death Penalty Information Center] (source: Post Bulletin) NORTH CAROLINA: Legislative roundup: Bill aims to clear hurdle for executions A Gaston County killer's more than 2-decade stay on death row demonstrates why North Carolina needs to resume executions, House Speaker Tim Moore told colleagues last week. House members were debating a plan to expand the list of medical professionals who could monitor a state execution when the Kings Mountain Republican told fellow House members about David Lynch's 2 1991 murders in Gaston County. Lynch, now 55, fatally shot 12-year-old India Anderson and her father, Bobby Anderson, and wounded several others that December morning. The Andersons were Lynch's neighbors, and he complained that the children would play on his grass and that the adults played loud music and had parties. Moore said he brought up Lynch's case because it occurred near his home county of Cleveland. Lynch's case also represents the brutal nature of many death penalty cases where surviving family members are still waiting on justice, Moore said. "That's such an example of a person who committed a murder in 1991, and there are no questions as to whether he's guilty or innocent, and he still has not been executed," Moore said. "The only reason he killed her was she stepped on his grass. That's just horrible." A jury rejected an insanity defense from Lynch and sentenced him to death in 1993. North Carolina taxpayers pay almost $35,000 a year to house him in prison, Moore said. House Republicans want North Carolina to resume executions after an almost 9-year hiatus. Litigation over execution protocol halted executions in North Carolina. Physician groups across the nation have been discouraging their members from participating in executions. The bill passed by House members would allow physician assistants, nurse practitioners, registered nurses and emergency medical technicians to monitor executions. A physician would still have to be nearby to pronounce time of death. "Those were the issues that needed to be addressed for executions to resume," Moore said. Area lawmakers, all Republican, voted for the measure. Those members are Reps. Dana Bumgardner, Kelly Hastings, Moore, Jason Saine and John Torbett. The bill passed 84-33 and now goes to the Senate. Opponents called the measure unwise. Rep. Gale Adcock, D-Wake, a family nurse practitioner, said it was wrong to shift the responsibility to other medical professionals who are also members of groups with ethical codes that oppose taking lives. Her amendment to remove several of the medical professionals from the list was defeated. North Carolina has 149 people on death row, including 6 from Gaston County. (source: Gaston Gazette) FLORIDA: Woman on death row wants new trial in kidnapping disabled couple, burying them alive The only white woman on Florida's death row will ask the Florida Supreme Court to throw out her conviction and death sentence this week for robbing, kidnapping and burying a disabled Jacksonville couple alive. Lawyers for Tiffany Cole, 33, will argue the attorneys who represented her during her criminal trial in Jacksonville were ineffective. Cole was convicted of 2 counts of 1st-degree murder, armed robbery and kidnapping. A jury recommended death by a 9-3 vote and Circuit Judge Michael Weatherby concurred. Cole was 1 of 4 people who kidnapped Carol and Reggie Sumner, both 61, from their St. Nicholas home in 2005 and drove them to Charlton County, Ga., where they were buried alive. Michael James Jackson, 27, the mastermind of the murder plot, and Cole's boyfriend, Alan Lyndell Wade, 27, are also on death row. A 4th participant, 27-year-old Bruce Nixon, testified against the others and was sentenced to 45 years in prison for 2nd-degree murder. They were arrested in Charleston, S.C., a week after the Sumners disappeared. Police found Jackson with the couple's ATM cards and personal information. In court filings attorney Wayne Henderson, who's representing Cole on appeal, argues that defense lawyers Quentin Till and Greg Messore did a poor job during both the criminal trial and the sentencing phase of Cole's case. Oral arguments in Cole's appeal will occur Thursday. Henderson argued that Till, the lead lawyer, expected to reach a plea deal for Cole and was unprepared for trial when Cole rejected the state's offer. Cole didn't believe she was guilty of 1st-degree murder because she didn't personally kill the Sumners, saying that she did not "bury the bodies and therefore was not guilty." But under Florida law someone who participates in a crime can be found equally culpable for a murder even if they didn't pull the trigger or directly cause the death. Henderson also argues that Messore, who handled the penalty phase, was unprepared because he didn't join the case until a month before Cole's trial began and was only properly certified to be a lawyer in death-penalty cases days before Cole's trial began. "Cole's appointed trial counsel was ineffective in both the guilt and penalty phases for failing to adequately investigate her background and psychological deficiency in order to show that she was under extreme duress and effectively under the control of her co-defendants during the time of the offense," Henderson said. "Had trial counsel sufficiently investigated Cole's psychological makeup and history, they would have discovered that Cole does not interact well with men and is generally fearful, intimidated and willing to please." Till and Messore never investigated Cole's mental-health or dysfunctional family history and substance-abuse problems. During the penalty phase, the jury heard nothing about Cole's low intelligence level and mental health. Cole was an abused child who started running away at 12. She left home as a teenager and turned to drugs and prostitution, Henderson said. Cole's lawyers also didn't object to evidence that had been seized in the case or make a motion to suppress statements Cole made after she was arrested. Till has acknowledged that he made a tactical decision to use Cole's statements because he believed they supported their contention that she was a minor participant in the crime and a good person who got caught up with bad men. But a large amount of the information introduced at trial, including that the Sumners' strongbox was found in Cole's car, hurt Cole and letting it in had no strategic benefit, Henderson said. But prosecutors respond by saying that Till and Messore put on a solid defense. Assistant Deputy Attorney General Carolyn Snurkowski, in filings to the Supreme Court, argues that Till did look into Cole???s mental health but decided the best defense would be to portray Cole as a non-violent good person who exhibited aberrant behavior after getting involved with Jackson. Till believed that bringing out the bad parts of Cole's life would not help her with the jury and preferred they not know that she???d been a prostitute and dealt drugs, Snurkowski said. During a hearing to throw out the conviction, Till also testified that the strategy in the guilt phase was to show that Cole's participation was marginal, she was not involved in the killings and didn't know that the Sumners were going to be killed. Till also said during that hearing that Cole had admitted to him that she had a bigger role in the kidnapping and murder than she'd previously said, Snurkowski said. Till and Messore could not be reached for comment. The Florida Supreme Court previously affirmed Cole's death sentence in 2010. It did disagree with Weatherby's finding that Cole's behavior in the killing was especially heinous, atrocious and cruel because Cole didn't bury them alive herself, but the court found that error didn't justify setting aside the conviction or death sentence. This 2nd appeal occurred after Henderson moved to throw out the original conviction, and Weatherby denied the motion. Cole was the only 1 of the 4 who knew the Sumners. At one point the couple were friends and neighbors with Cole's father in South Carolina, and they had sold a car to Cole and told her she was welcome at their house if she was ever in Jacksonville. The plan to rob and murder the Sumners evolved from knowledge Cole had about the couple. There are 394 people on death row and 5 of them are women. 2 women are black and the other 2 are Hispanic. It is unclear how long it will take the Supreme Court to rule on Cole's appeal. But death-penalty appeals usually take months to decide after oral arguments occur. (source: Florida Times-Union) LOUISIANA: Judge: Man convicted in child's death not mentally disabled A state judge has ruled that a Ragley man convicted in 2004 of raping and murdering a young girl from Moss Bluff does not have an intellectual disability that would prohibit him from being executed. The American Press (http://bit.ly/1DQfKa6 ) reports Judge Michael Canady ruled Friday that 40-year-old Jason Manuel Reeves is not mentally disabled. In 2012, Canaday signed a death warrant for Reeves, who was convicted of the November 2001 rape and killing of 4-year-old Mary Jean Thigpen. A scheduled execution date was postponed after attorneys filed an appeal claiming Reeves had an intellectual disability. Federal law prohibits the state from carrying out the death penalty against convicts with a mental disability. (source: WHLT news) USA: 87 Reasons To Rethink the Death Penalty Stanley Griffin was deemed intellectually disabled when he was 16. He scored an abysmal 65 on an IQ test, which put him among the lowest 1 % of Americans in terms of his intellectual capacity. (An average score is 100.) He was spelling and doing math on a 3rd-grade level. His school designated him mentally retarded and put him in special ed. He even competed in the Special Olympics. Out of 100 prisoners put to death recently, only 13 met the threshold for "extreme culpability," legal researchers concluded. As Griffin grew older, he had trouble finding and holding any job. It took him seven tries to finally pass the test required to drive a semi truck, and when no one would hire him even then, he resorted to manual labor. But his contractor brother wouldn't let Griffin use power tools because he couldn't manage them properly; Griffin was oblivious to danger, too, and would walk dangerously close to the backhoe. He tried, and failed, to master simple plumbing - even a Denny's application proved overwhelming. His mental deficiencies left him unable to live alone, pay bills, or even purchase his own clothing because he would get so flummoxed by the math. Somewhere along the way, Griffin began getting into trouble and having run-ins with the law. In 1990, at age 25, he was tried and convicted for burglary and aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, and sentenced to 20 years in prison. He served 12, but things only went downhill after his release. He ended up homeless, and finally, in 2012, Griffin was convicted of strangling to death 29-year-old Jennifer Hailey in College Station, Texas, and violently assaulting her 9-year-old son, who had witnessed her murder. He was tried and found guilty. The prosecutor asked for the death penalty and the jury obliged. There is little question Griffin should have been locked away. At the same time, he should never have been a candidate for the death penalty. The Supreme Court has twice ruled that it is unconstitutional to execute people who are intellectually disabled - a polite alternative to "mentally retarded" - regardless of the nature of their crimes. Their "diminished capacities," the court further noted, made such defendants far less likely to be deterred by the threat of death, which is one of the few remaining justifications for capital punishment. Intellectual disability is just one of several mitigating factors that, at least in theory, are supposed to spare people from execution. The death penalty, the Supreme Court has noted, is intended for the worst of the worst - offenders more depraved than your average murderer, who have what the courts call "extreme culpability." This is precisely why capital trials have a separate sentencing phase. At this trial within a trial, jurors are asked to weigh evidence that might counterbalance the heinousness of the crime, in particular intellectual disability, severe mental illness, horrific trauma, and simply youth - the Supreme Court in 2005 imposed a blanket ban on the execution of anyone who was under 18 at the time of his crime - before deciding whether to impose the ultimate penalty. In the sentencing phase for Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, for example, his lawyers argued that he was essentially just a kid in the thrall of his charismatic ringleader brother. The files are full of stories of men brutally beaten, threatened with guns, abandoned, or raped by parents and neighbors and caretakers. This setup was meant to ensure the American ideal of individualized punishment - that the consequences suit the particular circumstances of the case. And yet death row is crowded with people whose cases include several of these mitigating factors. The authors of a study published last year in the Hastings Law Journal took a closer look at the most recent 100 executions (as of June 2013) to determine whether any of those defendants might have been spared in accordance with the law. As it turned out, the overwhelming majority met one or more of the criteria: 1/3 of the executed prisoners had a documented intellectual disability, borderline intellectual functioning, or a traumatic brain injury - and 8 scored below 70 on an IQ test, a level of disability that should exempt a defendant from execution. Four were 18 at the time of their crimes. Although the Supreme Court has twice ruled that states may not execute someone who is insane, 54 of the 100 executions studied involved prisoners who showed symptoms of severe mental illness, including 6 cases of schizophrenia, 3 of bipolar disorder, and 8 of PTSD. 6 had tried to kill themselves at least once. Fully 1/2 of the condemned prisoners had histories of severe childhood trauma. Some had witnessed the murders of loved ones. One had shot his father to protect his mother from the man's brutal abuse. Another man's violent history even traced all the way back to Pancho Villa, whose bandits had killed his great-grandfather and kidnapped his grandfather during the Mexican revolution. The files are full of stories about men who were fed alcohol as toddlers, beaten brutally as children, shot at by stepfathers, abandoned by psychotic or drug-addicted parents, sexually abused - in some cases raped and sodomized - by parents and neighbors and caretakers. One teen was forcibly circumcised by a sadistic group-home leader and gang raped by the others. The details of these cases make for painful reading, but they go a long way toward helping explain what makes someone a killer. After taking all of the evidence into account, the Hastings authors concluded that just 13 of the 100 people executed met the legal definition of "extreme culpability." Why, then, were the other 87 sentenced to death and ultimately killed by the state? One of the primary explanations for errant executions is simply bad lawyering. Judges have let a surprising number of capital defendants represent themselves at trial - an almost certain ticket to death row. But even with a court-appointed lawyer, the quality of the representation is, more often than not, pretty horrendous. And to later prove that a lawyer's ineffective counsel led to a death penalty, well, the bar is extremely high. Local courts have handed complex death penalty cases to attorneys who have never defended one. Defense lawyers have slept through portions of a client's capital trial, been drunk on the job (see this extreme case), missed critical deadlines, and otherwise proved incompetent. And whether due to laziness or incompetence or ridiculous caseloads or a combination of those things, all too many defenders fail to adequately scour a client's past for details that might persuade a juror to show mercy. Often, the mitigating details aren't presented until "it's too damn late," says one legal expert. As a result, the mitigating details often don't get presented until far along in the appeals process. "But then it's too damn late," says Robert Smith, an assistant law professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and coauthor of the Hastings Law Journal article. (Consider the case of Cecil Clayton, a prisoner recently executed by the state of Missouri, never mind that he was actually missing part of his brain.) The best time to keep someone off death row is before he's sentenced - if not earlier. "If you build a good mitigation case, you don't go to trial," Smith notes. Which is not to say it's a slam dunk. Far from it. Raising mitigating evidence at trial can be a dicey business. The problem, says Maurie Levin, a veteran death penalty attorney, is that juries (and many lawyers) believe "the choice between life and death is only about the crime." Mitigation evidence is about "who this person is, that there's a capacity for empathy, and any reason for the jury to think that this person is not the worst of the worst," Levin says. "The true concept of mitigation has to be separated out from questions of culpability or explaining the crime." Virtually the only question truly at issue in the trial of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, who was found guilty on all counts, is whether he deserves to die. If the prosecutor hadn't been so keen on pushing for the death penalty, Tsarnaev would likely have accepted a plea of life without parole in a Colorado supermax. But because the case went to trial, the defense strategy became all about humanizing him and convincing jurors he was just along for the ride with his brother. But juries sometimes hear mitigating evidence and conclude that it makes the death penalty more appropriate, not less. For example, in the case that led the Supreme Court to ban the death penalty for juveniles, the trial prosecutor argued that Christopher Simmons, who was 17 at the time of his crime, was a prime candidate for death precisely because he was young. "Think about age," he told the jury. "Seventeen years old. Isn't that scary? Doesn't that scare you? Mitigating? Quite the contrary, I submit. Quite the contrary." Research shows that when a capital defendant pleads insanity and loses, he's far more likely to get the death penalty. This double-edged sword is particularly sharp in cases involving mental illness. Decades of research show that when a capital defendant pleads not guilty by reason of insanity and is subsequently found guilty, he is far more likely to get a death sentence. In an essay on the subject, Christopher Slobogin, a law professor at Vanderbilt University, referenced a study showing that a failed insanity defense is an even better predictor of whether someone will be sentenced to death than whether the defendant had a criminal history or had committed another crime alongside the killing. "Research shows that people think an insanity defense is for malingerers," Slobogin told me. Jurors, he says, also tend to view mentally ill defendants as scarier than sane criminals - which makes them more likely to vote for death. This is perhaps one reason the insanity defense is so rarely invoked. 1 large study across 8 states found that just 1 % of felony defendants used it - and only about 1 in 4 of them succeeded. Many states don't even allow the insanity defense these days - 4 have abolished it, and others have changed the sentencing option from "not guilty by reason of insanity" to "guilty but insane." The latter, Slobogin says, is an attempt to discourage the notion that a person can escape responsibility for their actions on account of severe mental illness. Without the insanity option, legal scholars have argued, mentally ill defendants may be more likely to land on death row, where the ACLU estimates that up to 10 % of the residents struggle with severe mental illness. A "guilty but mentally ill" plea certainly didn't do much for James McVay, a South Dakota man sentenced to death last May for killing a woman as part of his delusional plan to assassinate President Obama. He hanged himself in his cell about four months later. Some states employ procedural roadblocks that make it almost impossible for a defendant's lawyers to prove he is intellectually disabled. While the legal definition of insanity is a narrow one, the Supreme Court has made a categorical exemption for people with intellectual disabilities. If a criminal has an IQ of around 70 or less, particularly when that disability was apparent since he was a kid, he isn't supposed to be sentenced to death in the first place. But defendants like Stanley Griffin routinely end up on death row anyway. Slobogin suggests this is partially because the high court let states choose how to implement its rulings, and some states employ procedural roadblocks that make it almost impossible for a defendant's lawyers to prove he is intellectually disabled. Among other procedural hurdles, some states make defendants wait until the sentencing phase of the trial to raise claims of intellectual disability. That's problematic, because a juror may use details from the guilt-or-innocence phase - about the planning of a crime, for instance - to draw conclusions about the defendant's mental fitness before all of the evidence is presented. The Supreme Court doesn't seem too inclined to fix the problem, in any case. Justice Scalia indicated as much this past week, when he said he didn't plan on reading the voluminous trial record in a case before the court on precisely this issue. Making matters worse, research suggests that jurors expect people with low IQs to come across as more impaired - think Sean Penn in the movie I am Sam - than they often do. So when a mentally disabled defendant appears relatively normal, jurors may be disinclined to believe the evidence. Beyond abolishing capital punishment, there is one reform that's been proven to help defendants with strong mitigating factors avoid death row: providing them with experienced, decently paid lawyers. Consider what happened in Virginia recently. Back in 1998, juries there handed down nine death sentences, but in four of the past five years, they handed down zero. What changed? Virginia was once infamous for having some of the country's worst capital defense lawyers - little surprise, since the courts only paid them about $13 an hour. In 2003, though, state officials set up regional offices to provide capital defendants with meaningful representation. Virginia has saved millions by giving capital defendants lawyers who actually know what they're doing. The move came not long after Virginia's governor was forced to pardon Earl Washington, a man with an IQ of 69, who had spent 17 years on death row for a crime he didn't commit. The state was ordered to pay Washington nearly $2 million in compensation - about what it would cost to fund the capital defense offices for a year. The new offices are staffed with specialized lawyers, mitigation experts, and investigators tasked with digging up the sort of information that can help keep people off death row. The state Supreme Court predicted that they would end up saving Virginia about $2.8 million a year. Indeed, the number of new death sentences dropped from 6 to 2 in a single year, and has not exceeded that since. Only 8 people remain on Virginia's death row today. It's a sign that the state may finally be on track to execute only the worst of the worst, thus respecting the constitutional imperative that the ultimate punishment is reserved for the rare case that truly warrants it. (source: Mother Jones) ***************** Pace of death sentences slows, even in capital punishment strongholds A Virginia prosecutor has opted not to seek the death penalty for a man accused of abducting and killing a local university student, a notable decision in "a state that once operated one of the busiest execution chambers in the nation," according to The Washington Post. The event represents a larger movement away from capital punishment, which has seen a steady drop across the states in the last 2 decades in response to declining rates of violence and a growing reliance on sentences for life in prison without the possibility of parole. "New death sentences in the US reached their lowest level in 40 years, the start of the death penalty's modern era," the Death Penalty Information Center reported at the end of last year. "The number of executions has declined in 11 of the past 15 years." In Virginia, where Jesse Matthew, Jr. has been charged with 1st-degree murder in the death of Hannah Graham, 5 people have been executed since 2010, compared to 16 of the previous 6 years. Virginia has 8 people currently on death row, but no executions are scheduled. Experts attribute the decline in large part to the state-funded capital defender offices, whose staff is devoted to death penalty cases, established in Virginia in 2004. "In the past, an awful lot of people who ended up on death row had abysmal representation," Steve Northup, a lawyer and former executive director of Virginians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty, told the Post. "Prosecutors were able to take advantage. Now prosecutors know capital defendants are going to be well represented." But Virginia is not alone. In 2014, only 3 states - Texas, Missouri, and Oklahoma - were responsible for 80 % of all executions in the country. And even in Texas, the number of new death sentences has fallen by more than 3/4 since it peaked at 48 in 1999. Part of the reason has to do with the decline in violent crime, the LA Times reported: In 2013, murder was down by about 40 % compared to 1990. Life sentences without the option of parole are also becoming the preferred option among jurors, according to the Times: In the 1980s and beyond, jurors often said they decided in favor of a death sentence because they feared a murderer who was sentenced to "life in prison" would be released on parole in a decade or 3. But since the 1990s, every state has allowed for life terms in prison with no possibility of parole. Faced with that option, many jurors vote for a life sentence rather than death. Public opinion has also begun to shift against capital punishment: While majority of Americans still favor the death penalty for people convicted of murder, the number is down to 56 % from 78 % 20 years ago, according to a recent Pew Research Center survey. Despite the ongoing shift in perception, capital punishment is far from its final breaths. In the face of a shortage of the drugs needed to make the cocktail used for lethal injections - a shortage that in recent years has led to botched executions - death penalty states such as Tennessee and Utah have reinstated the option to use the electric chair and firing squad as alternate methods of execution. Still, being sentenced to die has increasingly become a punishment of last resort. "In years past, you would sometimes see death sentences for simple cases of robbery-murder. You don't see that much any more," Kent Scheidegger, counsel for the Criminal Justice Legal Foundation in Sacramento, told the LA Times. "When you read of a new death sentence being rendered today, it is typically for a particularly horrific murder, which is exactly how the system is supposed to work." (source: Christian Science Monitor) From rhalperi at smu.edu Mon May 4 09:57:39 2015 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Mon, 4 May 2015 09:57:39 -0500 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide Message-ID: May 4 INDONESIA: Family of Brazilian executed in Indonesia campaign for pardon ---- Rodrigo Gularte, who was diagnosed with schizophrenia and did not realise he was to be shot until appearing before firing squad, is buried in home country The Brazilian man executed in Indonesia last week is due to be buried in his home country, as his family launch a campaign to have him posthumously pardoned on the grounds of mental health problems. Rodrigo Gularte, who was twice diagnosed with schizophrenia, only realised he was about to be shot minutes before he stood before the firing squad. According to the priest who administered his last rites, he was hearing voices in his empty cell and asked at the last "Am I being executed?...That's not right." He reportedly declared that he would be resurrected 10 days after his death. His family and friends, who will attend a funeral mass in Curitiba on Sunday, told the Guardian the signs of mental instability were apparent from before Gularte's adolescence. Juliana Gularte said her cousin had been diagnosed firstly with cerebral dysrhythmia, which made him particularly impulsive, from the age of 10. 6 years later, when he was sent to a rehabilitation centre as a result of drug and alcohol abuse, doctors discovered he had bipolar disorder. "They wanted to put him on medication, but he refused. He never liked that," she said. He was twice been hospitalised for drug abuse and dropped out of 3 college courses. Marcelo Penayo, a friend, said Gularte exhibited strong mood swings. "He would switch between moments of euphoria, going to the beach, going surfing, always inviting everyone to come along. Then he would sometimes become very introspective and sad, even when he was among friends and with his girlfriend," he said. His condition and his drug abuse reportedly worsened after his parents' divorce, though his mother tried to help by buying him a restaurant. The family claim international drug smugglers took advantage of Gularte's recklessness to persuade him to act as a mule while he was on a trip to Asia. But he was also remembered for his loyalty and courage. In 2004, when he and 3 friends were caught with 6kg of cocaine concealed in their surfboards, Gularte claimed full responsibility which allowed his friends to go free. In prison, Gularte attempted suicide. His behaviour was so erratic that other inmates reportedly refused to share a cell with him. When his behaviour worsened 3 years ago, relatives hired psychiatrists to examine his mental condition. They diagnosed paranoid schizophrenia with delusions and hallucinations and recommended he be transferred to a psychiatric hospital. Indonesia's attorney general rejected this and ordered a 2nd opinion from police doctors but the report of their findings has never been made public, prompting accusations of a lack of transparency. Gularte's mother said her son had lost 15kg in the weeks leading up to his execution, when he was prone to talking to the walls and hearing voices. One of the last people to see him, Leonardo Monteiro, charge d'affaires of the Brazilisn embassy in Jakarta said the convict alternated between lucidity and delirium, declaring the execution mere "theatre and fiction." Father Charlie Burrows, a priest who ministers to prisoners on death row in Cilacap, said he had tried unsuccessfully for 3 days to explain to Gularte that he was about to die. It was only when guards took the condemned to the execution yard that he realised. "He's lost because he's a schizophrenic. He asked if there was a sniper outside ready to shoot him, and I said no, and whether somebody would shoot him in the car, and I said no," Burrows said. His killing continues to prompt outrage in Brazil, where the death penalty was abolished more than 100 years ago. The head of the Chamber of Deputies, Eduardo Cunha called it "absurd" and said Brazil should implement retaliatory measures against Indonesia. Brazilian president Dilma Rousseff has warned the execution - the 2nd of a Brazilian national this year - would have a serious impact on relations. Human Rights Watch and Amnesty have condemned Indonesia's actions. Gularte's relatives say the fight is not over. "What the family and friends who are out in Jakarta are going to do now is continue the process to prove that he was mentally ill and that the authorities were wrong," said his cousin Juliana Gularte. (source: The Guardian) ******************** Plans to scrap death penalty still in infancy: AGO Attorney General M Prasetyo said on Monday that a proposed plan to abolish the death penalty was still only at the discussion stage, following a proposal from several legislators to have it scrapped in the upcoming revision of the Criminal Code (KUHP). "It's still far too early to discuss it. There is a proposal, but we haven't discussed it yet," said Prasetyo. The House of Representatives has included the revision of the KUHP in this year's priority programs. International demands for Indonesia to abolish the death penalty have intensified following 2 rounds of executions of drug convicts since January. The 1st-round consisted of 6 inmates from Indonesia, Vietnam, Brazil, the Netherlands, Nigeria and Malawi. The 2nd batch comprised 8 citizens of Indonesia, Australia, Nigeria, Ghana and Brazil (source: Jakarta Post) ********************** Abolition of death penalty just a proposal, Indonesian attorney general says in report Indonesia will not scrap the death penalty any time soon despite a proposal by some of its lawmakers to abolish it during a review of the country's criminal code, Indonesia's attorney general said. According to a Jakarta Post report, Attorney General M Prasetyo said it "is still far too early to discuss" lifting the death penalty in Indonesia. "There is a proposal, but we haven't discussed it yet," Prasetyo also said. International pressure on Indonesia to scrap the death penalty has been mounting after it executed 8 convicts, including foreign nationals, last month. It has executed 14 convicts since January. Mary Jane Veloso, the Filipino sentenced to death over a drug case, was spared from execution at the last minute after the illegal recruiter who allegedly tricked her into transporting 2.6 kilograms of heroin turned herself over to police in Nueva Ecija province on April 28. Hours before she was scheduled to be executed, President Benigno Aquino III talked to Indonesia's foreign minister about the need to turn Veloso into a witness against the drug syndicate that she says tricked her into becoming a drug mule. A Malacanang spokesperson said Monday that the Philippine government is already working with Indonesia to build a case against the drug syndicate. Despite that, Justice Secretary Leila de Lima said on Monday that the government will not press Indonesia to allow Veloso to come back to the Philippines to testify against her alleged recruiter Christine Pasadilla, alias Kristina Sergio, and others. (source: GMA news) AUSTRALIA: Bali 9 executions highlight Australia's hypocrisy on the death penalty Australia is up in arms over Indonesia's execution of the Bali 9 pair Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran. And rightly so: the death penalty is abhorrent and must be abolished. Australia agreed to this long ago: we abolished it in 1973. My thoughts and sympathy are with the families of the 2 Australians executed on Wednesday. I cannot imagine how I would feel if it had been one of my brothers. Australia is right to raise an objection - and right to exercise diplomatic protection over Australians in trouble abroad. Both Prime Minister Tony Abbott and Opposition Leader Bill Shorten, typically, unanimously, expressed their outrage. We even withdrew our ambassador to Indonesia in protest. But if only Australia's outrage at the death penalty (that is, execution after due process) was principled and consistent, that is, it extended to our friends and allied nations like the United States, which executed 35 people last year alone. And if only Australia's outrage at the death penalty was directed at Indonesia's execution of West Papuans? without due process. Hundreds of thousands of West Papuans? have been murdered by Indonesia's security services. Without the benefit of legal defence or their day in court, West Papuans? are killed on mere suspicion or, worse, for simply expressing a political opinion. Headlines about the execution of the Bali 9 pair screamed that Jokowi? has blood on his hands - but we only care if it's Australian blood. No one seems to care when it's our Fuzzy Wuzzy Angel friends and Anzac allies just 300 kilometres north of our shores. If we, as Australians, are opposed to the death penalty, shouldn't we also be outraged about the fact that Australia is accused of providing financial, operational and forensic assistance to Indonesian "death squads" in West Papua? As the ABC has reported, an elite counter-terrorism unit called Detachment 88, funded and equipped by Australia, has been involved in tortures and killings in West Papua as part of operations by the Indonesian authorities to stamp out the West Papuan? independence movement and assassinate its leaders. The simple fact is: we are against the death penalty in Indonesia when it's applied to our citizens with due process. We will even recall our ambassador in protest to make sure voters at home know this and see that objection. But we aren't against Indonesians killing West Papuans? without any due process. In fact, we will help Indonesia to kill them by providing training and support to their "death squads" - and our ambassador will be celebrated in Jakarta for it. At least, when he is allowed to go back. If we, as Australians, are so outraged about the death penalty, shouldn't we be conducting an inquiry about the role of our own police in tipping off Indonesian authorities about the Bali 9, when they were fully aware of the consequences under Indonesian law, as one AFP police chiefs admitted in a 2006 interview? And if we, as Australians, were really against the death penalty and actually cared about governments putting people to death ??? in Indonesia or elsewhere - we would oppose it, whether it was with due process or (worse) without it. And we certainly wouldn't let our police or our overseas aid budget support it. (source: Jennifer Robinson is an Australian human rights lawyer; Sydney Morning Herald) ***************** A diplomatic mission to abolish the death penalty would be a fitting response to executions Indonesia's executions of Myuran Sukumaran and Andrew Chan, along with 6 other drug convicts, have thrown light on what George Orwell called "the unspeakable wrongness of cutting a life short when it is in full tide". Many Australians are heartsick and furious at President Joko Widodo's approach to this case. Significant damage has been done to the relationship between Australia and Indonesia. No doubt there is more to come. However, the Australian government should channel some of its anger in a constructive direction. Sukumaran and Chan are now lost to their families and friends, but the qualities they discovered in themselves in their years in Kerobokan prison could animate a new Australian initiative of lasting benefit. Our government should signal that abolition of the death penalty is an Australian diplomatic priority, and devise a strategy to advance the issue. We should aim to become a leader in the international movement against the death penalty. This initiative should be guided by the principles of effectiveness and prudence. The issuing of condemnations and the raising of sanctions would damage our interests without, in all likelihood, saving a single life. Instead we should look for creative new approaches to nudge the world towards abolition. We should start with our own region. Asia is where we do most of our diplomatic and commercial business. It also contains the world's worst offenders when it comes to the death penalty. Last year China executed thousands of people, far more than the rest of the world combined. We don't even know exactly how many people the Chinese authorities executed. It is a state secret. Half a dozen other Asian states, including several ASEAN members, carried out executions in 2014. However, there is good news to go with the bad. Progress towards abolition is being made: 140 countries have abolished the death penalty in law or practice. In the past 20 years, 40 countries have abolished the death penalty for all crimes. 5 Asian states have abolished it in the past quarter of a century: Cambodia, Nepal, Timor-Leste, Bhutan and the Philippines. If we are to focus on reducing the use of the death penalty in Asia, then we must make common cause with abolitionist Asian states. Australia cannot win this fight alone. Our government should initiate a regional coalition of Asian states opposed to the death penalty. There are several ways to structure the coalition's work, none of them absolutist in tone. We should avoid slogans and focus on practical, achievable gains. We may decide, for example, to focus our resources on de facto abolitionist countries such as Sri Lanka and try to move them towards formal abolition. There are other strategies we could employ, all of them more nuanced than simply demanding universal abolition. For example, the regional coalition could encourage retentionist countries to restrict the type of offences for which capital punishment is imposed; announce a moratorium on executions as part of a move towards abolition; abolish mandatory death penalties; release comprehensive official statistics about their use of the death penalty; guarantee that death sentences will not be carried out on children, pregnant women, or the insane; and institute safeguards to protect the rights of those on death row - for example the right not to be executed pending a legal appeal. Governments should also consider appointing a high-level advisory body composed of eminent citizens of their countries. This group would provide gravitas to the exercise and cover for their governments. Working harder to close death row - rather than just to get Australians off it - would be the right thing to do. It would also be the smart thing to do. At the moment we are open to accusations of special pleading. It is entirely appropriate that Australia prioritises the welfare of its own citizens. Foreign Minister Julie Bishop has been indefatigable in her efforts on behalf of the Bali 2 and deserves credit for that. But if we are loud when it comes to Australians and quiet when it comes to everyone else, then we undermine our credibility and effectiveness. The better position from which to petition foreign governments on behalf of our nationals is one of active, not declaratory, opposition to the death penalty regardless of the nationality of the condemned. Such a stance would enable the government to deal with the issue positively and continually, rather than negatively and sporadically. It would increase the momentum towards universal prohibition and shield us from claims of hypocrisy. Australia has an activist diplomatic history and some experience in building regional constituencies for particular initiatives. A new push against capital punishment would be hard, grinding work, but it would be in the best traditions of principled Australian diplomacy. Myuran Sukumaran, Andrew Chan and their fellow inmates died on Nusakambangan island in the middle of the night, in darkness. But perhaps something positive - a tiny ray of light - can escape from "Execution Island" after all. (source: Commentary; Dr Michael Fullilove is executive director of the Lowy Institute for International Policy----Canberra Times) *********************************** AFP's Bali 9 actions 'imported death penalty into Australia' ---- Barrister who tipped off Australian federal police says 'there's no sufficient answer' to why AFP told Indonesian counterparts about Bali 9's plans Australian federal police imported the death penalty into Australia when they arranged for the Bali9 to be arrested in Indonesia, the barrister who tipped them off said. Bob Myers said the AFP had all the evidence they needed to arrest the 9 before they left Australia on a heroin smuggling mission. Instead, it let them travel to Bali and then told Indonesian police about the crime they were about to commit, Myers said. Bali 9 ringleaders Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran were executed because the AFP betrayed its obligation not to expose Australians to the death penalty, he said. "They effectively imported the death penalty into Australian law by acting they way they did," Myers told ABC radio on Monday. The AFP commissioner Andrew Colvin is due to face the media later on Monday to discuss the organisation's role in the Bali Nine arrests. But Myers said he would not get an answer to the question he really wants posed: Why? "There's not an answer. They're going to try and say 'to curry favour with the Indonesians, cooperation in terms of security and terrorism, alternatively sending a message to other young Australian kids'. Not one of those is a sufficient answer," he said. Myers said that when he went to Bali in the wake of the arrests a decade ago, AFP officer Paul Hunniford, who was the AFP???s senior liaison officer in Bali at the time, told him it was "virtually inevitable that one or more of them was going to die". The barrister said he regarded the AFP as effectively being the author of the men's death warrants. It was Hunniford who wrote to Indonesian police to provide the Bali 9's names, passport numbers, and details of what they were planning. "If there is a suspicion that ... the couriers are carrying the illegal narcotics at the time of their departure, please take whatever action that you consider necessary," the letter to Indonesian police said. Myers is a friend of the Bali 9 drug courier Scott Rush, who is serving a life sentence for his role in the heroin ring. Myers tipped off the AFP about the drug plot, after his friend, Scott Rush's father Lee, called him, desperate for help to head off a crime he feared his son was about to commit. (source: The Guardian) ******************** Oz Police Unapologetic Over Bali 9 Tip-Off ---- Australia's police chief defends the decision to alert Indonesia about smugglers - 2 of whom have since been executed. Australian police have refused to apologise for telling Indonesia about the Bali 9 - despite knowing they could face the death penalty. The 9 Australian drug smugglers were arrested on the resort island of Bali in 2005 over their involvement with a syndicate taking drugs to Sydney. Last week, 2 members of the so-called Bali 9 - Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran - were killed by a firing squad despite pleas for mercy from Australia. The 7 others are serving lengthy prison sentences in Indonesia. Since the arrests a decade ago, there has been widespread criticism of the police decision to ask Indonesia for help - knowing the country has the death penalty for drug offences - rather than arrest the mules on their return to Australia. The commissioner of the Australian Federal Police (AFP), Andrew Colvin, says he regrets the men have been executed but does not believe he owes their families an apology. "We can't apologise for the role that we have to try to stop illicit drugs from coming into this community," he told an hour-long news conference to explain the AFP's role in the arrests. Federal Police deputy commissioner Mike Phelan - who gave approval for the information to be given to the Indonesians - says he "agonised for 10 years" over the tip-off. But he says he was driven by a desire to stop the syndicate. "To let them come back through to Australia, we may have grabbed a couple of mules, but we would not have been able to have any evidence in relation to the wider syndicate," he said. Mr Phelan admitted the decision was made with the knowledge that Australians could face the death penalty. "Yes, I knew full well by handing over the information and requesting surveillance, if they found them in possession of drugs they'd take action and expose them to the death penalty," he said. "And every time I look back, I still think it's a difficult decision, but given what I knew at that particular time and what our officers knew, I would take a lot of convincing to make a different decision." It has long been reported that the Australian investigation was originally triggered by a tip-off from the father of Scott Rush, 1 of the Bali 9 serving a life sentence. But Mr Colvin has denied this, saying the information given by Rush's family made no difference to the investigation. "I want to take the pressure off Scott Rush's father," he said. The commissioner claims police had already been looking into the syndicate, but did not have enough evidence to make any arrests prior to their departure for Indonesia. "I can assure you that if we had enough information to arrest the Bali 9 before they left Australia, we would've done just that," he said. Mr Colvin also said the police guidelines on dealing with countries with the death penalty have been strengthened since 2005. They now require officers to consider the risk of the death penalty at a much earlier stage in investigations. But he added: "We cannot limit our co-operation just to those countries that have a similar judicial system or similar policies to that of our own." (source: Sky news) ************************ Bali 9 executions: Key questions and answers from the Australian Federal Police The following is an edited transcript of some of the questions directed at commissioner Andrew Colvin and deputy commissioners Michael Phelan and Leanne Close. Q) Would you have changed anything about the way that the AFP conducted the operations, and you mentioned at that the families were in your thoughts. Do you think the AFP owes them an apology? A) No, I don't believe we owe them an apology. It's a very difficult question. I mean, we can't apologise for the role that we have to try to stop illicit drugs from coming into this community. We've said many times that illicit drugs are destroying families and our communities. In answer to your first question, would I have changed anything? I said we regret that the Indonesian government went through to the executions. - Andrew Colvin Q) If Australians give you information on transnational crime, it could still end up in an execution? A) I'd love to give you a guarantee that that won't happen. We don't know where the information will go. We don't know who is involved, what the drugs are, it's easy in hindsight to look back. When you have the picture the jigsaw is a lot easier to put together but when all you have is pieces it's very difficult to gut together. - Andrew Colvin Q) Given what you now know - that it resulted in those executions - would you act in exactly the same way in terms of your relationship with the Indonesians? A) I can't give you an ironclad yes or no, because each situation is different. You must understand that investigations start from seed information and we don't always know where they will go. In this case, it helped us identify a broader syndicate. It helped us take out a broader syndicate. It helped protect Australia from future importations and that's a difficult truth of the matter. - Andrew Colvin Q) Which way do you believe your agency would go faced with an identical set of circumstances today? A) Faced with an identical set of circumstances and the guideline that we have now, I believe that our investigators would need to take into account a number of different factors. They may well not choose to go down the same path they did in 2005 but I can't get into the mind of every investigator and know everything that they're thinking. - Andrew Colvin Q) You think it's likely though the outcome would be different? A) I believe it's likely but I cannot give you a firm answer one way or the other because every circumstance is different. - Andrew Colvin Q) If Australians today believe we have information about transnational crime or drugs, why would they give that information to you if they're concerned about it but are also concerned that giving information to the Australia Federal Police could lead to an Australian being executed overseas? A) Let's put this in context. This was 10 years ago. The AFP conducts thousands of these investigations each and every day. Our job is to combat transnational crime. We need the community to work with us. They do work very well with us. Out there in the community there is a great deal of support for the AFP and its work in this field. - Andrew Colvin Q) Are you completely satisfied with the new guideline on AFP cooperation with countries that have the death penalty? A) Am I completely satisfied? Yes. I think the guideline is appropriate. I think the guideline is good. The guideline was reformed and it should have been. It took into account circumstances that needed to be taken to account. I think the guideline is appropriate. In terms of should it be changed in relation to the events of last week - as tragic as those events were, and they were tragic - that doesn't change the facts from 10 years ago. The guideline was reviewed. Justice Finn made some very strong comments quite appropriately about what he believed the guidelines needed to include and that's been done. There is no new circumstances as a result of the executions. Other than the fact that the Indonesian government saw fit to go through with the executions. - Andrew Colvin Q) Since the new guidelines in 2009, have there have been specific instances where the AFP has opted not to cooperate? A) Yes, absolutely. Each and every day and we report these numbers to Parliament, our investigations take us down paths where we deal with countries that have the death penalty. - Andrew Colvin In the last three years, we've had more than 250 requests in relation to matters that may involve the death penalty guidelines. Of those, we've not approved about 15 that haven't gone forward in terms of exchange of information. - Leanne Close Q) Can you take us into your state of mind further at the time on the issue of the death penalty, how serious was this as an issue for you at the time? How did you test it, weigh up the benefits and the cons? A) These are difficult decisions. I agonised over it at the time. As a matter of fact when the first decision was made to hand over information to the Indonesians by lower level officers I stopped it because I wanted to have a full briefing on everything that was happening at the time... to have as much information as I could to authorise the activity. - Michael Phelan Q) Are there cases out there that you haven't solved because of the concerns about not passing on information that might lead to someone being executed A) Absolutely. On instances where our investigators have appropriately made the decision not to share information, we're obviously in the dark. Sharing that information may have illuminated certain parts of a syndicate. That's the reality of the situation. We have a strong objection to the death penalty. The AFP takes it seriously. (source: Sydney Morning Herald) *************** Death penalty fears leave crims at large Australian authorities have been stopped from pursuing a high-level criminal in Asia over fears the foreign national will face the death penalty if information is shared. As the Commonwealth faces questioning over how it protects Australians overseas from capital punishment, details of a case have emerged showing it also treads cautiously when it comes to foreigners. Sources have told AAP the Commonwealth in the past year knocked back an extradition application from NSW Police to bring the suspected criminal to Australia after he fled to Asia. The man, who is not an Australian citizen, has continued his criminal exploits overseas leaving authorities' hands tied and unable to intervene. The extradition application was rejected because of fears the overseas government couldn't guarantee the man wouldn't be arrested, prosecuted and in turn face the death penalty, a source with knowledge of the case said. In some countries, governments can prosecute citizens for offences committed overseas. "There is an absolute reticence for us to provide information to a foreign country with the death penalty," the source said. "They are not prepared to have that happen ever again." Police say there are other criminals offshore in the same situation. Investigators face the moral dilemma of bringing criminals to justice but not at the expense of a person's life. It is one example of the cases going unresolved because of concerns information sharing could land someone in front of a firing squad. "On instances where our investigators have appropriately made the decision not to share information, we're obviously in the dark," Australian Federal Police Commissioner Mark Colvin said on Monday. "That's the reality of the situation. We have a strong objection to the death penalty. "The AFP takes it seriously. We have to make those judgments." Mr Colvin broke the AFP's silence on Monday on how it handled the case of the Bali 9. It came days after Australians Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran were executed in Indonesia for their roles in the heroin smuggling ring. While Australia was in a region "surrounded by countries that have the death penalty", Mr Colvin said there had been instances when the AFP didn't share information since guidelines about the process were put in place in 2009. In the past 3 years, the AFP had received more than 250 requests in relation to matters that may involve the death penalty, of which 15 had not gone forward in terms of exchange of information. The federal attorney-general department has been contacted for comment. (source: The Australian) SOUTHEAST ASIA: The death penalty is "cruel and unnecessary" When it comes to the complex disputes surrounding capital punishment, it is important to avoid moral fallacies. It is a messy situation. After months of haggling, 8 inmates sentenced to death over drug trafficking were executed by a firing squad in Indonesia on April 28. As 2 of the convicts were Australian citizens, a global outcry ensued, culminating in the Australian government's temporary withdrawal of its ambassador from Indonesia. In the months before, Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott had repeatedly and publicly urged the Indonesian government to call off the executions. Some commentators say this was counterproductive as it put pressure on the new Indonesian administration, which had been accused of inconsistency in several political areas, to stick to its decision and carry out the executions. In Southeast Asia, the death penalty continues to be state-sanctioned in 4 countries: Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore and Vietnam. After a 10-year-moratorium that lasted until April 2013, the Indonesian government took up capital punishment once again as a possible sentence for drug-related crimes. By doing so, Indonesia moved against the 21st century tendency in the region's jurisdiction to apply death penalties less frequently. The argument went that Indonesia had become a "major drug trafficking hub," and therefore, it needed this drastic sentence as a form of deterrence. While the effectiveness of capital punishment in deterring people from committing crimes is highly controversial, arguments raised against the measure are manifold. The most often voiced objections include the possibility of killing innocent people, while simultaneously punishing their families, the penalty's high costs in relation to life-long prison and the violation of international human rights law. In accordance, the Australian government called the executions of the so-called Bali 9 inmates "cruel and unnecessary." The proponents of capital punishment argue that the sentence does not violate international law, as it is within the rights of a sovereign state to execute its laws as it sees fit. For the above mentioned Southeast Asian countries, which all see drugs as a major threat to their societies, adhering to the death penalty in cases of drug trafficking is an adequate measure to balance the scales, as they argue it is their whole society that suffers under the actions of traffickers. In the case of Indonesia, however, outside observers have highlighted the contradictory stance the national administration has showed, as it underlines its sovereign rights, while simultaneously pleading for the life of an Indonesian citizen facing capital punishment in Saudi Arabia. Thus, on the one hand, it is legitimate to criticize the Indonesian government for this obvious double-standard, but on the other, the Bali 9 case received much more attention precisely because it is part of the high number of cases where Australian citizens are in danger of being executed at present. Whatever the arguments are, empirical cases all over the world, including places such as the United States and the Middle East, show that in the end, being for or against capital punishment might not only be a matter of facts, but primarily a matter of beliefs. It is hard to argue with official representatives who might feel cornered about the sometimes-abstract problems of state-sanctioned violence, and how the administration could be more productive if it does not authorize its authorities to kill its citizens or those of other countries. Judging the existence of capital punishment in Southeast Asia is not an easy matter. There are many complex considerations, and no particular commentary or view can speak for everyone. For outside observers, it is necessary to look at the respective cases in the most holistic and objective way possible to avoid moral fallacies. Ultimately, the death of humans by humans is never a good outcome. As UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon stated: "The death penalty has no place in the 21st century." Nonetheless, arguing these cases emotionally from a purely ideological standpoint, or even by insisting on available statistics, will not help. Rather, it will only escalate tensions and, in the end, limit the solutions available. (source: Commentary, Jarno Lang; fairobserver.com) CHINA: China loves death penalty too much According to international human rights organizations, China is a country with the largest number of death sentences. However, the official statistics of executions in the country is kept secret. Currently seven Russians are sentenced to death in China, all of them are drug dealers. They still have a chance to survive. Russian national Maria Lopatina who was sentenced to death by the court of a Southern China city of Zhuhai for drug smuggling with a 2-year postponement of the execution can expect a reduced sentence. In the case of good conduct according to the Chinese law in 2 years her sentence could be mitigated to life imprisonment or a prison term of 15 to 20 years. The same situation is with other convicted Russians. In theory, Lopatina may very well be transferred to Russia and serve her term at home. This is provided by the Russian-Chinese treaty of mutual transfer of sentenced individuals. However, this measure is used very rarely. In the disciplined China prisoners from all countries are treated the same. In 2007, a resident of Glasgow Akmal Shaikh was arrested in the Chinese city of Urumqi. He was charged with possession of as many as four kilos of heroin. The British denied the charges until his last day. In 2007 he was sentenced to death with a two-year sentence suspension. No one believed that the man would be executed. Nearly the entire world rose to defend the British. China's statement that the sentence will be executed at all costs led to sharp criticism of the UK and the entire world community. Yet, the Chinese side was affected neither by the addresses of his relatives, nor the Western human rights activists, nor an official letter from the British government. The British Foreign Office alone sent at least 10 requests for revision of the sentence to Beijing. However, despite all the efforts, on December 29 of 2009, the 53-year-old man was put to death by a lethal injection. Last year four Japanese nationals charged with drug dealing were executed in China. The Japanese authorities had been addressing the Chinese Themis with numerous petitions for years. However, the Japanese drug traffickers have been executed. A member of the International Bar Association, Igor V. Schmidt, Ph.D., commented on the situation for Pravda.Ru: "It is true that criminals in China are treated with all severity. At some point I was an intern for three months at Peking University law school. I got to learn about law enforcement practice of the country and even visited Chinese prisons. I will say this: the highest level of discipline that exists in their prison system is striking. Criminals are well schooled and drilled. It is clear that daring and freedom-loving Russian people have hard time in those prisons. Death sentence is provided by over 60 articles of the Chinese criminal law. For example, the death penalty can be given for financial fraud, pimping, violent crime, bribery, sale of counterfeit drugs, damage to electrical wires, unauthorized excavation of ancient tombs and a whole bunch of crimes for which in Russia one cat get no more than probation. I am not talking about corrupt officials or drug dealers. However, in April of 2011, the agency "Xinhua" reported a reduction in the number of crimes for which capital punishment is provided. In particular, this applies to certain economic crimes. Adolescents and pregnant women are not subject to death penalty in China and now this amendment is true for people over 75 years of age. However, they still can be subject to death penalty if the crime was committed with extreme cruelty. Interestingly, the official statistics of executions in China has never been published. But, according to observers, thousands of criminals are executed in the country every year. Previously offenders were shot, but now, as far as I know, more often lethal injections are used. And here is a purely "local" flavor. The Chinese justice has never divided criminals into ordinary mortals and high-ranking criminals. That is, the Chinese Themis is virtually incorruptible, and it does not care about high positions or military rank. During my internship in Beijing in July of 2007, Zheng Xiaoyu was executed (I am not sure about exact spelling of his name), who served as the chairman of the state Management of China for Supervision of the Food and Drug Administration. This is a very high position. Zheng Xiaoyu was convicted of accepting bribes totaling over 800 thousand dollars. The high-ranking official was also charged with death of 10 people who died from the use of poor-quality medicines for which he has issued licenses to companies producing drugs. Another peculiarity of the Chinese justice is the speed of execution of death sentences. In Russia a trial can drag on for years. In developed countries, death sentence is always preceded by a long-term trial on different levels, and the convicted shall have an opportunity for an appeal. This often leads to the fact that years or even decades pass between the sentence and its execution. For example, in the U.S. Jack Alderman was sentenced to death for the murder of his wife on June 14, 1975 at the age of 24, and executed only on September 16, 2008 at the age of 57, or in more than 33 years. So far there are 130 countries in the world that abolished death sentence, and 68 countries that retained and continue to use this measure." (source: Andrei Mikhailov, Pravda) From rhalperi at smu.edu Mon May 4 09:58:28 2015 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Mon, 4 May 2015 09:58:28 -0500 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide Message-ID: May 4 HUNGARY: Hungary Will Not Re-Introduce Death Penalty Despite Growing Debate Hungary has no plans to introduce the death penalty, "it is only a matter up for debate," Prime Minister Viktor Orban told European Parliament president Martin Schulz. Orban and Schulz discussed the issue over the phone, cabinet chief Janos Lazar said. Viktor Orban also told European People's Party leader Joseph Daul and group leader Manfred Weber that a debate is ongoing in Hungary about the death penalty but European Union laws will be respected, Lazar added. The cabinet chief repeated Viktor Orban's comments in connection with the recent brutal murder of a shop assistant in Kaposvar, stating that the introduction of the "3-strikes" law and real life sentences did not have sufficient effect to prevent crime and therefore the death penalty should be "kept on the agenda". "The unbelievable social outcry that has emerged in connection with serious crimes might not be heard in Brussels but it is heard in Budapest," Janos Lazar added. Hungary respects the EU legal system, but the EU in turn, as an important guardian of democracy, should not reject any debate that concerns its citizens, he said. Later PM Viktor Orban told commercial Echo TV that a decision on the death penalty was premature, but the debate on it should continue. He said the loud critical response from Brussels showed that "some people in Brussels do not want to allow debate." Meanwhile the radical nationalist Jobbik party said it would initiate a day of debate in parliament about the reintroduction of capital punishment, party leader Gabor Vona said. Vona said international treaties do not ban the death penalty, but there are even some members of Jobbik who oppose it. He called the death penalty "justifiable," citing brutal murders as examples where it would be a just punishment. Concerning the planned free trade agreement between the EU and the US, he sharply criticised the government for "not raising hell" about the possibility of large US companies "ripping off Europe". Commenting on migration, he said Jobbik would support the government if it indeed took action in this area. He said Hungary needed no refugees at all but it should make preparations for granting safe haven to ethnic Hungarian asylum-seekers from Ukraine. (source: Hungary Today) PHILIPPINES: More Filipinos on death row in Malaysia, Saudi, China Malaysia, Saudi Arabia and China top the list of countries where there are Filipinos on death row with 34, 28 and 21 Philippine nationals, respectively, according to Malacanang. Citing a report by the Department of Foreign Affairs, the Palace on Sunday said there were also 2 Filipinos on death row in the United States and one each in Indonesia, Kuwait and Thailand, bringing to 88 the total number of Filipino facing the death penalty. Communications Secretary Herminio Coloma Jr. told the Inquirer, however, that "no case is imminent for execution." "All death penalty cases are either already given a reprieve or are on appeal," Coloma said in a text message. "The death penalty with a 2-year reprieve could be commuted to life imprisonment for good behavior," said Coloma, quoting Foreign Affairs Assistant Secretary and spokesperson Charles Jose. Assistance According to Coloma, all Philippine embassies and consulates had been directed by Malacanang to extend all the help necessary to Filipinos on death row under the DFA???s Assistance to Nationals program, including legal assistance and appeals coursed through diplomatic channels. "On the preventive side, extensive education and information are conducted by the Department of Labor and Employment and its attached agencies in collaboration with the Philippine Information Agency and other government media organizations," Coloma said. Massive Already, he said, a massive information and education campaign against drug and human trafficking was being conducted in the country's regions and provinces to educate overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) while they are still in the country. He also raised the need to increase awareness on the perils posed by human and drug trafficking syndicates, particularly an intensified information drive on the issue among OFWs and other Philippine nationals based abroad. It is necessary for OFWs to know and comply with the laws of their host countries, he said. In China, trafficking in illegal drugs is punishable by a prison terms of at least 15 years, life imprisonment or death, the DFA said. In most Muslim countries, the offense is punishable by death under Sharia law. Coloma said the government was doing everything to protect the rights of Filipino citizens in trouble in the various parts of the world. Citing the case of drug convict Mary Jane Veloso, he said a criminal syndicate had duped the Nueva Ecija native into "being an unwitting accomplice or courier in their human and drug trafficking activities." Last Wednesday, Veloso was given a last-minute reprieve after President Aquino brought up her case with Indonesian President Joko Widodo. (source: Philippine Daily Inquirer) PAKISTAN: Halt executions please! ---- The investigations of the police before the commencement of a criminal trial fabricate the whole scene in order to mislead the courts and to save the people with power and money Initially, executions were carried on terrorism related charges but, in the wake of the Peshawar tragedy, the government of Pakistan decided to lift the moratorium on March 10 of this year and reinstated this heinous punishment for all death penalty offences. The PPP-led coalition government, in 2008, had placed a moratorium on executions following pressure on the government by the European Union and human rights' groups. On April 21, 17 inmates were executed in Pakistan, the highest number of executions in a single day since the reversing of the country's self imposed ban. The prisoners were executed in different jails in Punjab and Balochistan. 16 inmates were executed in cities like Faislabad, Gujranwala, Gujarat, Lahore, Multan, Sialkot and Rawalpindi while 1 execution was carried out in Machh Jail, Balochistan. According to different news agencies, Iqbal and Latif were hanged for shooting 4 people, including 1 woman. 3 men, Muhammad Hussain, Nizamuddin and Azam, were hanged in the central jail in Faisalabad. The first 2 were convicted for the murder of 3 people in 1998 while Azam was convicted for murdering 7 people from one family in 2004. Another 3 persons were hanged in Rawalpindi's Adiala jail for murder. Separately, in Lahore's Kot Lakhpat jail, 2 convicts were hanged for murder. 2 men were hanged in Sialkot jail for the gang-rape of a minor in 1999 while 1 person was hanged in Multan's central jail for committing murder in 2000. Another man was executed in Sahiwal's central jail for murdering a man in 1998, while convict Azhar Mehmood was hanged in Gujarat's district jail for murder in 1995. A convict named Riaz Ahmed was also hanged for murder in Machh jail. There are about 8,000 death row prisoners in Pakistan. Out of 8,000 death row prisoners many of them are innocent and have been falsely implicated in criminal cases but are still languishing there. This is all due to the ineffective criminal justice system of Pakistan where people with deep pockets easily manipulate prosecution evidence, implicating innocent people. The investigations of the police before the commencement of a criminal trial fabricate the whole scene in order to mislead the courts and to save the people with power and money. Supporters of the death penalty in Pakistan say that it is the only way available for the government to deal with the scourge of terrorism and militancy in the country. However, human rights groups across the world and within Pakistan categorically oppose the reinstatement of the death penalty in Pakistan. They have further contended that executing prisoners is no answer to dealing with terrorism in Pakistan. There is a need to revise national and international policies in order to deal with terrorism and militancy. My contention on the opposition to execution is that right to life is embodied as a natural right in Article 9 of the Constitution of Pakistan and in plain wording it can be said that no one can take that right to life, not even the courts that provide justice. Taking away the right to life by execution is unnatural and inconsistent with the principles of natural justice. In any civilised society execution is seen as barbaric and inhumane. Since the lifting of the moratorium the ratio of crime in Pakistan lies at the same level where it was before the lifting of the moratorium. Advanced countries now have reached the conclusion that capital punishment is no answer to decreasing the crime ratio. My 2nd contention is that the death penalty is irreversible; once a prisoner is executed, it is all over. Pakistan is a country where a number of legal mistakes can happen and the courts can also commit mistakes while conducting a criminal trial. The prevailing corruption in society has also belittled the criminal justice system in the country whereby chances of the innocent being declared guilty have increased manifold. My last and biggest contention is that there is a need to develop non-penal social engineering in Pakistan. Instead of executing prisoners, all stakeholders should come together to a point where they provide rehabilitation to prisoners, even to condemned prisoners in jails so that when they are released from jail they play a positive and responsible role in society. Keeping them in jail for years actually makes them hardened criminals and puts them under immense mental torture. Advanced countries like the UK, Germany and France are no longer party to the death penalty. They abolished the death penalty years ago and now do not intend to reinstate it in their criminal justice systems. Pakistan, India, Bangladesh and China are amongst those countries that execute thousands of prisoners every year. The non-penal social engineering doctrine in Pakistan - even in countries where the death penalty is a part of the criminal justice system - makes the system of punishment a bit more humane. Prisoners languishing in violent and notorious jails are denied basic rights and jail staffs treat them like animals. They should have dignity too. In culmination, I submit that government officials seriously reconsider their decision of lifting of the ban on the moratorium. Executing condemned prisoners is no answer to defeating terrorism. There is a need to revise national and international polices pertaining to foreign policy and internal security. The state of Pakistan now also has to realise that only secularism is a solution for the sorting of extreme forms of militancy and terrorism. Pakistan's action plan to combat terrorism seems plausible to the general public but it has no ingredient for bringing peace and harmony to Pakistan in the long run. It is a mere political slogan that the national action plan will bring peace and harmony. (source: Editorial, Sarmad Ali; the writer is an advocate of the High Court----The Daily Times) ***************** To the benefit of nobody Judicial killing has taken many forms down the ages, none of them pretty and all of them grotesque to a greater or lesser degree. The Indonesian government executed 8 drug traffickers in the last week. They were tied to crosses before being shot, were reported to have refused to be blindfolded and sang "We shall overcome" together before the firing squads did their work. Pakistan recently hanged its 100th man since the moratorium on the death penalty was lifted in the wake of the massacre at the Army Public School (APS) in Peshawar last December. The moratorium was initially only lifted for those convicted in terrorism cases but later it was lifted for all cases in which the death penalty had been awarded. There are thousands on death row in the country and Pakistan, complete with its deeply flawed judicial system, has 27 offences which carry the option of the death penalty. There is ample evidence, anecdotal and empirical, that the wider population supports the death penalty, and there are elements of that population which even support the public execution of criminals by methods which much of the rest of the world regards as barbaric. Looking at the list of those executed thus far there are few who have been hanged for acts of terrorism, and most of those hanged had committed acts of domestic violence, often killing multiple people. Their convictions are for the most part long-standing and they had exhausted all roads of appeal. There have been a handful of 'high-profile' executions but thus far there is not a lot of evidence that the lifting of the moratorium has done much to deter terrorism. Indeed, the converse effect may be in play - those who commit terrorist acts often do so with the desire for 'martyrdom' at the forefront of their minds so it is questionable whether the death penalty has played the role of an effective deterrent in such cases. The Pakistan legal system, as noted above, determines 27 offences that are punishable by death. These go far beyond what most of the rest of the world regards as the threshold for 'most serious crimes' as described in Article 6 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. In Pakistan, a person may be sentenced to death for sabotage of the railway system, gang-rape, drug smuggling, trading arms - the list goes on. What is really problematic is that the determination of guilt in respect of any or all of these offences is flawed from top to bottom, and given that many of those recently hanged were convicted at a time when police procedures were even more lax, primitive and corrupt than they are today; the chances of innocent men having had their necks stretched is disturbingly high. A few cases where men are condemned to die have attracted international attention, that of Shafqat Hussain who is due to hang on May 6 being one of them. His case is an example of the inherent flaws in the system - judicial, investigative and custodial. The dispute surrounding Shafqat Hussain is less about his guilt or innocence and more about his age at the time of his conviction and whether he was a juvenile at that point, thus making the death sentence inappropriate. As of today, it appears he will hang, as will unknown numbers of others, some of whom will not have been truly guilty of a capital offence - and that is wrong. The lifting of the moratorium after the APS atrocity today looks like little more than a knee-jerk reaction with a strong element of populism deeply embedded. The government was quickly able to take and implement a decision that gave the impression of 'doing something' in response to the APS killings. In reality, the hanging of a succession of men who for the most part have committed what may be classed as 'crimes of passion', does absolutely nothing beyond satisfy a public that is under the illusion that it does. And that is also wrong. (source: Editorial, Express Tribune) From rhalperi at smu.edu Mon May 4 12:57:15 2015 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Mon, 4 May 2015 12:57:15 -0500 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----PENN., ALA., OHIO, ARK. Message-ID: May 4 PENNSYLVANIA: Delayed Columbia death-penalty case among killings with mentally-ill defendants The capital murder trial over a Columbia man's 2013 killing is on hold after the man charged was deemed incompetent. Mario Casanova-Lanzo was to stand trial this week in Lancaster County Court over the alleged Feb. 20, 2013 shotgun killing of his estranged wife's new beau. Police allege Casanova-Lanzo broke into the woman's home and shot 36-year-old Parrish Thaxton at close range. Prosecutors intended to seek the death penalty. However, the case is on hold after a local judge ruled Monday that Casanova-Lanzo is unable to assist his attorneys in his defense at trial. That ruling was based on a local psychiatrist's report on Casanova-Lanzo's mental state, following an April 4 appointment. Assistant District attorneys Christopher Lechner and Amber Czerniakowski didn't challenge Dr. Jerome Gottlieb's report or opinion that Casanova-Lanzo is mentally ill. "It ends up delaying the proceedings and is, of course, frustrating," District Attorney Craig Stedman said after the hearing. "But the (defendant) must be able to understand the charges and participate in their own defense." For the time being, Casanova-Lanzo will receive treatment at Norristown State Hospital. Authorities there will provide the court with updates on Casanova-Lanzo's condition every 60 days. The ruling, while rare here in homicide cases, isn't unprecedented. "It is uncommon for defendants to be declared incompetent to stand trial," Stedman said, "but many of them end up being found competent after treatment." Here are a few Lancaster County cases when attorneys argued that charged killers were mentally ill: -- Michael R. Musser, 56, hasn't been tried over the alleged 2006 killing of his mother in Mount Joy. In 2011, a local judge ordered Musser continue receiving treatment, indefinitely, at Norristown State Hospital. Dr. Gottlieb opined that Musser was "one of the most ill individuals" he'd ever seen. Gottlieb opined that Musser might never be well enough to assist in his defense at trial. He allegedly killed his mother because he believed "that the devil was residing in her," Gottlieb testified in 2011. -- A Mount Joy mother received mental-health treatment for years before she was tried in 2007 over the 2004 killings of her 2 young sons. She was deemed incompetent to be tried following her arrest for the killings of 2-year-old Silas and 4-month-old Myles. A local judge ultimately found her not guilty by reason of insanity. Lippiatt had been hearing "sinister" voices ordering her to kill the boys, according to trial testimony. Lippiatt died, of an apparent suicide, in 2011 in Arizona. -- More recently, Dr. Gottlieb opined that Gary Gerlach, charged in a 2012 double-murder in Leola, was incompetent to stand trial. Gottlieb testified in mid-2012 that Gerlach was "psychotic" and unable to assist in his defense over the killings of Mona Hess and her daughter, Makenzie Hess. However, later in the year, Gottlieb opined that Gerlach's condition improved and he was able to stand trial. Ultimately, Gerlach pleaded guilty but mentally ill in June 2013 to 2 counts of 1st-degree murder. -- Last year, charges against a Lancaster city woman were dropped after multiple psychiatrist found her to be legally insane. Nancy Helen Clark was charged with homicide and related counts regarding a 2012 fire that killed her husband. Clark received mental-health treatment since her arrest, but was freed when charges were dropped. (source: Lancasteronline.com) *************** Governor Wolf: Study Will Shed More Light on Death Penalty Governor Wolf, who issued a moratorium on the death penalty, says there are certain answers he's awaiting from a bipartisan legislative commission studying the death penalty in Pennsylvania. In particular, Wolf believes 3 faets of the death penalty will provide conclusive information. "We have to know whether it is a deterrent. Second, is it efficient from a cost standpoint and 3rd, is it administered fairly." Governor Wolf defends the constitutionality of his decision, which is being challenged by the Pennsylvania District Attorneys Association, who've asked the State Supreme Court to decide if the Governor acted within the constitution in issuing the moratorium. (source: WNPV news) ALABAMA: Falsely convicted death-row survivor opens up: "They had every intention of executing an innocent man"----Anthony Ray Hinton was convicted for murder in 1985 based on dubious evidence. 30 years later, he's free Since 1983, 152 men have been freed from death row. Anthony Ray Hinton is the 152nd. Hinton was convicted in 1985 for the murder of 2 fast-food workers, who were shot in separate robberies earlier that same year. Hinton has always strenuously denied his involvement in the killings, for which there were no witnesses or fingerprint evidence. Although he was reportedly working in a locked warehouse 15 miles away at the time of the shooting, and although he passed a polygraph test administered by the police, he was nonetheless convicted based on ballistics evidence purportedly tying the shootings to a revolver found in his mother's home. That evidence was later discredited. Hinton went to jail as a 29-year-old man. After 30 years, he is graying. "Race, poverty, inadequate legal assistance, and prosecutorial indifference to innocence conspired to create a textbook example of injustice," said Bryan Stevenson, the executive director of the Equal Justice Institute, which took up Hinton's case in 1999, and finally secured his release from death row in April. "I can't think of a case that more urgently dramatizes the need for reform than what has happened to Anthony Ray Hinton." Salon spoke with Hinton last month over the phone. The transcript below has been lightly edited for length and clarity. How did you end up on death row? I was first arrested for 1st-degree kidnapping and robbery. Since the case was similar to another crime, they charged me with two counts of murder. I asked [the detectives] what they were arresting me for and they wouldn???t tell me. I kept asking what I was being arrested for and the detective finally said he was going to tell me. I told him I didn't do it and he said, "I am going to say you did it and you are going to be convicted." Did you think you received competent representation? My ballistics expert was blind in one eye. He was paid $500. It came down to, "Who do you believe? The expert with 1 eye, or the state?" The district attorney cross-examined my expert - he chewed him up and spit him out. The jury went with the state expert. I would say [my attorney] was incompetent. He didn't know he could have asked for more money to hire a better expert. What is it like being on death row? Death row was a 2nd hell. Try to imagine everyone around you is sentenced to die. The only good day is when someone's sentence is overturned. People hang themselves and commit suicide. Satan came to me and told me to commit suicide. Everyone on death row has experienced it. It's not a place I would wish on my worst enemy. What is the closest you came to being executed? I never did get an execution date. But had the Supreme Court not intervened, probably within three to four years, I would have gotten an execution date. I have studied several cases like yours. It seems to me that some district attorneys just don't care if they send innocent people to their deaths. Would you say that is true? That's most definitely true. They had every intention of executing an innocent man. If you're poor and black you don't stand a chance. The DA that we have now seems like he doesn't give a damn about a man being innocent. In the South, people in power feel they don't have to answer to no one. When you have a death row case, you have to make 100 % sure you have the right person. But these DAs in the state of Alabama are racist. Did you make friends with other people on death row? Did any of them actually get executed? You get to know everyone on death row. You become friends with them and their families. I met some great guys. Everyone regrets what they did. Probably at least 30 people were executed when I was on death row. [When they go to the execution chamber] all you can say is, "Keep your head up and don't lose faith". You should always give them a little hope, when they are being led off to the execution chamber. How did your family cope when you were on the inside? My mother passed in 2002. That was a blow like no other blow. I lost my mother, but I still have my sense of humor. 30 years is a long time. What was life like when you went in? And how is it different now? The biggest change is technology. GPS. You can put the address into a car and tell it where to go. Modern technology is something. You don't need cash money no more. What has it been like adjusting to life on the outside? What is the toughest part? On death row you are by yourself. I have a hard time being around a lot of people [now]. Are you going to get some sort of compensation for your wrongful conviction? The state of Alabama has not apologized let alone offered some money. Where do you go from here? What's in the future? First and foremost, I have to get myself together. I have been in a cage for 30 years. I would like to tell people about what happened to me and share my experience with anyone willing to listen. Hopefully, I can save 1 person from going to death row. How can we stop this from happening? People need to start paying more attention to who they vote for. Go to the campaigns and ask hard questions. Ask if [politicians] are willing to live up to their expectations. How do you feel about the death penalty in general? Innocent people have been killed. They need to end the death penalty. Life without parole is sufficient. (source: Salon.com) OHIO----3 execution dates set for 2018 Court sets 2018 execution dates for 3 condemned Ohio killers Ohio Supreme Court has set execution dates in 2018 for 3 condemned killers, scheduling the procedures far in the future at a time the state is struggling to obtain lethal drugs. The court on Monday set a Jan. 3, 2018 execution date for John Stumpf for the 1984 shooting death of 54-year-old Mary Jane Stout in Guernsey County. The court set a March 14, 2018 execution date for Douglas Coley for the 1997 shooting death of 21-year-old Samar El-Okdi in Toledo. A co-defendant also received the death penalty. The court also set a May 30, 2018 execution date for Stanley Fitzpatrick for the 2001 hatchet and stabbing deaths of 42-year-old Doreatha Hayes and her 12-year-old daughter, Shenay Hayes, and the beating death of 64-year-old Elton Rose. ************** Execution date set in triple murder 14 years after he was convicted of killing 3 people in Lincoln Heights, Stanley Fitzpatrick has an execution date - in 2018. The Ohio Supreme Court, in a Monday announcement, set May 30, 2018, for Fitzpatrick's execution date. Fitzpatrick, 47, went on a drug-fueled rampage in 2001, killing his live-in girlfriend Dorothea Hayes and her 12-year-old daughter, Shenay. 2 days after brutally mutilating Hayes and her daughter in their Chicago Avenue home, Fitzpatrick went across the street to the home of 64-year-old Elton "Arybie" Rose, a former boxer, and beat him to death with a hatchet. Fitzpatrick, during his 2002 trial, admitted remembering killing Rose but not Hayes or her daughter and asked to be executed for his actions. "I plead guilty. I killed them ... If you want to put me to death, put me to death," Fitzpatrick said in court during his trial. "This is my life. I don't want to wait 'til lunch or the next day or nothing." Fitzpatrick's rampage came after he was suspended from his job and he went on a crack cocaine spree that also included alcohol and other drugs. As he was killing Rose, Lincoln Heights police arrived and were shot at by Fitzpatrick who soon drove off in the police cruiser, later confronted a woman in her home and tried to stab her and then left and carjacked another person. Fitzpatrick also was convicted of attempted murder of then-Lincoln Heights Police Sgt. DeAngelo Sumler and 2 counts of aggravated robbery. He was convicted by a 3-judge panel. Ohio Supreme Court Justice William O'Neill disagreed because he consistently has stated the death penalty is inherently both cruel and unusual and therefore unconstitutional" in all cases. (source: cincinnati.com) ********************* Ohio high court slates March, 2018 execution date for Coley The Ohio Supreme Court today set an execution date for Douglas Lamont Coley, convicted in the 1997 carjacking killing of a 21-year-old Toledo woman. But that date is still nearly 3 years away. That's how far Ohio lethal injections are backed up given the moratorium through the rest of the year on any execution given the state's struggles to find the drugs to carry them out and legal questions raised about the process. Coley was 1 of 3 executions scheduled 2 months apart by a 6-1 vote of the high court today. The sole negative vote belonged to Justice William O'Neill, who refuses to vote to schedule executions because he believes Ohio's death penalty is unconstitutional. There are now executions scheduled through May, 2018 with Coley's date set for March 14, 2018. Coley, 39, and Joseph Green, 36, were convicted in the Jan. 3, 1997 slaying of Samar El-Okdi, 1 of 2 carjackings in which they were involved in which the victims were abducted near their homes in Toledo's Old West End, shot, and left to die. But the first victim, David Moore, survived and helped connect the pair with Ms. El-Okdi's death. Green had also initially been sentenced to death. But after the high court sent his case back to Lucas County on a technicality, a 3-judge panel substituted a life sentence the 2nd time around because it wasn't convinced he held the gun that killed Ms. El-Okdi. Coley is on death row at Chillicothe Correctional Institution. Green is serving his life sentence at Toledo Correctional Institution. Ohio carries out its executions at the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility in Lucasville. Lucas County Prosecutor Julia Bates requested the scheduling of an execution date, noting Coley has exhausted all state and federal appeals. The U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear an appeal in 2013. The state Supreme Court today also set Jan. 3, 2018 for the execution of John David Stumpf, 54, of Guernsey County, convicted in the 1984 shooting death of Mary Jane Stout. It set May 30, 2018 for the lethal injection of Stanley L. Fitzpatrick, 47, of Hamilton County, convicted in the 2001 slayings of his live-in girlfriend, Doreatha Hayes, her 12-year-old daughter Shenay, and a neighbor, Elton Rose. (source: Toledo Blade) ******************* Death Penalty Focus to honor Ohio Exonerees at Awards Dinner----3 men spent decades in prison for a crime they didn't commit 3 death row exonerees who spent a combined 100 years in prison are coming to Beverly Hills to receive the Rose Elizabeth Bird Commitment to Justice Award at the 24th Annual Death Penalty Focus Awards Dinner on Thursday, May 7. Wiley Bridgeman, his brother Kwame Ajamu, and Ricky Jackson were teenagers when they were sentenced to death for a murder in Cleveland in 1975. Although there was no physical evidence linking them to the crime and they maintained their innocence, a 12-year-old witness implicated them. Years later, with the help of journalists, lawyers and volunteers, flaws in the case were exposed and the witness admitted he lied. Prosecutors dropped the charges and they were released in November. Now in their 50s, the men are working to start over. Death Penalty Focus is thrilled to honor these 3 men and the pro bono attorneys who fought for their freedom. "These men were unfairly convicted by our justice system and came close to being executed for a crime they didn't commit," said Death Penalty Focus President Mike Farrell. "We can't afford to take chances with people's lives." Other honorees at the dinner include: --CNN's Death Row Stories, represented by executive producers Alex Gibney, Bard Hebert and Laura Michalchyshyn; --Dale Baich, Assistant Federal Public Defender; an attorney who has spent the past 27 years protecting the constitutional rights of death row inmates. For more information, please visit. www.abolitionawards.com The dinner program begins at 7:15 at The Beverly Hilton. [source: Death Penalty Focus] (source: virtualpressoffice.com) ARKANSAS: Prosecutors to seek death penalty in Bella Vista case Prosecutors will seek the death penalty for the Bella Vista couple charged with the murder of their 6-year-old son. Mauricio Alejandro Torres, 45, and Cathy Lynn Torres, 43, appeared in court Monday morning for their arraignments before Circuit Judge Brad Karren. The couple is each charged with capital murder, punishable by life imprisonment without parole or the death penalty, and 1st-degree battery, a Class B felony punishable with a prison sentence ranging from 5 to 20 years. They pleaded innocent to the charges during their arraignments. Nathan Smith, Benton County prosecuting attorney, said he plans to seek the death penalty in the case. Maurice Isaiah Torres, 6, was taken to a hospital where he was pronounced dead March 29. A medical examiner later determined the boy suffered from chronic child abuse, and his death was from internal injuries caused by being raped, according to court documents. The Torreses were arrested in connection with rape April 6, but prosecutors did not include the rape offense in the charging documents. Smith said the rape occurred in Missouri, not in Benton County. (source: Arkansasonline.com) From rhalperi at smu.edu Mon May 4 16:14:09 2015 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Mon, 4 May 2015 16:14:09 -0500 Subject: [Deathpenalty] TEXAS DEATH PENALTY-----action item Message-ID: please circulate widely ************** Call Texas Senators to vote against SB 1697. The vote will be on Tuesday, May 5 in the Texas Senate. MESSAGE: No matter what you think of the death penalty, you care about open and transparent government and accountability of government to the citizens of the Texas. Legislation does not need to be made in the dark. The death penalty and executions in Texas are public policy. Senate Bill 1697: 1.???? Takes information regarding the death penalty from public view and undermines open government. The public has a right to obtain public information. These transactions involve the State paying a private entity for an item or service using taxpayer money to perform executions, yet the Legislature wants to withhold the procedure and substances names from the taxpayer. 2.???? Transparency is a basic principle of a democracy, yet information regarding the substances and procedures will not be transparent to the public. The bill restricts information. 3.???? There is an ongoing lawsuit on ?credible threats to the supplier,? but several sources and one court have questioned the existence of these threats. 4.???? If the State of Texas is going to continue to administer the death penalty, it is essential that the public have confidence that we are doing so in an appropriate manner. Cutting the public?s access to information will only inhibit public confidence. Call Texas Senators now! Link to all the Texas Senators is located at: www.capitol.state.tx.us/Members/Members.aspx?Chamber=S SB 1697 (Huffman) This bill relates to the confidentiality of certain information regarding procedures and substances used in the execution of a convict. The bill allows confidentiality of any person who participates in an execution procedure, including a person who uses supplies or administers a substance during the execution and any person or entity that manufactures, compounds, prescribes, dispenses, or provides a substance or supplies used in an execution. From rhalperi at smu.edu Mon May 4 17:38:13 2015 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Mon, 4 May 2015 17:38:13 -0500 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----MISS., NEB., USA Message-ID: May 4 MISSISSIPPI: Mississippi Man is Exonerated from Death Row Willie Manning Becomes 153rd Person Added to the Death Penalty Information Center's Innocence List May Have Been Wrongfully Convicted of 2 Sets of Murders - 2nd of q Cases Turns on FBI's False Testimony about Hair and Bullet Matches The Death Penalty Information Center has added death-row inmate Willie Jerome Manning to its list of death-row exonerations after a Mississippi trial court granted the prosecution's motion to dismiss all charges against him arising out of the 1993 murders of an elderly woman and her daughter. Mr. Manning is the 153rd person exonerated from death row since 1973 and the 4th from Mississippi. Mr. Manning remains on death row pending the results of DNA testing that could exonerate him in the murders of 2 Mississippi college students after the FBI admitted that its agents provided 2 different types of flawed forensic testimony in that case. "It is always stunning when a man is exonerated from death row with evidence of his innocence, but Mr. Manning's case presents the unimaginable possibility that an innocent man may have been wrongly convicted and sentenced to death in 2 different trials for 2 different offenses," said Robert Dunham, Executive Director of the Death Penalty Information Center (DPIC). "His cases present some of the classic hallmarks of innocence: racial overtones, unreliable witnesses, and police or prosecutorial misconduct. His 2nd case includes an additional horrifying dimension - 2 different types of junk science masquerading as forensic evidence of his guilt." Mr. Manning's exoneration comes in the wake of a ruling by the Mississippi Supreme Court in February granting him a new trial because prosecutors had violated his rights by failing to disclose evidence that undermined the heart of the charges against him. At his trial, the prosecution's key witness claimed to have seen Mr. Manning enter the victims' apartment. However, police notes that the prosecution wrongfully withheld from the defense showed the apartment in which the witness said he lived with his girlfriend was actually vacant at the time of the murder and records from the apartment complex did not list the witness or his girlfriend as a resident. In a sworn affidavit and at an evidentiary hearing, that witness has since recanted his testimony. In the 2nd case, Mr. Manning, who is African American, was convicted for the 1992 murder of 2 white college students. In addition to the testimony of a jailhouse informant, the prosecution relied on an FBI expert who provided scientifically flawed hair-comparison testimony and an FBI ballistics expert who improperly testified that bullets found in a tree outside Mr. Manning's house had to have come from the same gun used to kill the students. In 2013, Mr. Manning came within hours of being executed. The Mississippi Supreme Court stayed his execution because the Justice Department admitted in separate letters to his attorneys that the FBI's bullet and hair analysis "exceeded the limits of science and was, therefore, invalid." Today, Mr. Manning's name was added to DPIC's Innocence List at http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/innocence-list-those-freed-death-row For inclusion on DPIC's Innocence List, defendants must have been convicted, sentenced to death and subsequently either: (a) been acquitted of all charges related to the crime that placed them on death row, or (b) had all charges related to the crime that placed them on death row dismissed by the prosecution, or (c) been granted a complete pardon based on evidence of innocence. (source: Death Penalty Information Center) NEBRASKA: After years without executions, conservative Nebraska edges toward abolishing death penalty There's not a lot of sympathy for the 11 men on death row in Nebraska, but spurred by frustration about the growing difficulty and cost of carrying out executions, lawmakers are considering eliminating the death penalty. If the Legislature outlaws capital punishment, Nebraska would become the first conservative in state in more than 40 years to abolish the death penalty. Capital punishment opponents are optimistic following an initial vote this spring to repeal the law but acknowledge they still face a challenge as opponents led by the governor scramble to block the change. Another vote on the issue could come this week. An unusual coalition of Democrats and Republicans has formed behind the repeal effort. While Democrats cite racial disparities of who is sentenced to death and the possibility of executing an innocent person, Republicans point to the legal hurdles that have prevented the state from executing anyone. Nebraska's last execution was in 1997. "You always want to feel as a legislator that you're sticking up for the victims," said Republican Sen. Colby Coash, who said the death penalty wastes tax money and makes a false promise to victims' families. "I don't speak for the victims, but how is it justice if a state imposes a sentence that it's never going to carry out?" The last conservative state to abolish the death penalty was North Dakota in 1973. In the past 6 years, 4 more liberal states have ended capital punishment: New Mexico in 2009, Illinois in 2011, Connecticut in 2012 and Maryland in 2013. 32 states still have death penalty laws. Some legal experts believe a repeal by Nebraska could prompt other states to consider the move, especially those that rarely execute people. "If New Hampshire wanted to abolish the death penalty, Nebraska could set a terrific precedent," said Frank Zimring, a law professor and death penalty expert at the University of California, Berkeley. "But it probably wouldn't work in Texas or Missouri." Nebraska's debate shows the topic no longer is a "3rd rail" issue among conservatives, Zimring said. Efforts in Nebraska to carry out executions have run into repeated roadblocks. In 2008, a state Supreme Court ruling outlawed the electric chair. Then, after Nebraska switched to lethal injections, the slow process of inmate appeals prevented executions for so long that the state's supply of sodium thiopental expired and officials couldn't restock its reserve. Since Nebraska reinstated the death penalty in 1973, only 4 inmates have been executed. 1 inmate has been on death row for 35 years. Capital punishment opponents pointed to an ACLU-sponsored study this year by Seattle University that found capital cases in Washington state cost about $1 million more than first-degree murder cases where prosecutors didn't seek the death penalty. In March, the Legislature voted 30-13 to repeal the death penalty, but lawmakers must vote on the issue twice more and Republican Gov. Pete Ricketts has promised a veto. The 30 votes are enough to overcome a veto, but 33 votes are required to defeat a filibuster that could kill the bill. Death penalty supporters said they'll do whatever they can to retain capital punishment and execute those on death row. "I wouldn't expect the debate on this to be short," said Republican Sen. Beau McCoy, who supports the death penalty. "If it were to get that far (to a veto override), I think you'll see some high-stakes drama the likes of which hasn't been seen in this building in quite some time." McCoy said he's confident most Nebraskans support the death penalty, regardless of the state's inability to impose it. "The ones who are on death row now deserve to be there," McCoy said. This is the closest Nebraska has come to ending capital punishment since 1979, when Gov. Charles Thone vetoed a repeal measure. A recent Pew Research Center study found 55 % of Americans favored the death penalty, down from 62 % in 2011. Miriam Thimm Kelle started lobbying Nebraska lawmakers a decade ago to abolish the death penalty after a long legal fight over the man convicted in 1985 of torturing and killing her brother. "When we started out, no one in the Legislature wanted to talk about it," Thimm Kelle said. "They just pointed to the worst of the worst and said, 'Get rid of them.' But I think now they're realizing it isn't healthy for victims' families to have to wait 30 years." (source: startribune.com) USA: Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev in tears as aunt takes stand in death penalty hearing Dzhokhar Tsarnaev broke down in tears in court on 4 May during the trial that will decide whether he is put to death for his role in the 2013 Boston Marathon bombings. Tsarnaev, 21, has maintained a largely impassive demeanour in court since the beginning of his original trial in January, after which he was convicted of 30 federal charges, including 17 that carry the death penalty in Massachusetts. But as his aunt took to the stand - sobbing uncontrollably, AP reported - in the sentencing trial that will decide whether he faces the death penalty, Tsarnaev wiped tears from his eyes as he sat some 10ft away. His aunt was so distraught, the judge suggested the defence call another witness so she could compose herself. Tsarnaev's lawyers have argued his brother Tamerlan, 26, was the mastermind of the bombings and persuaded his impressionable younger brother to take part. Tamerlan was killed soon after the attack in a shootout with the police after which Tsarnaev was captured. Earlier, a cousin of Tsarnaev told the court the 21-year-old had been a gentle child who had once cried during watching Disney classic animated film The Lion King. "I think that his kindness made everybody around him kind," Raisat Suleimanova said through a Russian translator. 5 more of Tsarnaev's relatives are expected to testify in the trial. (source: International Business Times) From rhalperi at smu.edu Tue May 5 13:32:33 2015 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Tue, 5 May 2015 13:32:33 -0500 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, N.H., PENN., GA., OHIO, , MICH., LA., ARK. Message-ID: May 5 TEXAS----impending execution Derrick Charles of Texas Scheduled to be Executed on May 12, 2015 Derrick Dewaye Charles' execution scheduled to occur at 6 pm CDT, on Tuesday, May 12, 2015, at the Walls Unit of the Huntsville State Penitentiary in Huntsville, Texas. 32-year-old Derrick is convicted of murdering 77-year-old Obie Lee Bennett, 44-year-old Brenda Bennett, and his 15-year-old girlfriend Myiesha Bennett, on July 2, 2002, in their Harris County, Texas home. Derrick has spent the last 11 years on Texas' death row. Derrick had a difficult birth and childhood. He was born prematurely to a mother who had schizophrenia. As an infant Derrick suffered from at least 2 seizures. Throughout his life he had a history of depression. Derrick grew up in poverty and, due to his mother's mental state, was not always provided with food and clothing. Life at home was turbulent. Due to his mother's mental illness, Derrick was never able to receive proper treatment for his depression growing up. He was violent at school and expelled at least 4 times due to his violence and disruptiveness. During the limited treatment he received for his depression, Derrick was uncooperative. Derrick was arrested several times as a juvenile and spent time in the Texas Youth Commission, where it was frequently documented that he misbehaved. On July 2, 2002, Derrick Charles was hiding in the closet of his underage girlfriend, Myiesha Bennett. After she and her mother left, Charles exited the closet and was surprised to find Myiesha's grandfather, Obie, still in the house. Charles beat the elderly man with his fists, a lamp, and 2 trophies before strangling him to death. Charles then waited for over 3 hours for Myiesha and her mother to return home. Once they returned home, Charles beat Myiesha with stereo speakers, dropped a television on her head, and strangled her. She did not survive. Charles also killed Brenda, Myiesha's mother. Charles put her in a tub of water and threw a plugged-in television in with her. He then dragged her throughout the house and raped her before strangling her to death. Allegedly, Charles was upset with Brenda because she had told the police that he was sleeping with her daughter. Charles was arrested the following day. At the time of the murders, Charles was on parole for a burglary conviction. Charles confessed to the 3 murders. He was sentenced to death on May 27, 2003. Please pray for peace and healing for the Bennett family. Please pray for strength for the family of Derrick Charles. Please pray that if Derrick is innocent on grounds that he lacks the mental competency to be executed, that evidence will be presented prior to his execution. Please pray that Derrick may come to find peace through a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, if he has not already found one. (source: theforgivenessfoundation.org) ********************** Executions under Greg Abbott, Jan. 21, 2015-present----6 Executions in Texas: Dec. 7, 1982----present-----524 Abbott#--------scheduled execution date-----name------------Tx. # 7-----------May 12--------------------Derrick Charles------525 8----------June 3--------------------Les Bower------------526 9-----------June 18-------------------Gregory Russeau------527 (sources: TDCJ & Rick Halperin) NEW HAMPSHIRE: Ayotte Statement on NH Supreme Court Upholding Death Penalty for Michael Addison U.S. Senator Kelly Ayotte (R-NH) released the following statement regarding the New Hampshire Supreme Court's unanimous ruling upholding the death penalty for Michael Addison, who was convicted in 2008 of murdering Manchester police officer Michael Briggs. Ayotte prosecuted the Addison case as New Hampshire's attorney general. "I believe the New Hampshire Supreme Court made the right decision in upholding the death penalty for Michael Addison. The sentence was the appropriate and just punishment for a violent career criminal who was responsible for the murder of Michael Briggs, a decorated Manchester police officer who dedicated his life to serving the community. My thoughts and prayers continue to be with Officer Briggs' wife Laura, their sons Mitchell and Brian, his parents Lee and Maryann, and the entire Briggs family, as well as the men and women of the Manchester Police Department." (source: Political News) PENNSYLVANIA: Governor Tom Wolf stands by death penalty moratorium The state Supreme Court is deciding whether Governor Tom Wolf was within his right to issue a moratorium on the death penalty. The governor say he's hoping a bipartisan commission studying the death penalty in Pennsylvania can provide him with certain answers. Wolf is awaiting recommendations from the legislative task force, which was supposed to finish its work in December 2013. But, the panel has repeatedly extended its timeline. The agency putting together a final report now says it may need until next year. The governor says he's aware his decision has upset some people. "I have a lot of good friends who are prosecutors who disagree with me on this," he says. "But if I'm going to be the person to sign a death warrant, I'm going to want to make sure that we're doing this fairly and that it's the right thing to do." Among the groups seeking to overturn Wolf's decision are the Pennsylvania District Attorneys Association and the Philadelphia district attorney's office. (source: WITF news) ************************** Nun made famous by movie advocates against death penalty in Doylestown A Louisiana nun begins corresponding with an inmate on death row. Even when she learns he was convicted of murdering a teenage boy and girl, she agrees to be his spiritual adviser and tries to have his death sentence changed to life imprisonment. Unable to stop the execution, the nun becomes a renowned advocate of abolishing the death penalty nationwide. If this sounds like a movie, it was - the 1995 film "Dead Man Walking." Sister Helen Prejean, who wrote the book on which the movie was based, told more than 200 people at Our Lady of Mount Carmel Roman Catholic Church in Doylestown on Monday night that her campaign against the death penalty continues 20 years later. "Every life has dignity - not just innocent life but guilty life as well," Prejean, 76, said during her hourlong talk. She was the final speaker in a yearlong series of lectures on the American justice system sponsored by the church's Peace and Justice Ministry. Although she looks nothing like Susan Sarandon, who won the Best Actress Oscar for her portrayal of Prejean, the short-haired nun captivated the audience with her charisma and passion for her cause. Pointing to the large sculpture of Jesus on the Cross behind the altar, Prejean said the crucifixion symbolizes her position that the death penalty is incompatible with Christianity and a just society. One arm represents criminals who have committed horrible acts and the other arm innocent victims who have suffered, but both are part of the body of Christ. Prejean, a sister of the Congregation of St. Joseph, rejected the contention that opposing the death penalty means one does not care about murder victims and their families. She has started several support groups for victims. "This is about who we are going to be as a people," said Prejean, who has witnessed executions at prisons in Louisiana, Texas and Virginia. Besides religious and moral arguments against the death penalty, Prejean said it is racially discriminatory, arbitrary and can result in the execution of innocent defendants. Her 2nd book, "The Death of Innocents: An Eyewitness Account of Wrongful Executions," related how she wrote to Pope John Paul II disagreeing with his position that the death penalty could be carried out in cases of absolute necessity. The pope subsequently declared the death penalty should be abolished outright. "We should never leave it up to the state. They will always claim it's an absolute necessity," said Prejean, a former Catholic school teacher who has a master's degree in religious education from St. Paul University in Ottawa, Canada. Prejean said she was not socially conscious in her early years as a nun, believing her role was to pray to God to take care of the world's problems. Her outlook changed in the early 1980s after she began visiting convicted murderer Patrick Sonnier on death row in the Louisiana State Penitentiary. "I couldn't believe how human he was," she said, although he and his brother (who was sentenced to life imprisonment) had viciously murdered a 17-year-old boy and an 18-year-old girl. Prejean met the parents of the victims at the final hearing before a pardon board, at which she was the only one to argue against Sonnier's death sentence. The board voted to uphold the sentence, and Prejean attended the subsequent execution. She was taken aback when the father of the murdered boy asked her to come to his church and pray with him, which she did. The father taught her that forgiveness is not a sign of weakness, but a way for the families of victims to heal. "I believe God wakes us up when we're ready," Prejean said. "When we do wake up, we act. I've found action is the most liberating thing." (source: The Intelligencer) GEORGIA: How Transparent Will Death Row Clemency Be? Georgia has just passed into law rules that dramatically increase transparency into last ditch efforts by inmates on death row to save their own lives. Or maybe it hasn't. The processes in question are clemency proceedings in which defense attorneys argue before the State Board of Pardons and Parole that the inmate has changed since conviction to the point that they don't deserve to die. Prosecutors alternatively argue that the jury got it right and the execution should proceed. Up until now, the Board of Pardons and Parole has never explained why they bought either argument. Georgia House Bill 71 was introduced after a rare granting of clemency, only the 9th in almost 40 years. Now it is law and legislators say the public will know how these things happen. Unless they won't. That a grant of clemency will be explained under the law seems like a sure thing. An explanation of a denial of clemency is another thing altogether. Linda Jellum teaches statutory interpretation at the law school at Mercer University. Think of her as the legal version of your high school grammar teacher. When she looked at HB71 in March, she believed it would require transparency only when death sentences were commuted. After looking at what is now law, she has a different interpretation. "It appears to me to apply both directions,' Jellum said. That's to say that the Board of Pardons and Paroles would have to explain itself after any decision involving a clemency hearing. Robert Dunham heads the Death Penalty Information Center. He said if that's true, it would be a really big deal. "Georgia would be close to alone, if not alone in requiring the entity that makes the actual decision, to require that it state the reasons for its actions," Dunham said. But Dunham says that's not the whole story. "First of all it isn't true. The plain language of the statute says they will be requiring the board of pardons to explain their reasons if clemency is granted," Dunham said. And so it goes in trying to understand HB71. No 2 readings are the same. State Senator Jesse Stone helped move HB71 to the Governor's desk. He is clear on which decisions would be public under the law. "It said 'Any decision relating to a request for pardon or commutation'," Stone said. What Stone referred to is the section of the law that reads "a written decision relating to a pardon for a serious offense or commutation of a death sentence shall Include the board's findings...." Stone says that subsection of the law was where legislators massaged the legal language. He believes it's key to transparency. That's the section that persuaded Linda Jellum. But Robert Dunham zeroed in on the preceding subsection of the law. It reads "A grant of clemency, pardon, parole, or other relief from sentence shall be rendered only by a written decision." Critics point at the lack of the word "denial" in that passage. They say it makes the law one sided. So between the broad provisions of "relating to" clemency and the specificity of a grant, but only a grant, of clemency forcing a written opinion, what is the Board of Pardons and Paroles supposed to do? After reconsidering both subsections of the law, Linda Jellum backtracked. "If they deny a request to commute a death sentence, they are free to withhold that information. As I read this bill as currently written, they are free to withhold that information from the public," Jellum said. Jesse Stone says the intent of the bill is to aid understanding of both up or down votes on clemency requests. But Linda Jellum says legal intent doesn???t count for much in court when making sense of Georgia law. "Georgia generally says, 'Look, this is the bill as it was finally passed. We don't care what the legislature might have been trying to do, what the senate might have been trying to do, what the house might have been trying to do. we don't care, this is what it says. So we have to go with what it says,'" she said. Jesse Stone says if the Board doesn't comply with the intent of the law, the General Assembly might take the issue up again next year. Linda Jellum says there's a quick, 2 word fix if they do. "Under subsection 2, change the word grant to grant or denial," she said. The 1st true test of the law's intent will come before Georgia???s next scheduled execution. (source: Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles News) OHIO: Murder victim's family upset by decades of execution delays Nearly 31 years after Mary Jane Stout's life was ended by 3 .25-caliber bullets, the man charged with her murder had an execution date set Monday by the Ohio Supreme Court. Stout's family will have to wait nearly 3 more years for the execution of John David Stumpf on Jan. 3, 2018. Chris Stout, a son of Mary Jane and Norman Stout, was furious when informed at another delay in what is already one of Ohio's oldest pending capital punishment cases, beginning when Ronald Reagan was president. "It's the same old song and dance," Stout said in an interview with The Dispatch. "3 years! What's the hold up? This is nothing but torture for the victims. He (Stumpf) is going to die of old age before this happens," he added. Stout said he plans to attend Stumpf's execution "if I'm still alive." Stout, a former Ohio prisons guard, said he and his brother, Chuck, plan to file a lawsuit against Ohio elected and prison officials over what he said are unacceptable delays in the death penalty process. Executions in Ohio have been halted and won't resume until Jan. 2016, because of problems with obtaining drugs for lethal injection. The last execution was Dennis McGuire on Jan. 16, 2014. In the interim, the General Assembly passed a new law permitted the Department of Rehabilitation and Correction to secretly contract with "compounding pharmacies" to obtain specially mixed drugs for executions. The public and media are prohibited from learning the source of the deadly drugs. The Stump case has been through the legal gauntlet. His death sentence was overturned only to be reinstated. It has been to the U.S. Supreme Court and the 6th U.S. Circuit of Appeals twice apiece. At one point, the federal appeals court made a mistake, announcing it would reconsider an earlier ruling, when it fact it had no plans to do that. The murder happened May 13, 1984 when Stumpf and his companion, Clyde Wesley, knocked on the Stouts' door just off I-70 in Guernsey County. After gaining entry under the pretense of having car trouble, Stumpf held the Stouts at gunpoint while Wesley searched for money, guns and valuables, according to court records. Norman Stout, a Korean War veteran, lunged at Stumpf and he fired at him, striking him between the eyes and on top of the head. Moments later, he shot Mrs. Stout 3 times in the head, killing her. Her husband survived, but was disabled by the attack. The Supreme Court also set 2 other execution dates. Douglas Coley is scheduled to die March 14, 2018, for the 1997 murder of Samar El-Okdi, of Toledo. Stanley Fitzpatrick's execution date was set for May 30, 2018, for a 2001 triple murder in Hamilton County of Doreatha Hayes, Shenay Hayes and Elton Rose. (source: The Columbus Dispatch) MICHIGAN: The day Michigan became 1st state to ban death penalty On May 4th 169 years ago, Michigan lawmakers voted to put down the death penalty, becoming the 1st state to ban capital punishment -- indeed, it was the 1st English-speaking government in the world to outlaw executions. On May 18, 1846, the Legislature passed an act banning capital punishment, setting the maximum penalty for murder in Michigan at "solitary confinement at hard labor ... for life." Yet many of those serving that sentence went insane in solitary, leading to a new law in 1861 that gave greater leeway in sentencing murderers. So who was the last person executed in Michigan? Well, not counting federal executions, that would be on Sept. 24, 1830, when Michigan was still a territory. Detroit was a dusty town of only about 2,200 people. The killer was Stephen Simmons, a tavern keeper who had been convicted of murdering his wife during a drunken quarrel. He was sentenced to die. Within days, gallows were erected not far from Campus Martius, near Farmer Street and Gratiot, by the downtown library and the Compuware Building. There was a viewing section for the execution, a stage for a band and even a concession area. Detroit, it seemed, was throwing a party for the occasion. As Simmons stood on the gallows, he was asked whether he had any final words. Instead of speaking, or so the story goes, he sang "Show Pity, Lord, O Lord, Forgive": "Show pity Lord, O Lord forgive/Let a repenting rebel live. "Are not thy mercies full and free?/May not a sinner trust in thee? "My crimes are great, but cannot surpass/The power and glory of thy grace. "Great God thy nature hath no bounds/So let thy pardoning love be found." Whether moved by the hymn, the distaste for the spectacle that accompanied the hanging, or the sight of him swinging from the noose, a big push soon began in the territory to do away with capital punishment. Religious leaders in Detroit decried executions as being un-Christian. Newspapers sounded off on the barbarism. Then, a few years later, it was learned that a Detroit man had been executed in Windsor for a crime he didn't commit. Another man confessed to the crime after the innocent man had been put to death . All of this helped lead the Legislature to pass the law outlawing capital punishment in the newly minted state. The law took effect March 1, 1847, 10 years after Michigan had joined the union. In 1881, a movement to reinstate the death penalty grew. That June, abolitionist Sojourner Truth, who lived in Battle Creek, spoke to the Legislature: "It shocked me worse than slavery. I've heard that you are going to have hanging again in this state ... Where is the man or woman who can sanction such a thing as that? We are the makers of murderers if we do it." The last person executed in Michigan under the federal death penalty was Anthony Chebatoris, who was hanged July 8, 1938, at the federal prison in Milan after he was convicted of killing a bystander during a bank robbery in Midland. (source: Detroit Free Press) LOUISIANA----new death sentence Guilty verdict reached in CarQuest killings, Lee Turner Jr. eligible for death penalty, reports say Lee Turner Jr., 25, was found guilty Monday, May 4, of shooting two men in 2011 during an alleged robbery. Turner is facing the death penalty. Lee Turner Jr. will face the death penalty, after he was convicted Monday by a jury of 2 counts of 1st-degree murder in the killings of 2 co-workers at a CarQuest auto parts store in Baton Rouge. WBRZ reported that the jury's decision came quickly: They received jury instructions before lunch, and had reached a verdict just after 1 p.m. Turner, 25, was robbing the store where he worked when he shot coworkers Randy Chaney and Edward Gurtner. According to WAFB, he left the store with $350. The penalty phase of the trial, where the jury will decide if Turner will be executed for his crimes, begins Tuesday at 9 a.m. The case is Baton Rouge's 1st death penalty case in 5 years. (source: Times-Picayune) ARKANSAS: State Seeks Death Penalty For Couple Accused of Killing Son The state is seeking the death penalty for Mauricio and Cathy Torres in connection to the death of their son, Isaiah. Both Mauricio and Cathy pleaded not guilty in a Benton County courtroom Monday morning. On March 29, police say Isaiah was taken by ambulance to the emergency room at Mercy in Bella Vista, where he was pronounced dead. The medical examiner later ruled the death a homicide. His parents were arrested and charged the next day. Investigators say Isaiah was homeschooled, which may have allowed the abuse to go unnoticed. Court documents also state Isaiah was treated for chemical burns on his back at Arkansas Children's Hospital last year. (source: ozarksfirst.com) From rhalperi at smu.edu Tue May 5 13:33:56 2015 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Tue, 5 May 2015 13:33:56 -0500 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----MO., NEB., S.DAK., CALIF., USA Message-ID: May 5 MISSOURI: The cost of capital punishment By the time a Boone County jury sentenced Brian Dorsey to death for 1st-degree murder in 2008, the state had spent $162,960 to defend him. In 2010, Horst Sabla was sentenced in Camden County for 1st-degree murder. Like Dorsey, Sabla used a public defender. But Sabla was sentenced to life without parole. His case cost $15,053 to defend. The State of Missouri has never commissioned its own study comparing the costs of the death penalty and life without parole. But KRCG 13 reviewed the costs associated with some recent 1st-degree murder cases and found death penalty cases cost many times as much to the state's public defender system as do life without parole cases. For this story, KRCG 13 randomly selected 4 cases where prosecutors sought the death penalty and 4 cases where prosecutors sought life without parole. All 8 suspects were represented by a public defender, and all 8 were convicted by a jury. Data provided by the Missouri State Public Defender show the 4 death penalty cases carried an average of $63,858 in direct costs plus another $70,805 in indirect costs. Defending these cases cost Missouri taxpayers a total average of $134,663. In contrast, the 4 life without parole cases incurred average direct costs of $5,592 and indirect costs of $282. The state spent a total of $5,874 defending these suspects on average. Greg Mermelstein, the Appellate/Postconviction Director for the Missouri State Public Defender, said those costs come from the additional homework defense attorneys need to do for defendants facing the death penalty. He said a death penalty defense team typically includes 4 people, including one person who specializes in researching the client's past for factors that might convince a jury not to choose the death penalty. Those factors can include everything from the defendant's home life to their mental health. "Mental health is often very expensive to investigate because you have to hire experts, various kinds of doctors for the case who can evaluate the defendant's mental health," he said. Moreover, he said the sentencing phase of a death penalty case is almost a separate trial. That doesn't happen with life without parole cases. KRCG 13 also obtained the courts' case party fee reports for all 8 cases. This time, the death penalty cases cost less. They incurred $323.60 in court fees on average, compared to $17,053.91 for life without parole cases. Unlike most states, Missouri does not house its death row inmates separately from the general prison population. The Missouri Department of Corrections says the average cost for housing these inmates is the same as the rest of its prisoners. That cost works out to an average of $20,958.30 per year. The department says the average death row inmate spends 11.9 years in prison before they are executed, which leads to an average cost of $249,403.77. Persons sentenced to life without parole typically live for 16.7 years in prison before they die of natural causes. That leads to an average cost of $350,003.61. When all of the average costs are added together, Missouri taxpayers can expect to spend an average of $384,390.37 on a person tried and sentenced to death. The same person given a life without parole sentence will cost taxpayers an average of $372,931.52. Rep. Rick Brattin, R-Harrisonville, said he doesn't think that's enough of a difference to warrant a change in policy. Brattin is the vice-chair of the House Corrections Committee and a staunch supporter of the death penalty. He has introduced legislation over the last two years to allow executions by firing squad. He said those facing the death penalty have committed particularly heinous crimes, crimes for which the death penalty is the only logical punishment. "It may be a cost, but I think if we deter someone, by using the death penalty, from committing a crime of murder, we have saved the state money," he said. Brattin suggested the state look into stricter time limits for filing appeals and issuing death warrants. But Mermelstein said the state already has a 90-day time limit for filing a postconviction appeal. He said speeding up the process further increases the risk of a wrongful conviction. 4 people have been exonerated from Missouri's death row since 1973. For death penalty opponents like Rep. Jeanne Kirkton, D-Webster Groves, the question of whether to execute a convicted murderer is more moral than financial. Kirkton has introduced legislation to abolish the death penalty almost every year she has been in office. "The state taking the life of another is not right," she said. "I think that if we're going to do something, we need to just lock them up and take away every right and privilege that they have." Tennessee's Comptroller of the Treasury studied the costs of that state's death penalty in 2004 and found death penalty trials cost about $15,000 more on average than life without parole trials. Kansas, which is the only state with an active death penalty statute that hasn't executed anyone since the Gregg v. Georgia ruling in 1976, has commissioned several studies that have reached similar conclusions. The Missouri State Auditor's office said it would need a directive from the general assembly to carry out such a study. Legislation authorizing a formal death penalty cost study has been introduced several times, but it has never gone anywhere. (source: connectmidmissouri.com) NEBRASKA: Nebraska Considers Ending Death Penalty ---- The conservative state has 11 inmates on death row, one of whom has been there for 35 years as legal obstacles hit executions. Nebraska could become the 1st conservative state in more than 40 years to abolish the death penalty, under proposals being considered by politicians. An initial vote earlier this year to repeal the law has sparked optimism among capital punishment opponents, although Nebraska Governor Pete Ricketts has moved to block the change. The state last executed someone in 1997 and currently has 11 men on death row. Democrats and Republicans have formed an unlikely alliance to try and get the death penalty repealed. Democrats have cited racial disparities in who is sentenced to death and highlighted the dangers of executing an innocent person, while Republicans have pointed out legal obstacles that have prevented the state executing anyone for 18 years. Senator Colby Coash said the death penalty wastes taxpayers' money. He said: "You always want to feel as a legislator that you're sticking up for the victims. "I don't speak for the victims, but how is it justice if a state imposes a sentence that it's never going to carry out?" The last conservative state to abolish the death penalty was North Dakota in 1973. In the last 6 years, 4 more liberal states have ended capital punishment: New Mexico in 2009, Illinois in 2011, Connecticut in 2012 and Maryland in 2013. 32 states still have death penalty laws. Legal experts have said if Nebraska repeals the law, it could prompt other states to act as well. Frank Zimring, a law professor at the University of California, Berkeley, said: "If New Hampshire wanted to abolish the death penalty, Nebraska could set a terrific precedent. "But it probably wouldn't work in Texas or Missouri." In 2008, a state Supreme Court ruling outlawed the use of the electric chair in executions. Nebraska switched to lethal injections, but the slow rate of processing inmate appeals meant executions were prevented for so long its stock of sodium thiopental expired and it could not replace reserves. Nebraska has executed four inmates since reinstating the death penalty in 1973. One of its death row inmates has been there for 35 years. In March, the Nebraska legislature voted 30-13 to repeal the penalty, but politicians have to vote on it twice more and Republican Governor Mr Ricketts has promised to veto it. Some 33 votes would be needed to defeat a filibuster attempting to block the bill. A recent Pew Research Centre study found 55% of Americans support the death penalty - down from 62% in 2011. It comes as Richard Glossip, a death row inmate in Oklahoma, could become the 1st American to be executed using nitrogen gas. (source: Sky News) SOUTH DAKOTA: Berget Will Keep Attorneys For Death Penalty Appeal The same attorneys who represented Rodney Berget during his death penalty case will represent him during his appeal. That was the ruling handed down Monday. This was the week Berget was supposed to be executed for his role in the 2011 murder of Correctional Officer Ron 'RJ' Johnson, but an appeal filed last month issued an indefinite stay of execution. In court Monday, Jeff Larson and Cheri Scharffenberg made the case for why they should still represent Berget during the appeal. The South Dakota Attorney General's Office argues that Larson and Scharffenberg shouldn't be allowed to work on an appeal that often takes a critical look at Berget's legal representation during his death penalty case. "Here we have a conflict," Assistant Attorney General Paul Swedlund said in court. "They bring the same claims that were brought on direct appeal. We need a fresh perspective on this case." Larson argued, however, that Berget can choose whomever he wants to represent him during an appeal and he has chosen the same team that represented him during his death penalty case. "The state is trying to come in and tell my client who can be his lawyers," Larson said. The judge sided with Berget and ruled that Larson and Scharffenberg can remain the inmate's attorneys while they try to fight for their client's life. The Attorney General's Office argues that many of the issues raised in the appeal have already been heard by the South Dakota Supreme Court and should be dismissed. Those arguments will be considered at a future hearing. (source: Keloland Television) CALIFORNIA: Misty Holt-Singh's Mother Frustrated As Prosecutors Delay Death Penalty Decision Emotions poured out of a Stockton courtroom on Monday as the surviving suspects of last year's bank robbery and shootout faced a judge. The mother of Misty Holt-Singh, the hostage killed in the July violence, spoke out after prosecutors said they have yet to decide if they will seek the death penalty in the case. Surviving robbery and shootout suspect Jaime Ramos, along with Pablo Ruvacalba, who is accused of being the drop-off driver, were in court on Monday. Prosecutors were supposed to set a trial date in the case that stems from the bank robbery and pursuit. 2 other suspects were killed in the shootout that also claimed the life of Holt-Singh. Hearing that prosecutors were still deciding on the death penalty and that the case wouldn't be moving forward on Monday frustrated her mother. "My daughter was killed execution style and they deserve nothing less. That's how I feel," she said. "They have no rights at all. They don't have no rights. Their girlfriends sit in there, blowing them kisses and waving; they should be taken off to jail." The next hearing to discuss a trial date has been pushed back to June 8. The delay is even more stressful for a mother who lost her daughter, and close to losing another. "My other daughter is in the hospital, dying of cancer. And these hoodlums took my baby, and cancer's taken my other daughter, so, no I'm not happy," she said. Holt-Singh's family has filed a claim against the city of Stockton since we've learned she was killed by police gunfire. The city has said it's waiting for the results of an independent investigation before it makes any conclusion regarding that claim. (source: CBS news) USA: In defense of innocence: Why the death penalty must go In 1985, Anthony Ray Hinton was charged with murdering two men in Alabama. Hinton, too poor to afford an attorney, was appointed one by the court. Hinton's alibi checked out and a police-administered polygraph test substantiated his innocence, but the judge refused to admit the results at trial. The prosecutor, known for a history of racial bias, told the court that Hinton, a black man, looked guilty and "evil." There were no eyewitnesses or fingerprint evidence; the state circumstantially tied Hinton to the crimes with a gun found in his mother's home. For a pivotal witness, Hinton's court-appointed lawyer called a one-eyed ballistics expert. Hinton was sentenced to death. He has maintained his innocence ever since. In 2002, after years of appeals, several firearms experts (including a former chief of the FBI's ballistics unit) refuted the state's weapon match. Nevertheless, Alabama refused to re-examine Hinton's case until 2014, when the United States Supreme Court unanimously overturned his conviction and ordered a new trial. Soon thereafter, state forensic testing confirmed that Hinton did not commit the murders. On April 3rd Anthony Ray Hinton was released from death row, 30 years after he was so wrongfully convicted. Hinton's case may seem atypical - a complete lack of evidence, a deficient defense lawyer, the time spent behind bars - but it isn't. Hinton's case testifies to the harm an inherently flawed legal system can inflict on the innocent, something that occurs more often than we realize. Hinton is the 152nd person exonerated from death row since 1973. But he is one of the lucky ones. A recent analysis of the 7,482 capital cases between 1973 and 2004 describes a horrifying reality. Presenting a "conservative estimate," the study, published by the National Academy of Sciences, found that 2,675 inmates (36 %) were removed from death row after new evidence cast doubt on guilt. At least another 307 people (4.1 percent) sentenced to die are innocent, 118 of whom were eventually exonerated. It is unclear how many of the 190-plus remaining convicts were executed. While there are 10 known cases of executions despite strong evidence of innocence, there most likely have been many more innocents executed since 1973. The law will always strive for truth, but it can never be guaranteed to arrive at it. Wrongful convictions are unfortunately inevitable. However, under normal circumstances, these mistakes can be re-examined and corrected. An innocent sentenced to life imprisonment may suffer years of wrongful incarceration, but freedom can always eventually be restored. In capital cases, this is not always so. When the heart has been stopped by a barbiturate cocktail, when the vital organs have been destroyed by a fatal electric shock, there is no room for second thoughts. Innocent or guilty, death is forever. For some, infrequent innocent deaths are a negligible side effect of a predominantly efficient punishment. But they are very wrong. Beyond its unacceptable human toll, capital punishment is costly in the fiscal sense as well. Largely due to monumental prosecution costs, implementing the death penalty is across-the-board more expensive than sustaining an inmate for life in prison. Pursuing and carrying out an execution, depending on state, can cost twice to ten times as much as a comparable case of life imprisonment. The ACLU reported that California could save more than $1 billion over the next 5 years by replacing the death penalty with life imprisonment. On top of all this, the death penalty does not deter crime. Nearly 95 % of criminologists find no correlation between capital punishment and lower murder rates, determined a Northwestern University study. Murder rates are higher in states with capital punishment and have declined in states since its abolishment. Furthermore, the death penalty exacerbates racial tensions - it is disproportionately sought in cases with black defendants, like Hinton, who, especially in the South, continue to receive abysmal legal representation and must confront predominantly white juries. Increasingly, the death penalty is considered a primitive punishment; nearly 50 % of Americans believe life imprisonment should replace capital punishment. The United States is the only Western democracy that executes criminals, joined by the likes of Somalia, Iran, and North Korea. Capital punishment is antiquated, expensive, and not a deterrent. But, most tragically, for as long as the death penalty lives, innocents will die. Replacing capital punishment with life imprisonment will ensure that our imperfect legal system does not execute the innocents it will undoubtedly convict. <>P> To save the innocent we must not kill the guilty. (source: Dan Korff-Korn is an incoming freshman at Dartmouth College, where he intends to study government. He is currently living a year abroad in Israel studying philosophy and Jewish law; The Hill) ********************* Death-penalty abolitionists fight a guerrilla war: Bloomberg View Is there a guerrilla war under way against the death penalty? Justice Samuel Alito proposed the idea Wednesday when the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments about the use of the drug midazolam while administering lethal injections. The answer, to put it bluntly, is yes: Death-penalty abolitionists, unable to persuade either the public or the courts to prohibit the death penalty absolutely, rely on all the legal means available to them. Their arguments before the court are politics by other means -- Clausewitz's famous description of war. The guerrilla tactic that brought the advocates before the court this week worked just as Alito alleged. First, the opponents pressured pharmaceutical companies and compounding pharmacies not to provide drugs that would effectively paralyze and kill. Next, they asked the courts to strike down the use of the inferior drugs that are left for the states to use, because those drugs don't work reliably. That such an indirect legal war against capital punishment exists doesn't end the matter. It leaves open the more fundamental question: Is the use of such legal tactics as a form of political warfare in any way illegitimate? Or is it simply a normal tactic employed by almost all social movements, including those as politically disparate as anti-abortion groups and gay- rights activists? Start with Alito's view, which to his credit he expressed in open court. He first acknowledged that the death penalty is "controversial as a constitutional matter. It certainly is controversial as a policy matter." He then explained what he thought was legitimate political and legal action: "Those who oppose the death penalty are free to try to persuade legislatures to abolish the death penalty. Some of those efforts have been successful. They're free to ask this Court to overrule the death penalty." Yet, Alito concluded, neither the legislature nor the courts had abolished the death penalty, and the abolitionists instead engaged in their tactical, "guerrilla" approach of affecting the drug supply and then challenging its legality. Notice that Alito was not making the familiar argument that controversial policy matters should be resolved by the legislature, not by the courts. That's actually a pretty good argument, albeit one that has lost some of its currency in this era of extreme judicial activism on both conservative and liberal sides. The death penalty is in fact politically controversial, and it's not unreasonable to claim that as a result, the court should avoid deciding the question definitively and wait for the public to make up its mind. Yet in making his point, Alito either couldn't or wouldn't rely on the familiar distinction between policy and constitutional law -- presumably because the court is so thoroughly in the business of ruling on capital punishment already. Indeed, the tradition of the Supreme Court assessing the constitutionality of the death penalty itself in various mechanisms for sentencing and punishment goes back more than 40 years, to Furman v. Georgia, the 1972 case in which the court temporarily halted the death penalty nationally by holding that it was cruel and unusual because of the arbitrariness of its application. That means Alito must be arguing something more subtle. According to his view, it's fair to challenge the death penalty both in legislatures and in courts. What's unjustified is to attack capital punishment obliquely, by going at the technicalities of its administration -- what Justice Harry Blackmun at the end of his career famously called "the machinery of death." What makes that technique unfair? The guerrilla metaphor is instructive. Real armies, goes the theory, attack frontally on the battlefield. Calling the death penalty morally wrong and unconstitutional would count as a frontal assault. Guerrillas don't fight that way. They frustrate conventional opponents by sneaking around. Sometimes they don't wear uniforms. Sometimes they hide among civilians. In these ways they may violate the international laws of war -- which are, of course, written by states that have conventional armies, not by guerrilla fighters. According to Alito, what's wrong with guerrilla attacks on the death penalty is that they frustrate the constitutional and political process, which should involve direct arguments. By implication, the legal and political debate should be meaningful and not obfuscated in a miasma of tactics. Generally speaking, I think Alito is probably right about this. We do better constitutional law and politics when we actually debate our values and our preferences. We have a lot to gain from talking about controversial issues, and little to gain from dancing around them. Yet the reality has often been otherwise. Consider the anti-abortion movement, which, like the movement against the death penalty, hasn't had a definitive victory in the courts since Roe v. Wade. Anti-abortion advocates pass laws that chip away at the edges of the abortion right, for example by prohibiting particular techniques. Then they urge the courts to find these restrictions constitutional. When the laws cut against them, like the creation of buffer zones around abortion clinics, the anti-abortion groups challenge those laws as violations of free speech. In neither circumstance do the advocates say what they really mean: that abortion is morally wrong and should be condemned. The gay-rights movement has similarly pursued a piecemeal legal strategy that could be characterized as guerrilla warfare. It has offered a wide array of arguments in seeking the right to marry, ranging from privacy to equality to dignity. It's challenged marriage prohibitions at both state and federal levels. The recent struggle between a federal district court and the Alabama state courts counts as guerrilla warfare running in all directions, fueled by gay-rights advocates as well as opponents. Instead of arguing squarely about a constitutional right to marriage, that debate has largely been over the technical question of whether a federal district court decision binds state courts. What makes these guerrilla techniques legitimate is that everyone involved knows what the real, underlying issue is. Deciding controversial moral questions in the courts may be a funny way to do business. But as Americans, we know the rules -- and those rules allow us to try to win using any means necessary. (source: Noah Feldman, a Bloomberg View columnist, is a professor of constitutional and international law at Harvard and the author of six books, most recently "Cool War: The Future of Global Competition."----Bloomberg News) ************************* Legal challenge to death penalty in the United States Capital punishment is still legal in 32 American states, but the death penalty in the United States is facing its most high profile test in decades. Three death row inmates in Oklahoma are challenging new experimental drugs used in lethal injections, after several botched executions. North America Corresponder Lisa Millar reports for Lateline. Transcript EMMA ALBERICI, PRESENTER: When 8 people, including the 2 Australians Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran, were executed by Indonesia, it reminded us that many parts of the world don't share our view of capital punishment. In fact, 36 nations still have the death penalty, including our 3 biggest trading partners, China, Japan and the United States. Capital punishment is still legal in 32 American states, but that country is witnessing the most high-profile test of its laws in decades. 3 death row inmates in Oklahoma are challenging the state's rights to use new experimental drugs in lethal injections after several botched executions. Now, other killings are being delayed and American states are scrambling to find alternative methods, even raising the possibility of bringing back firing squads. North America correspondent Lisa Millar reports from Oklahoma. LISA MILLAR, REPORTER: Oklahoma is a deeply conservative, deeply religious state with a firm grip on traditional values. It's no surprise it's at the front line of America's latest battle over the death penalty. Richard Glossop is phoning in from death row. BILLIE JO BOYIDDLE, NIECE: You sound gloomy. RICHARD GLOSSOP: Gloomy? BILLIE JO BOYIDDLE: Yeah. RICHARD GLOSSOP: Oh, I'm not gloomy. You know better than that. I'm never gloomy. BILLIE JO BOYIDDLE: OK! LISA MILLAR: Glossop's niece and sister talk to him several times a week. This time though, he wants to get a message to the media. What are the conditions like there for you at the moment, Richard? RICHARD GLOSSOP: It's been 18 years of hell when you have to live in a place like this. I mean, it's not a great environment for anybody. LISA MILLAR: Glossop is on death row for ordering the killing of his boss, a hotel owner, a crime he says he didn't do. In January, just a day before he was scheduled to die, the Supreme Court agreed to hear a case that could have widespread ramifications. RICHARD GLOSSOP: I'm glad I wrote in. It makes me really happy that I get to be a part of this because like I told anybody, you know, no matter what happens, I hope that in my time that I have lived, I can make a difference to where I can help stop this from happening to other people in this country. LISA MILLAR: Lethal injection has been the most widely used method of execution in the US, but the drugs are in short supply because pharmaceutical companies opposed to capital punishment refuse to sell them to prisons. That's forced states to try new, untested combinations of drugs and sparked this court case. ROBERT DUNHAM, DEATH PENALTY INFORMATION CENTRE: The states are now botching executions. So you've seen in Arizona, you've seen in Oklahoma, you've seen in Ohio, defendants being essentially tortured to death because the inappropriate drugs were being used, being inappropriately administered and inappropriate safeguards taking place. LISA MILLAR: Last year, Oklahoma used midazolam for the 1st time in the execution of Clayton Lockhart. It was meant to send him into a deep coma, but he groaned and convulsed and died 43 minutes later of a heart attack. Lawyer Dale Baich witnessed the drug being used in another execution in Arizona. It took Joe Wood 1 hour and 58 minutes to die. DALE BAICH, LAWYER: His breathing slowed and it appeared that it had stopped. The colour had started to leave his face. And about 12 minutes into the process, he suddenly opened his mouth and gasped and he did this again and again. LISA MILLAR: Dale Baich is part of the team arguing that Oklahoma's method of killing people violates the US Constitution's ban on cruel and unusual punishment. DALE BAICH: If Richard Glossop is executed, we're hoping that the drugs that will be used to carry out that execution will not cause pain and suffering during the process. LISA MILLAR: The justices appeared sharply divided as he heard the arguments last week, one of them asking if the case was in fact a guerrilla war against the death penalty. SCOTT PRUITT, OKLAHOMA ATTORNEY-GENERAL: I think they were trying to characterise this as simply an attack on the death penalty, and fundamentally, I think that's what it is. LISA MILLAR: There are strong feelings in McAlester, home to Oklahoma's state prison. Sheriff Joel Kerns is walking us through a holding cell for women, praising the conditions prisoners have. How many have you have in here generally? JOEL KERNS, SHERIFF: Ah, a capacity of 36. Right now I have about 38. LISA MILLAR: He's got no time for activists trying to abolish the death penalty. JOEL KERNS: The majority of the constituents here, the majority of the people here are in favour of the death penalty. LISA MILLAR: And why do you think that is? JOEL KERNS: The simple fact that we're in a religious area where they believe that an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. LISA MILLAR: And he's not losing sleep over botched executions. JOEL KERNS: From everyone that I've talked to and visited with and what I know, they think that was just a minute problem to what he caused the victim in his crime. LISA MILLAR: So no sympathy? JOEL KERNS: No sympathy, none whatsoever for Mr Lockhart. LISA MILLAR: Behind me here is death row in Oklahoma. It's where Richard Glossop is being held and where he made that phone call from. There are about 50 prisoners waiting to be executed here and the state of Oklahoma has said even if it loses this case in the Supreme Court, it's got back-up plans. It will use the gas chamber and it hasn't ruled out bringing back the electric chair, even a firing squad. Robert Dunham from the Death Penalty Information Centre is convinced this case against the use of the drug midazolam is the start of something bigger. ROBERT DUNHAM: I think we're at a critical stage in the death penalty in the United States. I think the botched executions have galvanised the debate. LISA MILLAR: There are more than 3,000 inmates on death row across America. Last year, 35 were killed, the lowest number in 2 decades. A majority of Americans, a little under 60 %, support the death penalty, but Robert Dunham can see a time when that punishment won't exist at all. ROBERT DUNHAM: 1 by 1 by 1 by 1, states have been abolishing the death penalty. We've dropped from 38 to 32 states that have the death penalty in the last 10 years, and in that same time, we've had 4 states that have imposed moratorium. LISA MILLAR: Back in Oklahoma, Billie-Jo is fighting for her uncle's release. BILLIE JO BOYIDDLE: Nobody should ever have to suffer like that. I understand people do bad things, but that doesn't give us the right to do that as well. That makes us no different than the criminals. RICHARD GLOSSOP: And it is time, it really is time to stop the death penalty in this country because we tell other countries that it's barbaric to kill innocent people, but yet we do it here. LISA MILLAR: Time is not on Richard Glossop's side. The court will make its decision next month. Win or lose, Oklahoma's Governor has vowed executions will go ahead. (source: ABC news) ***************** Stories of Innocents - Shujaa Graham Q&A----This story is part of the Torch's coverage of the Stories of Innocents event. The Torch: Do you believe your past played a large role in your conviction? Why? Shujaa Graham: I grew up in the south, in Lake Providence, La. I grew up on racism. Racism played a part in my mind, and I eventually realized a lot of it when I was in prison, when I became politicized in the institution. As I evolved, I was politicized in prison by other prisoners who had committed crimes and were totally guilty, but they just wanted to educate me about the injustices and the racism, and they convinced me to join a political movement for social justice. After being in prison for three years and being a part of that movement, in 1973, a human being was murdered and his name was Jerry Sanders. I was accused of leading a political uprising, because of the police brutality and the racism that was going on in prison. As a consequence of me being recognized as a leader of that movement, when that [murder] happened, I was one of the first people that they picked up and put in solitary confinement. They indicted me, and for the next 9 years, I had to fight for my life. The Torch: What were you thinking when you heard your guilty verdict? What was the first thought that came into your head? Graham: The judge announced it, "We find Mr. Graham guilty, and we sentence you to die at San Quentin on a particular day to a gas penetrator, and you're no longer with us." That was a hard part for me. Think about you being totally innocent, and you going off for something that you really didn't do, but [you're] gonna pay the punishment, so that was one of the hardest parts for me during my confinement in prison. The Torch: What was a constant thought you had during your time on death row? Graham: I said, "I'm not just a prisoner, I'm a death row prisoner." At a particular time, they're going to kill me. So, I had to start focusing on how I was going to get out of there. I never contemplated suicide while I was on death row, but there were many nights that I went to bed and was perfectly okay if I didn???t wake up. Think about the worst day that you ever had, and knowing that tomorrow will be even worse. That's death row everyday that you're there. The Torch: What was your first thought when you were finally found innocent? Graham: My greatest nightmare has finally come to an end. I was happy to be able to get out. Not just to get out and be free, but to get out of prison and do the things that I committed myself to. What happened to me is over with. I can go out into society and make sure that what happened to me, never happens to anyone else without me raising my voice. The Torch: What are your views on capital punishment? I'm totally against the death penalty in all situations, no matter what you've done or no matter what you've been accused of. Capital punishment solves no problems, it only intensifies them. All capital punishment does is make more victims. Graham: What is your biggest goal for the future? Not just the end of the death penalty, not just the end of the criminal justice system as it stands. I dream of a society that all mankind will have equal chance in a society without racism and discrimination. I use the death penalty to be able to articulate what I feel, and deal with human rights and the social injustices that happens in our society. The goal is the end of the death penalty, but that's just a single issue. The Torch: What message are you trying to convey with your audience today? Graham: To inspire them and to not be negative. To take advantage of their opportunities in school and learn as much as they can, and get their education. Once they receive their education, don't use that education for self alone. I always tell people, 'you're gonna go to school to be a lawyer, doctor or teacher. I don't know which one you're gonna be. But, I want you to add 1 more thing to your vocation. Find a cause for social justice and human rights, and add it to your vocation. When you do this, it's going to make you a better lawyer, a better teacher or a better doctor.' ************************** Stories of Innocents - Juan Melendez Q&A----This story is part of the Torch's coverage of the Stories of Innocents event. The Torch: Do you believe your past played a large role in your conviction? Why? Juan Melendez: Race* played a big role in my conviction I believe. Being poor played a big role in my conviction. Having an unfair prosecutor** is one of the factors. Having an almost all-white jury played a big role on my conviction. *Melendez did not speak English at all and according to him, no one provided any interpreter. *Melendez' prosecutor hid actual evidence that would've put the person guilty in prison. The Torch: What were you thinking when you heard your guilty verdict? What was the first thought that came into your head? Melendez: I was very angry, very disappointed at the system. But most of all I was scared, very scared to die for a crime I did not commit. The Torch: What was a constant thought you had during your time on death row? Melendez: I can tell you the truth: the electric chair was in my head everyday. That's how I was sentenced to die. [During] my time we didn't have the lethal injection. It came in before I left, but mine was for the electric chair. The Torch: What was your first thought when you were finally found innocent? Melendez: I was very, very concerned about my family. I wanted to see my family, and I wanted to kiss the ground, and that's what I did. One thing I wanted to see as soon as I got out was the moon. I didn't walk in no grass, no dirt for all them years. I wanted to do the simple things. I'm the luckiest person in the world; I have 2 birthdays*. *Melendez said he was released on Thursday, January 3rd, 2002. According to him, he celebrates the date as his 2nd birthday. The Torch: What are your views on capital punishment? Melendez: I believe [death penalty] should be replaced with life without parole. Some people commit crimes so horrifying that even if they change in prison the crime is so horrifying that they lost their right to be in the community, the community have the right to be safe, but you don't have to kill them. That's what I think. Keep them in prison alive for the rest of their lives, but you don't have to kill them. Society has the right to be safe. The Torch: What is your biggest goal for the future? Melendez: For the future, all I'm really interested in is to abolish the death penalty. That's probably my only goal right now. I'm doing that by educating people, and the problem about the death penalty is all about details. People need to know that it's racist. People need to know that it costs too much. People need to know that it does not deter crime. People need to know that it's cruel and unnecessary. The Torch: What message are you trying to convey with your audience today? Melendez: The message is to motivate the students to get involved in public safety, and one of the ways to get involved in public safety is to be against the death penalty because the death penalty costs a lot of money to maintain it. It costs more to execute a person than to keep them alive in prison for the rest of his life. And that money can be used to prevent crime, to educate kids in the community, to give police more better training and better equipment so they can get the real perpetrator. (source for both: The Torch) From rhalperi at smu.edu Tue May 5 13:34:52 2015 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Tue, 5 May 2015 13:34:52 -0500 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide Message-ID: May 5 SAUDI ARABIA/FRANCE: France's Hollande in Saudi calls for death penalty ban----French President Francois Hollande calls for abolition of the death penalty, speaking in Saudi Arabia which this year has seen a large rise in the number of executions French President Francois Hollande called on Tuesday, May 5, for abolition of the death penalty, speaking in Saudi Arabia which this year has seen a large rise in the number of executions. The ultra-conservative Gulf kingdom has executed 78 locals and foreigners, compared with 87 during all of 2014, according to an AFP count. Hollande, who attended the Gulf Cooperation Council summit in Riyadh on Tuesday, said: "France is campaigning across the world to abolish the death penalty." "The death penalty should be banned," he told reporters after meeting GCC leaders including Saudi King Salman. He said Paris's position towards the death penalty is "not because one of our citizens could be a victim of an execution", referring to Frenchman Serge Atlaoui who is on death row in Indonesia. Hollande said he would make the call to ban executions "everywhere, and regardless who is involved. And I do it here too" from Riyadh. Just hours before Hollande's arrival on Monday in Saudi Arabia, the kingdom beheaded 5 foreigners for murder and robbery, adding to what Amnesty International has called a "macabre spike" in the number of executions in the country. The 5 were 2 Yemenis, a Chadian, an Eritrean and a Sudanese. London-based Amnesty ranked Saudi Arabia among the world's top 3 executioners of 2014. Drug trafficking, rape, murder, apostasy and armed robbery are all punishable by death under the Gulf nation's strict version of Islamic sharia law. The interior ministry has cited deterrence as a reason for carrying out the punishment. (source: rappler.com) PAKISTAN----stay of impending juvenile execution+ Execution of Pakistan death row convict stayed in dispute over age A Pakistani judge on Tuesday stayed the execution of a man whose lawyers say was 14 when he was charged with murder, a case that has angered rights groups and prompted mercy appeals from his family. Shafqat Hussain was due to be executed on Wednesday. His lawyers say he was 14 in 2004 when he was burnt with cigarettes and had fingernails removed until he confessed to the killing of a child. It was the 2nd stay of execution for Hussain. In March, he was dressed in a white uniform ready for hanging and told to write his will before his execution was postponed while the Federal Investigation Agency looked into the question of his age. The agency, Pakistan's equivalent of the U.S. FBI, later determined he was not a juvenile at the time of the killing and a new execution date was set. But that was also challenged. "The judge has ruled that the FIA did not have the mandate to conduct the investigation into Shafqat's age and this should be done by a competent judicial forum," Shahab Siddiqui, of the Justice Project Pakistan, a legal aid group representing Hussain, told Reuters. "So, until the matter is decided, his execution is stayed." The death sentence cannot be imposed on a defendant who was under 18 at the time of the crime. Testimony obtained by torture is also inadmissible. Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif lifted a moratorium on the death penalty on Dec. 17, a day after Pakistani Taliban gunmen attacked a school and killed 134 pupils and 19 adults. Since then, 102 people have been executed, according to the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan. Hussain's family has made heartrending appeals to the government, complaining of a flawed justice system that allowed months of torture to extract a confession. Human rights groups say convictions in Pakistan are highly unreliable because its antiquated criminal justice system barely functions, torture is common and the police are mostly untrained. (source: businessinsider.com) BANGLADESH: 4 get death penalty for killing Swechhasebak League leader A court has ordered death penalty for four convicts accused of killing Joypurhat Swechhasebak League's Vice President Sirajul Islam. Joypurhat District and Sessions Judge Mijanur Rahman has given the verdict in the 10-year-old case on Tuesday. The accused are Taslim Uddin Tiplu, Farhad Hossain, Haider Ali from Teghorbisha village and 'Shapin' from Joypurhat. Taslim Uddin and Haider Ali were present in the court when the verdict was pronounced. The other 2, Farhad and 'Shapin' were absconding, said Prosecutor Nripendranath Mandal. According to the case documents, on Nov 30, 2005 Sirajul Islam was hacked to death near Charmatha area of Teghorbisha village in Joypurhat. Sirajul's father, Mojibur Rahman filed a case against 13 people the same night. At the end of their investigations, police submitted a charge sheet accusing 9 people. Among the accused, 4 died in RAB 'crossfire' at different times, and 1 was killed by his opponent, said the prosecutor Mandal. (source: bdnews24.com) ********************* 4 awarded death penalty in Joypurhat 4 persons have been sentenced to death for killing a local leader of Swechchhashebak League, a front organisation of ruling Awami League, in 2005. Additional district and sessions judge Mizanur Rahman on Tuesday delivered the verdict on the murder case of Sirajul Islam, Swechchhashebak League leader of Joypurhat district. The convicts are Safin Hossain, Taslim Uddin, Haider Ali and Farhad Hossain. Of them, Safin and Taslim are absconding. Haider and Farhad are now in jail. The court acquitted 5 other accused. According to the prosecution, Sirajul Islam was hacked to death on 30 November 2005. Sirajul's father filed a case with Joypurhat Sadar police station accusing 13 people. 3 of the 13 accused were killed in a 'gunfight' with the police and 1 got killed by terrorists. (source: Prothom Alo) ********************** Death or life term for killing after rape The Supreme Court has declared that a rapist could be awarded capital punishment or a life term for killing any child or woman after rape. A 4-member bench of Appellate Division led by Chief Justice Surendra Kumar Sinha passed the judgement on Tuesday morning. The apex court upheld a High Court verdict that declared the sections 6 (2), 6 (4) of the Women and Children Repression Prevention (Special) Act 1995 unconstitutional and illegal. The provision of the section 6 (2) reads: "Whoever causes the death of any child or woman in or after committing rape shall be punishable with death." "Where more than 1 person jointly cause the death of any child or woman in or after committing rape, each of them shall be punishable with death," reads the provision of the section 6 (4). However, the apex court declared the High Court verdict that said the cases which were running under the sections 6 (2) and 6 (4) of the Women and Children Repression Prevention (Special) Act 1995 will be continued under the same sections. On July 12, 2001, the Women and Children Repression Prevention Special Tribunal of Manikganj awarded capital punishment to Sukur Ali, 14, for killing a 7-year-old girl in 1999. Later, Sukur filed an appeal with the HC against the trial court verdict. Then Sukur Ali filed a writ petition with the HC on December 2005 challenging the constitutional validity of the section. On March 2, 2010, the High Court declared illegal and unconstitutional the provision of awarding a death sentence under the Women and Children Repression Prevention (Special) Act 1995. The court also stayed the execution of the death sentence for Sukur Ali for 2 months. (source: Dhaka Tribune) ******************************** SC hearing on war criminal Mojaheed's appeal against death penalty continues Defence lawyer for convicted war criminal Ali Ahsan Mohammad Mojaheed yesterday placed before the Supreme Court the statements of three prosecution witnesses about the charge of torturing and killing freedom fighters in 1971. The charge was brought against the Jamaat-e-Islami leader for torturing and killing several freedom fighters in the old MP Hostel in Nakhalpara, Dhaka, on August 30, 1971. The International Crimes Tribunal-2 sentenced Mojaheed to life imprisonment in connection with this charge. Yesterday, Mojaheed's lawyer read out the statements of the prosecution witnesses before the Appellate Division during its second day's hearing on Mojaheed's appeal filed on August 11, 2013, challenging all his sentences including death penalty. The SC fixed today for resuming the hearing. (source: The Daily Star) AUSTRALIA: Australian campaign to abolish death penalty Momentum is gathering in Australia to push for the elimination of the death penalty around the world but some say Australians should address attitudes in their own backyard first. Not long before they died, convicted drug traffickers Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran expressed a wish for a global campaign to abolish the death penalty. They had spent 10 long years in Indonesian prisons after being convicted in 2006 of playing a major role in the so-called Bali 9 drug ring that attempted to smuggle more than 18lb (8.2kg) of heroin from Indonesia to Australia. By all accounts, they had worked hard to rehabilitate themselves: Chan had qualified as a pastor and ministered to fellow inmates. Sukumaran found solace in art. His talent for painting earned him an associate degree in fine arts from Western Australia's Curtin University two months before his execution. Those changes slowly won them the sympathy of many Australians. Now, their desire to see more action on the death penalty is being taken up by some of the country's top politicians. Devastated by the failure of frantic diplomatic and legal bids to save their lives, Foreign Minister Julie Bishop last week said "it is time for us to have a significant discussion about the application of the death penalty for drug offences in our region". Former Attorney General Philip Ruddock has taken the campaign a step further. He has written to the local diplomats of countries such as Brazil, France and Nigeria, whose nationals were executed this year by Indonesia or are on death row there. Co-chair of Australian Parliamentarians against the Death Penalty, Mr Ruddock wants them to work with Australia on abolishing the death penalty in and beyond the region, including in the United States. "I think it is timely that Australia indicates it has a principled position on this matter and that we're prepared to be on the front foot in advocating change," Mr Ruddock told the BBC. But Agriculture Minister Barnaby Joyce, who is charged with managing sensitive trade issues with Indonesia, says Australia might have to look into its own backyard as well as trying to influence others. "I have to be honest, I do get approached by people saying, 'Well, that might be your view, Barnaby, that you don't support the death penalty, but it's not our view'," he told ABC television. Australia has a long-standing bipartisan opposition to capital punishment and has not executed anyone since 1967. But the nation's leaders at times send mixed messages about the death penalty. Comments by former Prime Minister John Howard in 2007 about the ringleaders of the 2002 Bali bombings, which killed 202 people, are a prime example. "The idea that we would plead for the deferral of executions of people who murdered 88 Australians is distasteful to the entire community," he said. However, Australians' acceptance of the use of the death penalty by other countries has fallen in recent years. A 1986 poll found more than 70% believed it should be carried out if Australians were sentenced to death in another country, says Lowy Institute for International Policy polling director Alex Oliver. But a Lowy poll conducted in February this year showed nearly a complete reversal: 62% of people did not want Chan and Sukumaran to be executed, and nearly 70% believed the death penalty should not be used to punish drug traffickers. Another poll, in 2010, found that nearly 60% of people wanted Australia to push for abolition of the death penalty in South East Asia. Ms Oliver expects to see similar sentiments in a poll conducted at the weekend about the latest executions, to be published later this week. "The last 35 years have seen a strengthening opposition to the death penalty generally," she says. However, she says views can change depending on who is facing capital punishment and what their crime is. Most people hold inconsistent views on the death penalty, says Patrick Stokes, Senior Lecturer in Philosophy at Melbourne's Deakin University. 'Accusations of hypocrisy' "Most people don't like the death penalty but think maybe certain people should be put to death, or they don't want the death penalty here but are less concerned about overseas, or they don't like the thought of Australians being executed, say, in China or Malaysia or Indonesia but are not concerned about it being applied in places like the US, or Iran or Japan or Saudi Arabia," he says. "It's an area where most people don't have a clear, principled position but a fragmented reaction to cases as they arrive." Working harder to abolish the death penalty rather than just winning a reprieve for sentenced Australians would shield Australia from accusations of hypocrisy or "special pleading", says Lowy executive director Dr Michael Fullilove. Asia is the obvious place for Australia to begin - it is home to "the world's worst offenders" on capital punishment, like China. Mr Fullilove says Australia should forge a regional alliance with countries in the region that have abolished the death penalty: Cambodia, Nepal, East Timor, Bhutan and the Philippines. It should also make the issue not just a principle, but a priority. "We should aim to become a leader in the international movement against the death penalty," he says. (source: BBC news) ********************** Bali 9: AFP has a bob each way on death penalty call----Australian Federal Police details how the investigation into the Bali 9 unfolded, and assert that officers could not have prevented the deaths of Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran. AFP 'know they did wrong': lawyer Now that the Australian Federal Police has expanded on its role in the Bali 9 arrests, some things are substantially clearer. But the most central question remains contestable. That is, should the AFP have handed over its nationals to a foreign criminal justice system that could (and did) see some of them executed? Speaking up for the AFP after a decade of official reluctance, even Commissioner Andrew Colvin has in effect, answered yes, and no. Yes our judgments were sound, but no, we probably would not arrive at the same decision now. Colvin did a solid job of defending his organisation by providing useful context, additional detail, and the policing version of the "fog of war" argument ??? ie that in determining the point of interception in a serious transnational crime, police must treat variables as real even if later they turn out to have been unwarranted. Allowing syndicate members to re-enter Australia for example, could go awry if there are corrupt co-conspirators within police, airlines, or customs at either end, or if hand-offs occur mid-flight transferring the contraband to other passengers. To those who say authorities should have stopped Scott Rush and other Bali 9 members from even travelling to Indonesia, both Colvin and Deputy Commissioner Mike Phelan say the AFP had no evidence with which to effect any arrests - no surveillance, no physical evidence and only the most fragmented intelligence. In April 2005, they did not know who was involved, how many, who was in charge, or even what drug was to be imported. Yet this is only a partial explanation. It is true arrests were problematic, but even the dullest of drug mules would surely abandon a crime once told they were being watched. To those who say the AFP should have kept its intel from the Indonesians, Colvin said the variables (above) were just too great and included the danger that eight kilograms of heroin could reach the Australian streets. The problem in trying to balance all of this is that even the AFP acknowledges its re-drafted operational guidelines now militate against sharing information when the death penalty could result. And those guidelines achieve that change without impinging on its ability to fight transnational crime. At the very least, this establishes prima facie that the former guidelines were too loose and that the AFP used that latitude. Colvin and Phelan, the officer who made the fateful call to alert Indonesia in April 2005, have clearly wrestled with the gravity of that decision and resent the harsh commentary since. Phelan acknowledges that the risk of capital punishment was in his mind when he alerted his Indonesian counterparts. Yet neither says an apology to the families is necessary, nor offers assurances against repetition. On the face of it, the policing arguments appear persuasive. On closer inspection, less so, and some are even contradictory. (source: Sydney Morning Herald) From rhalperi at smu.edu Tue May 5 13:35:54 2015 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Tue, 5 May 2015 13:35:54 -0500 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide Message-ID: May 5 INDONESIA: Abolition of death penalty just a proposal, Indonesian attorney general says in report Indonesia will not scrap the death penalty any time soon despite a proposal by some of its lawmakers to abolish it during a review of the country's criminal code, Indonesia's attorney general said. According to a Jakarta Post report, Attorney General M Prasetyo said it "is still far too early to discuss" lifting the death penalty in Indonesia. "There is a proposal, but we haven't discussed it yet," Prasetyo also said. International pressure on Indonesia to scrap the death penalty has been mounting after it executed 8 convicts, including foreign nationals, last month. It has executed 14 convicts since January. Mary Jane Veloso, the Filipino sentenced to death over a drug case, was spared from execution at the last minute after the illegal recruiter who allegedly tricked her into transporting 2.6 kilograms of heroin turned herself over to police in Nueva Ecija province on April 28. Hours before she was scheduled to be executed, President Benigno Aquino III talked to Indonesia's foreign minister about the need to turn Veloso into a witness against the drug syndicate that she says tricked her into becoming a drug mule. A Malacanang spokesperson said Monday that the Philippine government is already working with Indonesia to build a case against the drug syndicate. Despite that, Justice Secretary Leila de Lima said on Monday that the government will not press Indonesia to allow Veloso to come back to the Philippines to testify against her alleged recruiter Christine Pasadilla, alias Kristina Sergio, and others. (source: GMA news) ************* Transnational campaign against death penalty in Indonesia began with political prisoners ---- While recent executions by Indonesia have captured the world's attention, this year is also the 30th anniversary of the execution of political prisoners that first created global concern. Vannessa Hearman has received funding from the Australian Academy of Humanities and the Asian Studies Association of Australia (ASAA). She is Southeast Asia regional councillor for the ASAA. World attention has focused on Indonesia's recent executions. But this year also marks the 30th anniversary of the execution of 3 Indonesian political prisoners. In 1985, the Suharto regime executed Joko Untung, Gatot Lestario and Rustomo. With little warning to their families, they were taken in the middle of the night to a field in Pamekasan on the island of Madura, off the north coast of East Java, and shot. The men had been in prison since 1968 and 1969. Their crime was to try to resurrect the Indonesian Communist Party (PKI) in the southern parts of East Java. Opposition to the death penalty during the Suharto era was primarily part of the campaign against the authoritarian regime in Indonesia. This campaign united Indonesian and international organisations and involved ordinary citizens in countries such as Australia, the United Kingdom, Canada and the Netherlands. The story of Gatot Lestario Lestario was a high school teacher and an organiser of the PKI in East Java until 1965. The PKI was the 3rd-largest communist party in the world at that time. In September 1965, a group calling itself the 30th of September Movement kidnapped and killed seven high-ranking army officers. This was painted as a coup attempt against President Sukarno. The army leadership, led by Major General Suharto, blamed it on the PKI. Half a million leftists were killed in the 1965-66 pogroms. Many were imprisoned, mostly without trial, for varying lengths of time. A small number of leftists categorised as those "most involved" in the 30th of September Movement, including communist leaders, were executed. Suharto became president in 1968 and led Indonesia for the next 30 years. Lestario and a few dozen surviving PKI cadres managed to survive in hiding. In 1967, they retreated to construct a base in South Blitar to resist the Suharto regime. The military destroyed the base by September 1968 and thousands were killed, arrested and displaced. The surviving militants were jailed, some in Jakarta and the rest, including Lestario, in East Java. He was tried and sentenced to death in 1976. International campaign for Lestario While on death row, Lestario, who was adept in Dutch and English in addition to Indonesian and Javanese languages, began writing to penfriends who were involved in the Quakers and Amnesty International. Lestario convinced his penfriends to take up his case in their respective countries and in Indonesia. 1 of the founders of Amnesty International, Eric Baker was a Quaker and he urged the Quakers to support Amnesty's anti-torture campaign launched in 1973. The Quakers set up the Campaign Against Torture and the Prisoner Befriending Scheme as a result. The scheme encouraged Quaker congregations to write to political prisoners around the world. In 1983, Doreen Brown, who lived in London, sent Lestario a Christmas card to which he replied. Through his letters, Lestario was able to provide information to Amnesty International and Tapol, an Indonesian human rights organisation also based in London. Tapol was founded by former Indonesian political prisoner Carmel Budiardjo in 1973. Lestario described prison conditions and the situation of the 22 political prisoners in Pamekasan. Despite being behind bars, Lestario worked with this transnational network to improve the conditions of political prisoners and to campaign for their release. The Browns wrote and circulated 2 petitions, signed by hundreds of people, addressed to the Indonesian government for the release of Lestario and his wife Pudjiaswati. Lestario's clemency appeal to President Suharto was denied in 1984. In the same year, after a brief moratorium on executions, leftist prisoners began to be executed again, starting with Mohammad Munir. Munir was formerly a trade union leader with the World Federation of Trade Unions and member of the PKI Politburo. Lestario expressed his concern to his penfriends about this worrying development. He hoped that Amnesty could pressure the foreign minister, Mochtar Kusumaatmadja, on his 1985 visit to London to commute the Indonesian death sentences. Despite his optimism, Lestario was shot in July 1985. His mother was able to spend his last moments with him. But his wife, herself in prison in East Java, and his children were not aware of his execution until days later. In Westminster, England, the Browns organised a memorial meeting on October 2 1985 for the executed men. At the end of the meeting, people were asked to take home a flower to press and dry to remember the men by. One year on, they published a book of extracts from Lestario's letters, a tribute to their friend, titled The Last Years of Gatot Lestario. Handwritten then photocopied, hand-bound and stitched, the couple made 220 books and from the proceeds they raised funds for political prisoners in Indonesia and their families. Campaign for abolition The subversion law, upon which Lestario's execution was based, was repealed in 1998 when the Suharto regime ended. But the death penalty still stands for other crimes. The campaign against the death penalty today has been more difficult to maintain and less visible, because in the past it was so intertwined with the fight for democracy in Indonesia. But a transnational campaign against the death penalty can be built today in the footsteps of previous campaigns developed between Indonesians and the international community. (source: The Conversation) ********************************* British grandmother prepares for execution in Indonesia A British grandmother on death row in Indonesia is writing goodbye letters to her family and believes she could be executed at any time, she wrote in an article on Sunday. Lindsay Sandiford, 58, said she was expecting to die shortly, after 7 foreign drug convicts were executed last week, causing a storm of international protest. "My execution is imminent and I know I might die at any time now. I could be taken tomorrow from my cell," Sandiford wrote in British newspaper the Mail on Sunday. "I have started to write goodbye letters to members of my family." Sandiford, originally from Redcar in northeast England, wrote that she planned to sing the cheery popular song "Magic Moments" when facing the firing squad. "I won't wear a blindfold. It's not because I'm brave but because I don't want to hide -- I want them to look at me when they shoot me." She said her greatest sadness is that she may never meet her 2-year-old granddaughter, who was born after her arrest. Sandiford was sentenced to death on the island of Bali in 2013 after she was convicted of trafficking drugs. Customs officers found cocaine worth an estimated 1.6 million pounds ($2.4 million, 2.2 million euros) hidden in a false bottom in Sandiford's suitcase when she arrived in Bali on a flight from Thailand in 2012. Sandiford admitted the offences, but says that she agreed to carry the drugs after a drug syndicate threatened to kill her son. She described Andrew Chan, 31, 1 of 2 Australians killed by firing squad on Wednesday for his role in a plan to smuggle heroin, as "one of the heroes of my life". The 2 had become close friends in prison, where Chan had spent a decade after being arrested as 1 of the so-called "Bali 9" group of smugglers. The execution of Chan, who became a Christian pastor in prison, and another Australian Myuran Sukumaran, 34, cast a pall over relations between Australia and Indonesia. A mentally ill Brazilian man and 4 African men were also executed. A Filipina single mother, Mary Jane Veloso, was granted a last-minute reprieve. Sandiford's family have recently launched a fundraising drive to raise money to lodge an appeal at the Indonesian Supreme Court, after the British government refused to fund the legal fight. If the challenge fails, Sandiford still has the option to appeal for clemency from Indonesian President Joko Widodo. Mercy pleas of the convicts executed on Wednesday had been rejected. (source: Yahoo News) ******************* Indonesians fighting to abolish the death penalty need our support In all the sadness, sympathy and anger at the executions of Myuran Sukumaran? and Andrew Chan and the others executed in Indonesia, we should acknowledge and appreciate the efforts and work of the human rights advocates and NGOs in Indonesia. They fought so hard to save their lives in recent months - and continue to work for the abolition of the death penalty there so that no one else is subjected to this cruel and inhuman punishment. Their efforts have helped to so far spare the life of the young mother from the Philippines, Mary Jane Veloso. Their work may be unpopular and difficult in a country where there is still wide support for executions. But it is through their work and efforts - in changing public opinion, taking legal cases, lobbying politicians, and engaging the UN that the death penalty will be abolished - that those convicted and their families and loved ones will be spared the anguish and pain of state-sanctioned murder. Australia should now be looking to the long term at what can be done to support these individuals and organisations in Indonesia and across the region in a shared mission of abolition. It is worth remembering that work to abolish the death penalty also used to be unpopular in Australia. Abolition of the death penalty in Indonesia will take time, as it did in Australia. Foreign Minister Julie Bishop acknowledged the work of one of these Indonesian NGOs - Migrant Care - in her speech to Parliament earlier this year. Anis Hidayah? is a courageous woman who leads Migrant Care - which fights for the lives of Indonesia's migrant workers on death row across the world and for their rights as migrant workers. She argues from principle and pragmatism - the lives of Indonesians on death row in Riyadh, Kuala Lumpur and Singapore are more likely to be spared if Indonesia opposes the death penalty in all cases. Rafendi Djamin?, who leads Indonesia's Human Rights Working Group and is Indonesia's representative on the ASEAN Intergovernmental Commission on Human Rights, also spoke out. Haris Azhar? who leads Kontras, an Indonesian human rights NGO, issued an urgent ASEAN wide appeal to save the lives of Myuran and Andrew and the others through an ASEAN-wide civil society network established by another Indonesian human rights defender, Yuyun Wahyuningrum. They are among many, but their work is made more difficult if the argument is made one between Indonesia and Australia as countries. No country wants to be told what to do by another country. This is one of the values of internationally agreed human rights standards - they reflect the values that every country has voluntarily signed up to - acknowledgements of human dignity that transcend borders and draw from all faiths. The standards are there, but they are breached by all governments. The UN has appointed independent experts to monitor these breaches, to hold governments accountable and to engage governments in dialogue, where governments are willing to listen. If all governments treat these independent officials with respect, whether they like what they say or not, then they can be more effective. There are individuals and organisations in both Australia and Indonesia who are working, sometimes together, to ensure that their governments take principled and consistent positions on all human rights - popular and unpopular. It was only in 1989, during Amnesty International's last global campaign against the death penalty that Australia finally removed the death penalty from its books. The leaders of Australia took a positive, principled and united stand. Then Australia took a leading role in global abolition of the death penalty by leading on promoting the Second Optional Protocol on the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. It is worth remembering that work to abolish the death penalty also used to be unpopular in Australia. Abolition of the death penalty in Indonesia will take time, as it did in Australia. It requires action individual case by individual case, it means persuading judges and politicians that taking life is wrong, and persuading more of the public that it can never be right for the state to coldly kill people in its custody. The movement toward abolition is being led by Indonesians with a deep commitment to the value of human dignity, who see the death penalty as a negation of these values. They are working with others in Australia and internationally. They deserve our acknowledgement and support. (source: Commentary: Patrick Earle is a visiting fellow at UNSW Law and the executive director of the Diplomacy Training Program----The Age) SOUTHEAST ASIA: Narcotics, international law and the death penalty: The way forward Australia can lead in calling for a regional moratorium on capital punishment for narcotics offences, if not more generally. The tragic execution of Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran and before that, Nguyen Tuong Van in Singapore in December 2005, have highlighted the limited avenues available to a government that seeks to avoid the unjust imposition of the death penalty upon one of its citizens. The events in Indonesia have also highlighted the arbitrary and capricious nature of the application of the death penalty with last-minute reprieves for Mary Jane Veloso and Serge Atlaoui being granted while Chan and Sukumaran were executed when serious and fundamental questions remained over their sentencing process. The application of the death penalty in the Asia Pacific is frequently inconsistent with international law. While international law does not necessarily prohibit the death penalty in all cases, there are a number of significant treaties and other international rules that expressly limit its application. In particular, the imposition of capital punishment for drug crimes is not permissible under international law to which Indonesia, and many other Asia Pacific countries, are subject. Indonesia is a party to the 1966 International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. The covenant was drafted in the recognition that, at the time of its conclusion, the death penalty was not prohibited by international law but that its application should be severely limited. It limits the application of the death penalty to "the most serious crimes". Although drug trafficking is clearly "a" serious crime, it cannot be characterised as "the most serious crime". It does not inevitably lead to lethal consequences. The United Nations Human Rights Committee has made clear that only exceptional crimes may carry the death penalty, and the United Nations Economic and Social Council has defined the relevant crimes to be those which necessarily lead to lethal consequences as constituting a most serious crime. Narcotics control treaties in force throughout the Asia Pacific refer to lengthy imprisonment as the most appropriate punishment for drug crime. In the case of Chan and Sukumaran, the fact that the drugs involved were to be trafficked to Australia, and not within Indonesia, meant that no Indonesian citizen faced any grave or lethal consequence as a result of their actions, and constituted a powerful basis to object to the application of a penalty of death. The blanket rejection of clemency bids by President Joko Widodo without any consideration of individual circumstances, the rush to arbitrary execution while substantial and fundamental legal issues remained before Indonesian courts and tribunals, and the determination to execute after 10 years of imprisonment are additional reasons that Indonesia's conduct failed to comply with its most basic international legal obligations. Despite the clear inconsistencies between international law and Indonesia's conduct, no international tribunal was able to rule on these matters. As Foreign Minister Julie Bishop has publicly stated, Australia unsuccessfully sought Indonesia's agreement to resolve these international legal issues before the International Court of Justice. The lack of compulsory international dispute-settlement processes in these cases renders it imperative that Australia now take a leadership role in seeking a regional moratorium on the application of capital punishment for narcotics offences, if not more generally. Amnesty International, which has maintained a lengthy campaign against the death penalty, has identified that well over half the countries in the world have now abolished the death penalty entirely. Abolitionist countries in the Asia Pacific now include Australia, Cambodia, Kiribati, Marshall Islands, Mauritius, Micronesia, New Zealand, Niue, Palau, Philippines, Samoa, Seychelles, Solomon Islands, South Africa, East Timor, Tuvalu, and Vanuatu. Of other countries in this region, Cook Islands, Fiji, Brunei Darussalam, Maldives, Myanmar, Nauru, and Tonga have essentially abolished the death penalty in all but the most exceptional cases. That leaves a much smaller number of regional countries which retain the death penalty, of which China is the most prominent. Alarmingly, Papua New Guinea is actively considering reintroducing the death penalty. A bipartisan consensus has emerged in recent days for Australia to do more to abolish the death penalty. A good place to start is within our region. Efforts must be directed at engagement through ASEAN and other regional fora. Our politicians and diplomats must speak with one voice, and with consistency, on the issue. Inconsistency limits Australia's ability to speak out on behalf of Australians abroad by removing the most powerful tool in the diplomatic armoury, Australia's consistent and implacable opposition to the death penalty. The example of rehabilitation of Chan and Sukumaran and their ability to speak to future generations of youth is something which Indonesia should today be celebrating. Instead, it faces justified international condemnation, increased friction with its neighbours and a much diminished place in the world community. Whatever Widodo may think, that is not in Indonesia's national interest. The time has come for Australia to seek to exercise real regional leadership on this issue and mount a sustained campaign for the abolition of the death penalty. That will ensure an ongoing legacy for these two Australians executed in Indonesia. (source: Dr Christopher Ward (barrister and ANU College of Law Adjunct Professor) and Professor Donald R. Rothwell (ANU College of Law) were advisers on international law to Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran----Brisbane Times) From rhalperi at smu.edu Wed May 6 13:36:56 2015 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Wed, 6 May 2015 13:36:56 -0500 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----DEL., VA., N.C., FLA., ALA., LA. Message-ID: May 6 DELAWARE: Death penalty brings us all down We are a better people than to seek revenge over justice as a reason for the death penalty. The totality of a person's life cannot be summed up in their horrific actions causing the state to be the final judge of their existence. We are not Caesar giving a thumbs up or a thumbs down. We have life without parole in Delaware, which should serve as the ultimate punishment as it does in all other Western countries. And the people agree - 64 % of Delawareans supported life without parole in a survey done by the Delaware Center for Justice. The parents of 8-year-old Martin Richard killed in the Boston Marathon bombing said they did not want the death penalty because "it could bring years of appeals and prolong reliving the most day of our lives." We are a better people than to allow the families to go through the horrors again and again. Many see this case as pretty clear-cut for the death penalty and yet the majority of people in Massachusetts do not want the death penalty in this case, according to a survey done by the University of New Hampshire. Studies show the death penalty is certainly not done with a motive to save money, to deter other would-be murderers or to be equal in its application. Revenge cannot be our motive for the death penalty. We are a better people than that in the State of Delaware. Meg Kane-Smith (source: Letter to the Editor, delawareonline.com) VIRGINIA: Prosecutor will seek death penalty in Jesse Matthew case Jesse Matthew could now face death row, if convicted of the upgraded charges of capital murder. The bombshell dropped in Albemarle Circuit Court Tuesday, in Charlottesville. Prosecutors indicted Matthew with the new charges in the death of UVA student Hannah Graham. Head Commonwealth's Attorney on the case Denise Lundsford says her team received new evidence, which made her push for the harsher charges, and the death penalty for Matthew. Matthew appears before the judge in shackles. His hearing was originally to set a trial date for 1st degree murder and abduction with intent to defile. Instead, Matthew was bombarded with new capital charges. Upon entering the courtroom, Matthew made eye contact with Hannah Graham's parents, sitting several rows back. "If this matter goes to trial, the Commonwealth will seek the death penalty," said Lunsford to a gaggle of media outside the court. "(The new forensic evidence) ... was compelling enough to me that I felt capital charges were now appropriate." Matthew will now have 2 new capital defense attorneys. His lawyer up until now, Jim Camblos, is out of the defense team and refused to comment. "I'm not on the team anymore. I have nothing to say," remarked Camblos outside the courthouse. Matthew's family also left the court in silence, and in no doubt, distress. If Jesse Matthew is convicted of capital murder and sentenced to death, there would be an automatic appeal process. If that doesn't pan out well for Matthew, he would be the 9th man on death row in Virginia, right now. "The commonwealth is not taking anything off the table at this point," continued Lunsford. That includes a plea deal. A capital murder conviction carries a death penalty or a mandatory life sentence. However, the sentence that Hannah Graham's family must bear is also lifelong. Mother Gil Harrington carries the same cross. Her daughter Morgan's murder is linked forensically to Matthew, according to authorities. However, he was never charged. "Our lives are still as empty. The pain that we'll have after trial is the same pain that we'll have today," said Gil Harrington, who attended the proceedings. In Virginia, there are 2 forms of death a person sentenced to the death penalty may choose - lethal injection or the electric chair. Jesse Matthew is set to be in court again on June 25th. At that appearance, there could be a motion from his defense team to dismiss the judge in the case, who has a daughter at UVA, nearly the same age as Graham. The trial date will likely be set during that court appearance. Although Matthew wanted his attorney Jim Camblos to be part of his defense team, the judge instead appointed 2 other attorneys said to be more familiar with capital murder cases. Douglas Ramseur is an attorney based in Norfolk, and Michael Hemenway practices law in Charlottesville. Matthew is also slated to go on trial in June for the 2005 rape and abduction of a Fairfax County woman. He's also suspected in the death of Virginia Tech student Morgan Harrington, although he has not yet been charged in that case. Authorities have said Matthew's DNA links him to Harrington's 2009 death. Graham's remains were discovered in Albemarle in October off Old Lynchburg Road, less than three weeks after Matthew was taken into custody in Texas. Graham went missing in September following a night out on Charlottesville's Downtown Mall. Surveillance images showed Matthew following her before her disappearance. (source: WWBT news) ****************** Co-ed's accused killer likely to face death penalty A man accused of killing a University of Virginia co-ed after running into her as she wandered downtown early on a Saturday morning will face a capital murder charge in addition to other charges, authorities said Tuesday. Jesse Matthew Jr., 33, was in Albemarle County Circuit Court here for a pretrial hearing. His lawyers had asked his June 29th trial date on charges of 1st-degree murder and abduction with intent to defile to be moved so a a DNA expert could examine evidence in the case. "The commonwealth received some additional information in late February that led to this increased charge," said Denise Lunsford, Albemarle County commonwealth's attorney. "If I didn't believe that Mr. Matthew were someone that would be appropriate for this sort of ultimate penalty, we wouldn't be having this conversation." He also has been charged with abduction. The new indictment against Matthew was scheduled to be unsealed Wednesday, but prosecutors decided to release it a day early because of Matthew's hearing. Hannah Graham, 18, of Alexandria, Va., disappeared early Sept. 13 after a night out with friends here. Her remains were found about 5 weeks later in Albemarle County a dozen miles from campus. Lunsford said she would seek the death penalty if Matthew goes to trial and is convicted of capital murder. Until Tuesday's new charges, Matthew had faced up to life in prison if convicted. Matthew also faces trial June 8 on charges of attempted murder and sexual assault in an unrelated case in Fairfax County, Va. Matthew's family, which attended court with him Tuesday, would not comment about the new charge. Graham's parents also would not comment. During the hearing, Judge Cheryl Higgins dismissed Matthew's court-appointed lawyer and named 2 others qualified to defend in death-penalty cases to represent him. On June 25, Higgins will hear a motion to recuse herself from the case. Like Graham, her daughter was a 2nd-year student at the University of Virginia, which had nearly 22,000 students on campus in fall 2014, at the time of Graham's abduction and death. Higgins has said her daughter did not know nor have contact with Graham. Earlier this month, Graham's parents announced a University of Virginia scholarship in memory of their daughter, according to a university press release. The $10,000 scholarship, to be awarded to 1 student this fall, will go to someone who embodies Graham's passion for global health, French culture and service to others. Participants will commit to 2 semesters of related courses at U.Va. and at least 8 weeks of field work in a developing country where French is spoken. The Grahams hope to award more scholarships as donations increase. (source: USA Today) NORTH CAROLINA: Death penalty case brings 8th week of jury selection The process to select a jury for the trial of a 45-year-old man facing the death penalty in three deaths from 2011 is in its 8th week. So far, prosecutors and defense attorneys for Carl Kennedy have selected 9 of the 14 needed jurors, which includes 2 alternates. Kennedy and 2 others - David Earl Manning and Leigh Williams, both 44 - have been charged with 3 counts of 1st-degree murder in the November 2011 deaths of Sharon F. Rushing, 61, Angela Dawn Soles, 43, and Gary Lynn Seward, 52, all of 101 Rotary Lane in Thomasville. The state is seeking the death penalty against all 3 people, but Kennedy's case is being tried 1st. The jury selection process started March 16 when 101 jurors were selected to be potential jurors out of 250 who were summoned. The process initially caused angst among some potential jurors. 2 days after the jury selection process started, 16 potential jurors were dismissed March 19 after 1 juror expressed in open court concern over how long the process was taking. The juror - 1 of those who was dismissed - inquired to the judge if it was possible to reduce the number of people in the panel each day. The juror was concerned it would be 2 weeks until the remaining jurors would be called to respond to questions from attorneys. After the request from the juror, Superior Court Judge Christopher Bragg decided to split the panels of 20 into 10, so not as many jurors are waiting outside of the courtroom in the jury room at 1 time. Once the attorneys make it through 8 of each panel of 10 and have 2 remaining, court officials call the next 10 potential jurors to appear for the jury selection process. This process was aimed at maintaining randomness in jury selection. The attorneys finished questioning the initial 101 prospective jurors this past week. An additional 250 jurors were summoned to appear Monday. After Superior Court Judge Christopher Bragg heard excusals/deferrals, 96 jurors were divided into 10 panels in hopes of selecting the remaining 5 jurors. No jurors were selected Tuesday after a number of potential jurors took the stand to individually answer the attorney's questions. Of the 500 people called for jury duty for the case, some residents have either received an excusal or deferment of their jury duty after raising concern over a family member who is sick, hardship with their job for being out of work during the trial or vacation plans. Residents also have been excused during the jury selection process after voicing their views of the death penalty. Some potential jurors have been questioned for over 6 hours. If the court does not have the 14 jurors needed after the 96 are questioned, Bragg has the ability to order residents to appear in court. Those are residents who didn't show up for the jury selection or had an excusal or deferral from a District Court judge, said Brian Shipwash, clerk of superior court. The number of residents who did not show up for their summons was not available late Tuesday afternoon. "In my tenure, this is one of the longest jury processes that I've seen," the clerk said. "However, I believe in the process, and it should take as long as it needs to for the parties to be satisfied that they have a jury of their peers." Jury selection continues Wednesday as the attorneys attempt to pick the 10th juror. (soure: The Dispatch) FLORIDA----new death sentence Miami handyman gets death penalty for murder of La Carreta waitress Rafael Andres served just 18 months behind bars for the murder of a Miami woman in 1987. For his 2nd murder, Andres received the ultimate punishment. A Miami-Dade judge on Wednesday sentenced Andres to death for beating, stabbing and using a rice-cooker cord to strangle 31-year-old waitress Yvette Farinas in 2005. Rafael Andres was sentenced to death Wednesday for the 2005 murder of an airport waitress. "When you took that rice-cooker cord and wound it around her neck, the evidence is clear. She was alive. She knew you were strangling her," Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Dava Tunis told Andres on Wednesday. "She fought you for her life." The judge noted Andres, 51, served "very little time" for the 1987 murder of 32-year-old Linda Azcarreta. Andres stabbed her to death - he claimed in a frenzy of drug use - then cashed a $100 check meant for the woman. "You were still a young man. You had the opportunity to live a productive life," Tunis said. "Unfortunately, you did not learn and committed a 2nd-heinous murder." Wednesday's final sentencing capped a decade of legal wrangling before the trial court. A jury last year convicted Andres of first-degree murder and other felonies. The jurors, by a 9-3 vote, recommended the death penalty. The dual tragedy united relatives of both victims. Last year in court, Azcarreta's adult son - who as a child discovered his mother's body inside her home - attended the court hearings, comforting the Farinas family. Rene Azcarreta spoke to the judge for the 1st time Wednesday, describing his mother as an "amazing woman" who never got to see her son grow into adulthood. "I wanted to thank you for allowing me to speak," Rene Azcarreta tearfully told the judge. "As a child I never had that opportunity to express the excruciating loss I had to deal with and the effect this has caused on everyone on my family." After the hearing, Rene Azcarreta and Farinas' parents embraced each other. "Peace," Azcarreta said when asked to describe his emotions. In 2005, Farinas and her boyfriend lived in an efficiency attached to a house in the 7300 block of Southwest 12th Street. Andres was a handyman who had been hired to do renovations on the home. His DNA was found on a bloody wash cloth found near Farinas' body. A neighbor identified Andres, holding a gas can, leaving the home just before the crime scene went up in flames. Andres also used her ATM card to withdraw cash, buy goods at The Home Depot, fuel up his van and pay for a stay at the Miccosukee Resort and Casino. Farinas left behind a small family that had arrived in Miami from Cuba in 1999. She worked at La Carreta restaurant at Miami International Airport, and was interviewing to become a federal security officer at the airport. "The family will never be the same," Miami-Dade prosecutor Gail Levine said after the court hearing. "But today, they received some closure." (source: Miami Herald) **************** Lawyer in murder retrial wants change of venue----Randall Deviney's 1st conviction in murder of Delores Futrell overturned The new lawyer for a man whose conviction for killing his neighbor was overturned on appeal is asking for a change of venue. Michael Hernandez was appointed to take over Randall Deviney's case after the 1st District Court of Appeals ruled the Public Defender's Office had a conflict that required it to withdraw. Deviney was convicted and sentenced to die in 2008 for killing his neighbor, Delores Futrell. That conviction was overturned last year by the Flordia Supreme Court, which found that Deviney's confession was coerced by police. He is scheduled for a retrial in July. Hernandez is asking for a change of venue because of all the publicity the case has generated. He's also asking the judge to block the State Attorney's Office from seeking the death penalty, until the U.S. Supreme Court rules in another case. Lawyers for a death row inmate contend Florida's death penalty law is unconstitutional, because it allows death sentences without a unanimous jury recommendation. The High Court will take that case up in the fall. Deviney was in court briefly Tuesday morning, and the hearing was continued until Friday. (source: news4jax.com) ALABAMA: The Virginia method with the death penalty The difference is stark, a comparison of 2 Southern states with seemingly contrasting views about death penalty cases. Alabama lawmakers who support state-sponsored executions could learn a thing or 2 from Virginia. 12 years ago, Virginia state officials opened a series of regional offices that provide death-penalty defendants with legitimate representation. In those offices are lawyers with death-penalty case experience, mitigation experts and investigators, Mother Jones magazine reported this week. Instead of relying on underpaid - and often inexperienced - defense attorneys hired by the state, defendants in Virginia began receiving competent counsel. "Indeed, the number of new death sentences (in Virginia) dropped from 6 to 2 in a single year, and has not exceeded that since," Mother Jones wrote. Virginia has adopted a format that (a.) sends only the worst among us to death row, (b.) ensures that capital cases are properly represented and (c.) saves the state millions of dollars each year by reducing its death-row population. Virginia is a death-penalty state that gets it. If you're going to have state-sanctioned killings, they should only be done in the most extreme cases. That description doesn't apply to Alabama, which owns the nation's 4th-highest death-row population. By and large, Alabama defendants facing the death penalty have long received suspect representation. The state also has had 2 recent cases of exoneration of death-row inmates based on new or existing evidence. The death penalty is an awful form of justice. But if Alabama is going to have it, it ought to copy Virginia's model. (source: Editorial Board, The Anniston Star) LOUISIANA: Baton Rouge death penalty case: Murderer is 'not the Lee Turner I know,' witnesses testify Lee Turner Jr. was a quiet kid who had some talent at drawing, did OK academically, and enjoyed basketball. His teachers and mentors could sometimes sense a frustration deep inside. But they saw nothing in the boy that could make them comprehend why he would later murder 2 people while committing an armed robbery, they testified at his death penalty trial in Baton Rouge on Tuesday (May 5). "I don't know what caused him to do what he did, but I can tell you that's not the Lee Turner I know," said Michael Stallings, a former basketball coach of Turner's. Turner, 25, was convicted Monday of two counts of first degree murder in the deaths of Edward Gurtner, 43, and Randy Chaney, 54, at a CarQuest auto parts store in March 2011. Turner had recently taken a job with CarQuest, and both Gurtner and Chaney worked there. Now the trial has moved on to the penalty phase, and jurors are tasked with deciding whether Turner should be executed for his crimes -- the 1st time in 5 years that a death penalty case has been heard in Baton Rouge. Through tears, family members of Gurtner and Chaney described to the jurors just how much they lost when Turner shot their beloved husbands, fathers and sons. But jurors also learned about Turner's past: How he was a good kid who painted beautiful Jazzfest banners, and how as a Katrina refugee in small-town Illinois he found a home on a high school basketball team. Both Gurtner and Chaney loved cars, their family members recalled. Gurtner coached his son's baseball team, even though his family joked he knew nothing about baseball. He was the "protector" for his sisters, and a good provider for his family. He died just before his older son's high school graduation. Chaney loved to garden and make breakfast for his kids, and would have adored his new granddaughter. He had talked to his wife shortly before he died about the possibility of adopting more children because he missed having them around. Joey Gurtner, Edward Gurtner's now-22-year-old son, grew up working on cars with his dad. He recalled coming across a 1980 Chevy Camaro that the family had previously sold. Joey traded his own truck in to get it back and work on with his father. "I wouldn't touch (the car) for about 7 months after (the murder) happened," Joey Gurtner said. "I couldn't bring myself to look at it." He cried when he finally got the car working again. Gurtner's wife, Elizabeth Gurtner, was the one who found her husband, along with her other son, Jamie. They had been trying to call him and couldn't reach him. Joey Gurtner remembered his brother calling him from the store and hearing his mother screaming in the background. Elizabeth Gurtner said Jamie has struggled ever since the day he found his father dying -- he went from getting As and Bs in school to getting Ds and Fs. She can't sleep more than a few hours a night. At first it was because of the terrible visions she'd see in her head. Then it was because she was worried about Jamie. Family members recalled those moments after the murders where their relatives' deaths hit them again: Randy Chaney's daughter Heather Chaney Parsons remembered not knowing what to do with her car after her dad died when it needed service. "My daddy was my go-to person," she said. She took it to the dealership and when the man asked what he could help her with, she broke down in tears. She said her toddler daughter will sometimes walk into the other room and wave and say a few things to the apparently empty air. "I think it's daddy checking up on her," Parsons said. Turner also had family members attend Tuesday's trial, though none have testified yet and they weren't allowed to stay in the courtroom through the testimony. They wore white t-shirts that read "We love you Lee" and featured a family photo. Turner, a slight young man who has grown his hair out in braids and wore thick-framed glasses and a white dress shirt, sat quietly through the proceedings. He didn't have a criminal record prior to the murders. Art teachers who taught him in a special gifted art program in New Orleans schools recalled that he had natural talent, and was quiet and well-behaved. His 1-time principal, Anne Siesal, has saved a Jazzfest banner he made, which hung in the kid's tent at the festival, since before Katrina. She remembered asking him if she could keep it to hang in her office, and he graciously agreed. The jury was shown that banner, as well as another he made a different year. Some of Turner's teachers testified that they sensed he was frustrated by something in his life, though he never let on to what it was. But he still showed up for school, and remained interested in art. Turner seemed to blossom during a brief time post-Katrina when he lived with his father in Johnston City, Ill., attending a small high school there where he played on the basketball team and met a girlfriend. His former basketball coach said if he had to pick 2 boys on his team who he could never imagine capable of murder, it would have been Turner and his own son. It wasn't long before Turner's father left Johnston City, and Turner had to go, too. Stallings said Turner disappeared one day, leaving his basketball equipment in the office. The basketball players wore expensive shoes, and the school held an annual fundraiser to help them defray the costs. But Turner had missed that fundraiser at the start of the school year, so Stallings said he could help pay off the shoes by helping him clean up after practice and helping with practices for younger kids on Saturdays, which he did -- always quick to follow directions, never causing any problems. When Turner left, he returned the shoes along with the rest of his basketball equipment, even though he had certainly earned them, Stallings recalled through tears. "There may be times when the death penalty may be appropriate," Stallings told the jury. "In my heart, I don't think this is one of them." The trial will resume Wednesday morning. (source: Times-Picayune) From rhalperi at smu.edu Wed May 6 13:37:44 2015 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Wed, 6 May 2015 13:37:44 -0500 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----OHIO, KY., TENN., IND., MO., NEB., KAN., WASH., USA Message-ID: May 6 OHIO: Lorain woman guilty of murdering her cousins A 12-member jury found Donna Brown guilty May 5 of killing 2 of her cousins in July 2012. Jurors convicted Brown, 27, of four counts of aggravated murder, four counts of murder, two counts of felonious assault, 2 counts of aggravated burglary and a single count of tampering with evidence in the shooting deaths of Dale Linder Jr., 22, and his brother, Justin Linder, 20. During her trial, Brown admitted to shooting the brothers at their West 23rd Street home July 5, 2012, following several confrontations between the parties the night prior. She had claimed self-defense. Lorain County Common Pleas Judge Christopher Rothgery will sentence Brown at 8:30 a.m., May 18. The conviction means Brown is eligible for the death penalty. The jury was deadlocked on 2 counts against Brown, but Rothgery ordered the panel to continue deliberations. Dale Linder Sr., father of the 2 victims, called the whole ordeal "bad all-around" and said it tore his family apart. "It's just a really sad day," Linder Sr. said. "... Still can't bring them back. It will never be right." Linder Sr., who said he helped raise Brown - a relative by marriage, stated he can never forgive her for taking away the only 2 people he says have ever loved him. "I'll never have grandkids," Linder Sr. said. "I'll never be able to take them to a ball park. "My kids never had kids. She took away the only 2 people who have ever loved me." Brown's family and defense attorney, Jack Bradley, declined to comment after the verdict. (source: Morning Journal) KENTUCKY: Top prosecutor balks at judge's decision to drop death penalty for 2 charged in Lexington slaying Co-defendants in an upcoming robbery-murder trial will not face the possibility of execution after Fayette Circuit Judge Pamela Goodwine granted a defense motion to remove the death penalty from the jury's sentencing options. Trustin B. Jones and Robert Guernsey, who are scheduled to go on trial June 1, had faced the possibility of execution if convicted in the 2013 shooting death of Derek Pelphrey, 23. On Tuesday, Goodwine, who has publicly expressed opposition to the death penalty in court, granted a defense request to exclude death from consideration for Jones, 21, and Guernsey, 34. The ruling had been sought by Kim Green, an assistant public advocate who represents Jones. Guernsey's attorneys joined Green to seek the exclusion for their client. Fayette County Commonwealth's Attorney Ray Larson said Wednesday that he disagrees with Goodwine's decision "because I think she has put herself, a judge, in the position of a jury. Juries are supposed to be the bodies that determine the appropriate punishment for an aggravated murder." Larson said his assistant prosecutors are investigating legal options in response to the judge's order. Last year, Goodwine rejected another defense motion that the death penalty was unconstitutional. Earlier this year, Goodwine rejected the argument that Guernsey should not face the death penalty because he wasn't the shooter. When execution is excluded, a jury that convicts on a murder charge would have sentencing options of 20 to 50 years in prison, life in prison, or life without the possibility of parole for 25 years. During a hearing last week, Goodwine said she had taken execution off the table - as state law allows - in only 1 other case "because I just did not believe the facts of the case would even get to the point where the jury would even consider" the death penalty. The jury in that case acquitted the defendant, Goodwine said. In January, Goodwine said in open court, "I think the death penalty should not be a penalty, ever." "If I had my druthers, there would be no death penalty in Kentucky," she said, but "I will do what the law requires me to do." Pelphrey, a student at Bluegrass Community and Technical College, apparently was targeted because he had been in communication with Guernsey, who thought Pelphrey carried a large amount of money. Pelphrey was shot to death as he sat in his car on Ridgepoint Road near Spangler Drive, not far from Tates Creek and Wilson Downing roads. Jones admitted to police that he was the shooter and that his "sole purpose in going there that night was to rob" Pelphrey, whom he didn't know and hadn't met, Assistant Commonwealth's Attorney Andrea Williams said during last week's hearing. Jones "got all his information from Robert Guernsey and sat outside of BCTC and waited for Derek Pelphrey to come out of class. He got the information about the car that Derek Pelphrey drove from Robert Guernsey and followed that car." Guernsey wanted Jones to rob Pelphrey because Guernsey needed money for a car payment, Williams said. A 3rd co-defendant, Desmond Jones, 24, a cousin of Trustin Jones, pleaded guilty in April to criminal facilitation to 1st-degree robbery. A murder charge against him was dismissed. His recommended sentence was 5 years in prison. Before he is sentenced on June 26, Desmond Jones must testify truthfully at the trial of Guernsey and Trustin Jones. Fayette County juries aren't prone to recommending the death penalty, Goodwine said last week. "I've obviously tried heinous, heinous crimes with totally innocent victims - rapes, murders, sodomies - and they don't see fit even in those cases to impose the death penalty," Goodwine said. The most recent example was April in the trial of Joel Searcy, who was charged with murder in the 2013 death of Donald "Leroy" Cook, 82, of Lexington. Police said Searcy assaulted Cook, who later died, and tried to steal Cook's truck. Had he been convicted of murder, Searcy might have faced the death penalty. But after a 3-week trial before Fayette Circuit Judge Thomas Clark, the jury found Searcy guilty of 2nd-degree manslaughter and first-degree robbery. The jury recommended a 10-year sentence on the manslaughter and a 15-year sentence on the robbery be served consecutively, for a total of 25 years. In her order to exclude execution, Goodwine wrote that she has presided over more death-penalty cases than any other judge in Kentucky, according to information she received from a judicial program. Goodwine wrote: "The death penalty is the ultimate punishment and should be reserved and sought in cases involving only the most egregious set of facts one could possibly imagine." In a footnote, Goodwine wrote that the last time the death penalty was imposed and upheld in Fayette County was in 2000. The case involved the murder and robbery of Lonetta White, 73, who was bludgeoned to death, placed in the trunk of her car, driven to a field and set on fire. The two people convicted, Virginia Caudill and Johnathan Goforth, are awaiting execution. There are currently 33 people under a death sentence in Kentucky. The state has carried out 3 executions since the reinstatement of the death penalty in 1976. The last time an inmate was put to death was in 2008. Goodwine said in the hearing last week that even when juries recommend execution, the cases continue for years because of numerous appeals. "There's something to be said for closure. There's something to be said for finality, which doesn't happen when a death-penalty conviction is handed down," Goodwine said. "And for the victim's families, ... there is no closure because their cases are still going, they're still arguing, they're still challenging ... death convictions that have been handed down." (source: kentucky.com) TENNESSEE: Tennessee Officials Fight Inmates' Attempt To Challenge Electric Chair Plans----The electric chair is Tennessee's plan B if the state can't get ahold of lethal drugs. The inmates argue it's unconstitutional, but the state argues that they can't challenge it yet. Can death-row inmates challenge the constitutionality of electrocution? The Tennessee Supreme Court will soon decide. Death penalty states once phased out the electric chair in favor of drugs - for humane reasons. Now that drugs have become hard to obtain, states like Tennessee have turned to older execution methods like the chair as a backup. On Wednesday, the state court will weigh whether death-row inmates can challenge the method's constitutionality. 34 inmates allege electrocution is a violation of the Eighth Amendment's ban on cruel and unusual punishment - that the electric chair disfigures the body and is an affront to evolving standards of decency. But Tennessee has pushed to have the lawsuit dismissed, arguing that the inmates can't challenge the method because none of them are actually scheduled to face electrocution. Tennessee's preferred method is lethal injection, using pentobarbital made from a secret compounding pharmacy. Lawmakers passed a law last year that makes electrocution the contingency plan if either drug makers or the courts make lethal injection impossible. "The[y] are asking the court in this case to ... consider hypothetical situations involving uncertain or contingent future events that may or may not occur as anticipated or, indeed, may not occur at all," Attorney General Herbert Slatery's office wrote. "None of the contingencies necessary to trigger [the electric chair] has occurred, and they may not ever occur." The inmates' attorneys counter that the state could switch to the electric chair with little to no notice. And as drug makers introduce more stringent restrictions to keep their products out of the hands of death-penalty states, the possibility of not being able to obtain lethal drugs increases. Attorney Kelley Henry also points to the scenario in Georgia, where the state had to call off an execution when they discovered their compounded drug was "cloudy." "Had [the Georgia inmate] been in Tennessee's execution chamber ... she would have been shuttled to the electric chair while her attorneys made a mad scramble to get the attention of the court, presuming the state were to give notice to the condemned inmate's attorneys - something [the state]'s remarks indicate they would be under no obligation to do," Henry wrote. A lower court sided with the inmates. "Although hypothetical to some degree, execution by electrocution is possible in this setting. This court must respect the assumption that the use of electrocution for execution ... is a real issue and that its use could occur without any review of testing of the method, and without warning," Judge Claudia Bonnyman wrote. Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Kentucky, Oklahoma, South Carolina and Virginia all allow electrocution, but only if the inmate requests it or if lethal injection is found unconstitutional. The electric chair has been used 14 times since 2000, most recently by Virginia in 2013. Tennessee has not used the method since 2007. (source: BuzzFeed News) INDIANA: Rape added to murder and cannibalism charges against Indiana man A southern Indiana man who is facing a possible death penalty on charges that he killed his ex-girlfriend and ate part of her body has now been charged with raping her, an attorney representing the defendant said on Tuesday. The added charge against Joseph Oberhansley is intended to bolster the prosecution's case for the death penalty, attorney Mike McDaniel said. Oberhansley, 34, was charged last September in Clark County, Indiana, with breaking into the Jeffersonville home of his ex-girlfriend, Tammy Jo Blanton, murdering her and abusing her corpse by eating parts of it. He has pleaded not guilty. Jeffersonville is across the Ohio River from Louisville, Kentucky. McDaniel said Judge Vicki Carmichael approved the charge on Monday at the request of Clark County Prosecutor Jeremy Mull. It was added, McDaniel said, because the other charges were not strong enough to warrant the death penalty. A trial is scheduled for August 2016, time needed to adequately prepare for a capital case, McDaniel said. His client is currently in solitary confinement and he is concerned about him staying in solitary that long, he said. (source: Reuters) ********************* Sister of woman accused of killing newborn's mother, taking child says charges hard to believe The sister of a Gary woman accused of killing a baby's mother and trying to pass off the newborn as her own says the charges against her sibling are "a hard pill to swallow." Geraldine R. Jones, 36, was arraigned Monday on murder, kidnapping and criminal confinement in the death of Samantha Fleming, 23, and the abduction of the Anderson woman's daughter, Serenity. After that hearing, her sister, April Jones, said she's baffled by the charges against her sibling, whom she called kind and generous and someone who has never been convicted of a crime. "I don't accept any of this. This is a hard pill to swallow. It's a shocker. Where did this come from? That is why, mentally, something had to have happened to her," she told The Herald Bulletin (http://bit.ly/1F3SOdy ). Authorities allege Geraldine Jones posed as a state child welfare worker and lured Fleming to Lake County under the pretense that Fleming had a court hearing there. Fleming's body was found in a Gary home April 17. She had been stabbed 10 times, doused in bleach and stuffed in a plastic bin. Police said Jones fled to Texas after the killing and left the infant in relatives' care. She was returned to Indiana on Sunday and is being held without bond at the Madison County jail. During Monday's arraignment, Madison County Magistrate Steven Clase entered a not guilty plea on behalf of Jones and told her she could receive a maximum sentence of 97 years in prison and the death penalty if she's convicted of the charges. Clase approved a public defender for Jones, who told the judge her family is raising money to hire a private attorney. Police said Jones faked being pregnant before the homicide, and April Jones said her sister looked pregnant, acted pregnant and even gained weight. She said she's praying for Fleming's family and cannot imagine their grief. (source: Associated Press) MISSOURI: The out of step debate on the death penalty One emerging theme of this General Assembly session as it reached its midpoint with a flurry of questionable decision making early Thursday morning before the crossover deadline is the extent to which legislative leaders are out of step with the prevailing wisdom of the era in which they are leading, and are either oblivious or unconcerned with the events swirling around them. The fierce efforts to undermine the expansion of solar energy in the state is an obvious example, as is the refusal to acknowledge the growing acceptance of same-sex marriage and equal rights for gay North Carolinians. It's true that the misnamed religious freedom act may be stalled - for now - but legislation allowing magistrates to refuse to marry same-sex couples has passed the Senate and is very much alive. There are several other examples and none more illustrative than the passage of a bill on the House floor Wednesday night designed to restart executions in the state. No one has been executed in North Carolina since 2006 as the courts consider the role of doctors in executions and the drugs used in putting an inmate to death. The legislation that passed the House, sponsored by Rep. Leo Daughtry, would allow other medical personnel to play a role in the lethal injection procedure and would keep the details of the drugs used unavailable to the media and the public. As Rep. Rick Glazier pointed out, the House debate came the same day the U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments in a case challenging the drug cocktail used to execute inmates in Oklahoma after a series of horrifically botched executions across the country that clearly seemed to violate the constitutional ban on cruel and unusual punishment. The courts and the nation are wrestling with the issue of how to perform executions in the states that still allow them. Daughtry's bill would respond by simply making it a secret, an outrageous move that would prevent advocates and taxpayers from knowing what was happening with their money and what was being done in their name. The provision removing the requirement that a doctor be present when the state intentionally kills someone has its own set of problems too, as other medical professionals also have ethical issues with being part of the process. The discussion did prompt a bizarre comment from Daughtry who told the News & Observer that doctors wouldn't participate in executions and "he didn't know why." Surely Daughtry can figure that one out. The debate on the House floor also included rare comments by House Speaker Tim Moore, who supported the bill as a way to get executions going again. Moore cited the case of one inmate who has been on death row for almost 25 years and told the House that justice was overdue. The name of Daughtry's bill is the Restoring Proper Justice Act, but neither Daughtry nor Moore mentioned the case of Henry McCollum and Leon Brown, who were released last fall after spending 31 years behind bars for a rape and murder they did not commit. No proper justice there. An investigation by the N.C. Innocence Inquiry Commission found DNA evidence that proved another man had committed the crimes. Brown spent 5 years on death row before his sentence was changed to life in prison for the rape after the murder charge was dismissed at a retrial. McCollum spent all of his 31 years in prison on death row awaiting his execution and hearing demands like the one that Speaker Moore made this week that justice was overdue and that he be put to death. The death penalty system is broken in North Carolina and around the country and people now understand that. Recent polls show its support at historic lows and that a majority of Americans favor life in prison without parole as the punishment for 1st degree murder instead of the death penalty. States that still execute people can't figure out how to do it and innocent people continue to be released from death row every year. Simply making the process a secret to speed it up is not the answer. Henry McCollum is living proof of that. The days of the state using its implicitly flawed system to put someone to death to show that killing is wrong are waning and someday the folks running the General Assembly will realize that and stop fighting so hard to be on the wrong side of history. (source: jeffersonpost.com) NEBRASKA: Nebraska could become 1st conservative state in 40 years to abolish the death penalty In the very heartland of the US, something startling is taking place. A coalition of Republicans and Democrats is coming together, united in the belief that the death penalty needs to be scrapped. There are a number of challenges to overcome, but if the politicians have their way, Nebraska could become the 1st conservative state to abolish executions in 4 decades. Reports suggest the 2 factions that have combined at the state legislature in the city of Lincoln, have come to their beliefs for different reasons; Democrats believe the death penalty is unfair and is overly used against minorities, while Republicans say it has become an inefficient government programme, bound up with red tape. "Everybody has got their own reasons for doing this," Republican Senator Colby Coach told The Independent. "We are not there yet. I am optimistic but I am also cautious." Governor Pete Ricketts has threatened to veto the legislation "I don't think it's that there is more sympathy for the people on death row. It's about efficiency," said Stacy Andersen of Nebraskans for Alternatives to the Death Penalty, a campaign group. As it is, the death penalty operation in Nebraska has effectively ground to a halt. There are currently 11 prisoners sitting on death row but the last prisoner was put to death in 1997. In 2008, the state's highest court outlawed the electric chair. The Associated Press said that after Nebraska switched to lethal injections, the process of appeals meant the supply of sodium thiopental - used as part of the cocktail of drugs - expired and officials could not restock its reserve. In March, members of Nebraska's unique unicameral chamber voted 30-13 to repeal the death penalty, but they must secure 2 further votes. Even then, Republican Governor Pete Ricketts has promised a veto. The elected members would then have to rally to overturn the veto. The last conservative state to abolish the death penalty was North Dakota in 1973. In the past 6 years, 4 more liberal states have ended capital punishment: New Mexico in 2009, Illinois in 2011, Connecticut in 2012 and Maryland in 2013. 32 states still have death penalty laws on their books. Robert Dunham, Executive Director of the Death Penalty Information Centre in Washington, said he believed the moves taking place in Nebraksa reflected a general change in the country. "Over the past 20 years there has been a shift from 80 % support to the death penalty to a recent survey that found just 56 %," he said. He said the shift in attitude was most obvious among younger people and minorities. Yet he said attitudes among conservatives had also clearly moved. "For conservatives, it's less about morality but rather a public policy issue," he said. (source: The Independent) KANSAS: Letter: The death penalty's time is up The time is now to end the death penalty in Kansas. There are many reasons to do so. The death penalty risks executing an innocent person and is racist. Most states now are questioning the death penalty due to its high cost. Because of extra preparation and a separate sentencing phase required in capital cases, lengthier appeals and the added costs of incarcerating death row inmates, studies consistently find the death penalty much more costly than life without the chance of parole. Kansas is no exception. Our state has spent millions of dollars on the death penalty since reinstating it in 1994. A 2003 Legislative Post Audit report found that capital cases ending in a death sentence cost 70 % more than similar cases in which the death penalty was not sought. When Kansas reinstated the death penalty, it was estimated it would cost the state an extra $2.4 million to $4.2 million a year. The budget disaster we all face here in Kansas calls for us to find savings wherever possible. I call on the Legislature to pass and the governor to sign a death penalty repeal bill in the next few days. That repeal law would not affect people currently on death row. We can save money and take a giant ethical leap at the same time. MICHAEL POAGE , Wichita (source: Letter to the Editor, Topeka Capital-Journal) ***************** The Kansas death penalty is broken Earlier in this legislative session, a group of conservative lawmakers and local leaders gathered at the Capitol in Topeka to call for an end to the death penalty in Kansas. One of the speakers, Rep. Bill Sutton, said something that particularly resonated with us: "There's exactly zero utility for the tax dollars spent" on the death penalty. We could not agree more. We did not arrive at this position lightly. A little over 5 years ago, our mother, Patricia Kimmi, was murdered in northeast Kansas. This tragedy devastated our family. Mom was the rock that our family leaned on, a constant source of love for us and our children. Losing someone so dear to murder necessarily shakes you and forces you to confront your own views on the death penalty. Ultimately, our family remained committed in our opposition to the death penalty. That is what Mom would have wanted. She instilled in us the core value that we should protect all life, from conception to natural death. Explaining her own opposition to the death penalty, Mom would tell us, "You can't be half pro-life." Beyond its incompatibility with a culture of life, the death penalty fails in other ways, which became apparent to us as we looked more closely at how it functions as a policy. Kansas has not executed anyone since 1965, yet each year Kansas taxpayers spend millions of dollars to keep this policy in place. These costs result from the complex and prolonged trials and appeals associated with capital cases. Due to the irrevocable nature of capital punishment and past errors, courts have mandated extra legal hurdles that must be met before an execution can take place. These legal precedents - which are not changing anytime soon - guarantee that death penalty cases linger in the legal system for years and often decades. For this reason, Kansas is far from the only state with a dysfunctional death penalty. Nationwide, most death sentences are overturned at some stage in the legal process. Occasionally, a legislator or prosecutor vows to expedite the legal process in death penalty cases. These proposals, however, inevitably end up being empty promises, given the federal laws and precedents governing death penalty cases. Too often, those who suffer the most from the current system are murder victims' families. When prosecutors choose to seek the death penalty, they guarantee a protracted legal process, which forces families to endure years of emotionally difficult trials and appeals. The death penalty keeps families stuck in the legal process, delaying when they can put difficult legal proceedings behind them and begin to heal. In short, Kansas' death penalty benefits no one. We are not alone in coming to this conclusion, as a number of other Kansas murder victims' families also are expressing concerns with the death penalty. Kansas has hung on to its costly and broken death penalty for too long. It's time that we as a state eliminate this harmful policy. (source: Commentary; Rita Boller lives in Horton, Kan., and her brother Gene Kimmi lives in Lancaster, Kan.----kansascity.com) WASHINGTON: Joseph McEnroe makes final plea to avoid death row Admitting that no words can undo his horrific crimes, Joseph McEnroe still felt the need to apologize. Looking wracked with anxiety, McEnroe said he hoped his words might in some way help soothe the ongoing agony felt by those left in the wreckage of what he did. "I am not trying to absolve nor excuse myself for my failure and my part in your grief," he said. "It is simply part of my debt to you, all of you, and those I've killed." McEnroe shot 6 members of his then-girlfriend's family in the head, including 2 children, on Christmas Eve of 2007. His attorneys maintain McEnroe is mentally ill and was under the control of his girlfriend and her paranoid delusions, believing her family was out to get her. In a letter he read in court on Tuesday, McEnroe apologized directly to family and friends of his victims. "I'm sorry for the holes I've created in your lives. I'm sorry that Wayne, Judy, Scott, Erica, Nathan and Olivia, all better people than I, are dead by my actions, by my failure." Outside the courtroom, Pam Mantle, who lost her daughter and two grandchildren to the gruesome violence, flatly rejected the apology that was more than 7 years in coming. "I just don't believe anything he says," said Mantle. "I think he's a liar." The jury is expected to begin deliberation on Wednesday. They can sentence McEnroe to life in prison or to death row. Convicted several weeks ago for the killings, McEnroe testified that he wants to live because he hopes to counsel others in prison and salvage some good from his life. Pam Mantle says she's just spent and doesn't really care anymore whether McEnroe lives or dies. "I think (death) would be an easy way out for him," she said. "On the other hand, I just don't think I can take another 15 years of appeals and trials and looking at him every day. I'm just pretty done." (source: KING news) USA: Why Conservatives Should Think Twice About the Death Penalty His torso had deep lacerations, his arteries, organs, and skin cut and sliced, his body was badly burned and riddled with shrapnel, and his spine was nearly severed. This is how the medical examiner who testified in the sentencing trial for Dzhokhar Tsarnaev described the autopsy results for the youngest victim of the Boston Marathon bombings, 8-year-old Martin Richards. Lingzi Lu and Krystle Campbell suffered similar fates that day, he explained; and more than 160 others were badly maimed. The gruesome details from the Boston Marathon bombing were meant to drive one point home to the jurors: He deserves to die for what he did. Tsarnaev is "America's worst nightmare," the prosecutor would go on to say, and an unrepentant one at that. Moreover, no doubt remains over whether or not he's guilty. On an emotional level, many would agree with the prosecution in the Tsarnaev case and for perpetrators of other heinous crimes, especially when the case evidence is as clear as this. But as a policy, should conservatives support the death penalty? If we believe in limited government, fiscal responsibility and pro-life policies unilaterally, it's time to give capital punishment a 2nd thought. And on a state-by-state basis, Conservatives Concerned About the Death Penalty, a national "network of political and social conservatives who question the alignment of capital punishment with conservative principle and values," is leading the charge. Fiscally Irresponsible While capital punishment may seem like the most fiscally prudent form of justice for state, local, and the federal government, the reality is that the cost to taxpayers is much higher than a sentence where the death penalty is not sought. In Washington, for example, capital punishment cases cost on average $1 million more than similar cases where it was not sought, a Seattle University study found - a trend that's seen nationwide. "It's the fiscal aspect of the death penalty that presents one of the strongest cases against capital punishment," Marc Hyden, national advocacy coordinator for CCATD, told Townhall. "I can point to Richardson County, Nebraska, [where] they tried to execute 2 people and when they ran out money they decided to mortgage all their ambulances," he explained. "I know in Lincoln County, Georgia, they ran out of money, they raised taxes multiple times and eventually the county commissioner said 'we're not paying any more on this death penalty program" and the judge said 'you can't renege on your debts' and they threw the whole county commission in jail until they approved appropriations," he continued. "It's causing tax increases, it's millions of more dollars per case than life without parole, that's really what made me start to question the death penalty and whether or not it represents conservative principles." Could the cost be justified if it served as a major deterrent? Perhaps, but the truth is it doesn't. A 2009 study published in the Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology found that 81 % of the nation's top criminologists do not believe capital punishment serves as a deterrent to murder. Moreover, as a Forbes article notes, "States which impose the death penalty continue to report the highest murder rates in the country with only 3 states without the death penalty ranked in the top 25 (Michigan, New York and Alaska)." Is a policy that has exorbitant costs, producing dubious returns really one worth fighting for? Big Government At Its Worst Being in favor of limited government is one of the hallmarks of conservatism, yet capital punishment represents Big Government at its worst. Since 1973, there have been 152 exonerations from death row, the most recent of which was just last month. And many others on death row, Hyden noted, have been executed when there???s been serious doubt regarding the veracity of their verdict. "There's a compelling case out there that perhaps some people may deserve to die for some of their crimes but it's whether you trust the government to exercise the authority involved in capital punishment fairly and efficiently with proper efficacy," he said. "This is the same government that many don't trust to shovel snow, fill potholes, or create a website for Obamacare." By giving the government this much power, how much collateral damage are we willing to accept? The answer for many pro-lifers is zero. A Consistent Pro-Life Stance "I don't think there's anything more important than life," Hyden expressed, "so for a lot of my fellow conservatives that are also prolife, this is a big issue, we don't want to see innocent U.S. citizens being killed by the state, we know there's a risk because humans and governments are fallible, so when you give them the power to kill people, guilty people, inevitably innocent people will fall through the cracks."P> And from a religious perspective, more and more Evangelicals are beginning to realize supporting the death penalty is incongruent with their religious beliefs, CCATDP national advocacy coordinator Heather Beaudoin, whose outreach background includes working with Evangelicals and law enforcement, told Townhall. "I think 10 years ago it would've been hard to find a group of Evangelical folks who were against the death penalty ... but we are seeing a real shift in that now," she said. "What resonates with them is redemption - that if we believe that God can transform any person and that he is created in God's image, we can't support a system that takes away life, even from a person that commits a terrible crime." Concern for Victims' Families All these reasons aside, debates about the death penalty must also include thoughtful consideration for the families of the victims, who, like Bill and Denise Richards, do not wish to relive the horrific events of the day their son was murdered and daughter maimed. In an op-ed published in The Boston Globe, the Richards' explain why they are in favor of the government taking the death penalty off the table for Tsarnaev in exchange for life in prison without parole. "We understand all too well the heinousness and brutality of the crimes committed. We were there. We lived it," they wrote. "The defendant murdered our 8-year-old son, maimed our 7-year-old daughter, and stole part of our soul. We know that the government has its reasons for seeking the death penalty, but the continued pursuit of that punishment could bring years of appeals and prolong reliving the most painful day of our lives. We hope our 2 remaining children do not have to grow up with the lingering, painful reminder of what the defendant took from them, which years of appeals would undoubtedly bring." Is the Time Ripe? There's no denying an overwhelming percentage of Republicans still favor the death penalty. That does not mean, however, that attitudes aren't shifting. According to Gallup's most recent survey on the issue, 76 % of Republicans favor the practice for convicted murderers. But compared to when polling firm asked the same question 20 years ago, Republican support is down 9 points. What's happening in Nebraska, where Republican lawmakers are pushing to end the death penalty, is also a good indication support for the broken government program may be waning. If the death penalty is repealed in The Cornhusker State, it would become the first "red" state in more than 40 years to do so. "If any other system in our government was as ineffective and inefficient as is our death penalty, we conservatives would have gotten rid of it a long, long time ago," said Sen. Colby Coash, a Republican from Lincoln, reports The Wall Street Journal. While Republican Gov. Pete Ricketts has vowed to veto the measure, the effort led by Republicans signals change, across America, may be coming. "We have a lot of conservatives in our camp who still do believe that [if you kill someone you should forfeit your life], they believe it in principle, they believe the philosophy behind the death penalty," Beaudoin explained, "however, they've been willing to take a look and they agree that it's just not worth it anymore, so I think when you look at the system and the way it's functioning I think you come to a different conclusion." (source: townhall.com) ***************** Cinema Killer's Home Rigged To Explode ---- James Holmes placed soda bottles filled with petrol and jars containing napalm throughout his apartment, a court has heard. The death penalty trial of Colorado cinema gunman James Holmes has entered its 6th day, with a lead detective in the case describing the killer's booby-trapped apartment. Aurora police Detective Craig Appel testified Holmes told investigators he had rigged his apartment with several devices set to explode. Holmes built a "trip wire" using fishing line that would trigger the devices when someone entered through the front door, Detective Appel said. He also created a recording with loud music in the hope that a neighbour would call police to come and investigate. Special Agent Garrett Gumbinner, a bomb technician with the FBI, told jurors that his team had to break through a side window to gain access to the apartment. The court was shown photographs taken from a bomb robot's camera that revealed a maze of objects inside Holmes' residence. Mr Gumbinner said authorities were "gravely concerned" when they noticed the fishing line running from the door to a thermos that was sitting on a frying pan. Holmes told investigators the items contained "glycerine and otassium permanganate", which would set off sparks and fires if mixed, Mr Gumbinner said. Soda bottles containing petrol and 2 jars of napalm were also placed at points around the apartment. Asked by the prosecution what would have happened had someone triggered the trip wire, Mr Gumbinner said: "It would have made the whole apartment explode, killing or maiming whoever was there at the time." Holmes used air fresheners throughout the residence to help mask the smell of the petrol, the agent said. Jurors also heard testimony on Tuesday from the director of the University of Colorado neuroscience programme, where Holmes was enrolled as a graduate student. Sukumar Vijayaraghavan was on the programme's admissions committee when Holmes applied in 2011, and later served as Holmes' mentor. He testified that he was impressed with Holmes' understanding of research and rated him "quite highly" during the application process. He described Holmes as being "quiet and a little socially awkward, but definitely someone who had the calibre to be in the programme". As Holmes progressed through his 1st year, however, some of his lab professors expressed concern that he was not engaged and had difficulty communicating with fellow students, Mr Vijayaraghavan told the court. He said 1 professor was concerned that Holmes' presence in the lab would impact morale. Mr Vijayaraghavan said he met with Holmes in June 2012 to discuss his performance, at which time Holmes informed him he was quitting the program. "That was unexpected," he told the court. On Monday, jurors got their 1st glimpse of a video that showed Holmes talking to detectives after the 2012 shooting rampage that left 12 people dead and 70 injured. In the video, Holmes asked: "There weren't any children hurt, were there?" Detectives did not answer the question directly, responding: "We'll get to that." The youngest victim of the 20 July 2012 shooting was 6-year-old Veronica Moser-Sullivan. The other 11 victims ranged in age from 18 to 51. Last week, prosecutors called on several survivors who provided emotional descriptions of the shooting that occurred during a midnight screening of the Batman film The Dark Knight Rises. Holmes, 27, has pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity. (source: Sky News) ********************* Woman pleads not guilty to Aliamanu murder case A year after Hawaii's 1st death penalty case, the state could hold another one. Ailsa Jackson, 24, is accused of deliberately and maliciously stabbing 38-year-old Catherine Walker at her home on the Aliamanu Military Reservation last November. The Army wife died from stab wounds to her neck and body. On Monday, Jackson appeared in a Honolulu courtroom after being extradited from Indiana. She pleaded not guilty to a charge of premeditated murder. According to the FBI, Jackson is a civilian. Prosecutors say they will decide in the next few weeks whether the death penalty will be sought in this case. (source: KITV news) From rhalperi at smu.edu Wed May 6 13:38:28 2015 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Wed, 6 May 2015 13:38:28 -0500 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide Message-ID: May 6 JAPAN: It's time to reconsider the death penalty While pre-World War II laws and systems were being reviewed, the Supreme Court in 1948 delivered its verdict on whether the death penalty was compatible with the nation's postwar Constitution. "The life of a single person is worth more than the entire world," the court stated, indirectly quoting from "Self-Help," a work by Scottish author Samuel Smiles (1812-1904) that was widely read in Japan during the Meiji Era (1868-1912). But contrary to this unequivocal acknowledgement of the sanctity of every human life, the highest court concluded that the death penalty, by which the state is empowered to execute its citizens, was not in violation of the new Constitution that bans "cruel" punishment. This ruling of 67 years ago remains to this day the basis of the judicial argument of the constitutionality of capital punishment. LIFE SENTENCES WITHOUT PAROLE That decision was reached unanimously by all 11 justices sitting on the Grand Bench of the Supreme Court. But what is interesting is that 4 of the justices noted in their concurring opinion that the death penalty "has not been permanently endorsed by the Constitution." The justices went on to note that as civilization develops and a peaceful society ruled by justice and order becomes established to render the threat of capital punishment redundant for crime prevention, the death penalty itself will certainly be rejected. After World War II, many countries abolished capital punishment or opted for stays of execution. Today, the death sentence is a thing of the past in 70 percent of countries around the world. We must ask anew: Has the "peaceful society" envisioned by the 4 justices yet to be realized in Japan? Public sentiment is the government's main reason for justifying capital punishment. According to opinion polls conducted by the government every 5 years, Japanese citizens are overwhelmingly in favor of maintaining capital punishment. In the latest survey results disclosed in January this year, 80.3 % were in favor, with only 9.7 % against. But there are also developments that must not be overlooked. In the latest survey, the government for the 1st time asked the respondents what they thought about introducing life sentences without parole. With this possibility in view, those in favor of maintaining the death sentence dropped to 51.5 %, while those against the death sentence rose to 37.7 %. The traditional overwhelming support has crumbled. Life sentences, the second stiffest penalty after capital punishment, currently offer chances of parole. This is a big gap in leniency, as experts have pointed out. Being a lifer without parole is agonizing in a different way from being on death row. There also may be difficult issues involved in dealing with convicts who have no possibility of returning to society. Still, we believe the introduction of life imprisonment without parole is something that should be considered as an interim step toward abolishing capital punishment. TOO LITTLE INFORMATION The survey results indicate that public opinion can swing depending on preconditions and how the questions are asked. If getting a careful read on what the public wants was the purpose of the surveys, shouldn't the government have started posing questions based on different preconditions much earlier? As for members of the public, haven't they been guilty of tacitly endorsing the death penalty without really giving the issue any serious thought? Mai Sato, a researcher at Oxford University who has been researching the correlation between capital punishment and public opinion, noted: "The government does not provide sufficient information but believes that a public consensus exists. And the public has been persuaded to believe so." The citizen judge system, which involves ordinary citizens in the judicial deliberative process, represents one of the biggest changes in the nation's postwar handling of capital cases. Since the system's introduction 6 years ago, more than 20 death sentences have been delivered. But we can hardly say that the system has helped provide the public at large with a broader range of information with which to determine the punishment for each accused individual. And the government has certainly not taken any proactive steps to improve the situation. Is it not only right and proper for the government to provide citizens with every piece of information and opportunity for them to understand how death row convicts live and what execution by hanging is like? For example, citizens should be given opportunities to visit execution chambers. In this day and age when anyone could be called up to be a party to condemning a fellow human being to death, the government must disclose every necessary bit of information so that people can make well-reasoned decisions. EMBRACING NEW VALUES When considering an end to capital punishment, the feelings of bereaved families of murder victims must never be overlooked. But their feelings and thoughts vary greatly, and the judiciary does not believe in punishing the perpetrators just to vindicate victims or their families. What is needed is a multilevel support system for the victims and their families, such as ensuring thoroughly open court procedures and close post-trial communications to keep them informed on how the accused are serving their sentences. Even in Western Europe, which has done away with the death sentence, the momentum for abolishing it did not arise until after World War II. The sea change occurred against the backdrop of an increased public awareness for human rights and the sanctity of human life, which raised questions about a state's right to order the execution of its citizens. According to Amnesty International, Japan and the United States were the only 2 out of the 34 member nations of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development that still executed their citizens as of the end of last year. But even in the United States, recent years have seen a growing move toward ending capital punishment, and 18 of its 50 states have already abolished it. It is up to each country to determine its system of punishment. But Japan certainly has much to learn from other democracies on how they eventually chose to abolish the death sentence. In 1965, Britain halted executions when the real perpetrator of a capital crime owned up after someone had been falsely accused and executed. In 1998, Britain abolished capital punishment. In Japan, the irrevocability of the death sentence was driven home last year when the Shizuoka District Court ordered a retrial for Iwao Hakamada, a death row convict. There are no reports of increased incidence of heinous crimes in countries that abolished the death sentence. It is understood today that the argument that capital punishment is a deterrent to crime lacks proof. We need to address the issue of capital punishment with sincerity, drawing upon accumulated knowledge and experience. (source: Editorial, The Asahi Shimbun) CARIBBEAN: The case for abolition of the Privy Council It was with great interest that I listened to the arguments advanced on April 26 by Ramesh Lawrence Maharaj and others on the need for a referendum to decide on accession to the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ). It is important to appreciate that while some may want the Privy Council, the Privy Council does not want us! In a BBC report in 2009, Lord Phillips said that the Law Lords on the Privy Council were spending a "disproportionate" amount of time on cases from former colonies, mostly in the Caribbean. He advocated a reduction in the caseload and suggested using some English Court of Appeal judges on the Privy Council. Since the 2009/10 judicial year, more than half of the Commonwealth appeals, and 40 % of all judgments, have originated from 2 countries Mauritius and T&T. Other Commonwealth countries have long left the jurisdiction of the JCPC - Canada (1933, 1949), India (1949), Australia (1968, 1975) and most recently, New Zealand (2004). It was suggested in the forum that the Privy Council has dispensed "justice" in the Caribbean for "centuries". The Privy Council was a colonial institution which began to receive petitions from the plantations and was originally set up as a standing committee in 1681 to receive petitions asking for the "King's grace as a relief from the decisions of local courts". It was given its current form in 1833 on the eve of Emancipation. At that time we were a society of slaves and later indentured workers. We were not citizens with right of access to justice. We were merely subjects in a crown colony. The laws in colonial society did not serve the interests of the mass of 'subjects'. Indeed those laws discriminated against Afro and Indo-Trinidadians in restricting land ownership, and even freedom of movement, and protected the interests of the white plantocracy. The magistracy was populated by "briefless barristers", whose 'justice' was often rough and arbitrary. Up to 1871 some members of the Privy Council itself were laymen without legal training. Voting was based on property qualifications. There was no adult suffrage here until 1946. To suggest then that the Privy Council dispensed justice is ludicrous. We can only sensibly assess the role of the Privy Council from 1962 when we gained Independence and, when as free citizens of this country, we chose to retain the Privy Council as our final court of appeal, as we also chose to "save" the English laws under which the society then operated. Secondly, as Lord Neuberger noted, while it was the final appellate court for a quarter of the world's population, the Privy Council operated not open justice but in virtual secrecy from #9 Downing Street. The persons whose lives were determined by its decisions did not know where it was located, who sat on it, and how they came to sit there. Most Trinidadians still don't know! Some speakers at the forum gave the impression that the JCPC judgments are always right and their decisions are bold and free of bias. This is false. First, even the highest courts, eg, the UK Supreme Court, now give themselves the option of overruling themselves, recognising that a previous decision may have been wrongly decided, or that social and cultural circumstances had so changed that a decision now would have to be different from one given earlier. Second, the romantic notion some West Indians have of English jurists and jurisprudence is but a reflection of our deep-seated ambivalence and a still regnant colonial mentality. As if these English jurists are not socially conditioned and cannot fall into error! Why then the strong lobby in recent decades in the UK itself for the cessation of drawing almost exclusively on men educated at Oxford and Cambridge for appointment to the bench, and the perceived need to bring on more women and minorities? One Australian jurist, quoted by Lord Neuberger said: "Sometimes, their Lordships did not have a full appreciation of the local conditions that made it difficult for them to reflect all of the factors necessary to a lawful and just resolution of the cases." But its decisions in several West Indian cases have not been 'right' or bold. The Privy Council has made a dog's dinner of death penalty cases in the region in the last 20 years. The underlying reason for its flip flopping and inconsistent decisions is that, while claiming to apply the law of the land whose case they are hearing, they are driven by contemporary European jurisprudence where the death penalty is not to be applied under any circumstances. The Pratt and Morgan 5-year limitation combined with a "legitimate expectation" of appeals to human rights bodies, has made it impossible to carry out the death penalty which is the law in most West Indian territories. Lord Bingham and 3 other law lords dissented strongly in the Charles Matthew case, which was decided 5:4, on whether the death penalty was mandatory in this country, overruling its previous decision in Roodal. In Suratt, the late Lord Bingham, an outstanding jurist, levied a strong dissent suggesting that the decision on the constitutionality of the Equal Opportunities Act should have been left to the local courts. At least 2 of our Appeal Court judges maintain that Suratt was wrongly decided. Other JCPC decisions have left the local courts perplexed! In Persad v Persad, Jamadar JA has as much told local judges not to follow the Privy Council decision in Macleod which decision had been criticised by the House of Lords in Radmacher. The Privy Council has been useful and made important decisions which have shaped our jurisprudence positively. But it cannot be held out as a paragon of justice in a West Indian context in the 21st century. (source: Trinidad Express) NIGERIA: Execution of 4 Nigerians in Indonesia Global attention riveted on Nigeria last week following the execution of 4 of our citizens for drug trafficking in Indonesia. Coming so soon after the euphoria of the successful conclusion of the 2015 general elections, the presence of 4 Nigerians among a total of eight persons killed for drug trafficking in that country, is a dampener. It has also brought into sharp focus the serious work that the incoming government of Gen. Muhammadu Buhari has to do to re-orientate Nigerian youths from criminality and untoward money-making activities that are fast becoming a norm in the country. Nigerians, it must be said, need a new orientation towards responsible living and the incoming government will need to make national re-orientation towards good citizenship and worthy conduct a cardinal point of its assignment, if there is to be any hope of taking our country from its present sorry state to where we all want it to be. With our citizens making up 50 % of the total number of executed persons, the incident has understandably pushed the nation's image several notches lower and the countries that have always prided themselves on singling Nigerians out for serious searches at their international airports may have been given more impetus to continue the practice. The impression that has unwittingly been created is that Nigeria likely carries about 50 % of the global drug trafficking burden. The names of our executed compatriots as released to the global audience are: Sylvester Obiekwe, Raheem Salami, Okwudili Oyatanze and Martin Anderson, who was said to have used a Ghanaian passport for the trip. Seeing the pictures of these our fellow citizens splashed all over the world is one embarrassment that Nigerians would have loved to avoid if it were possible. For their families, the impact of this sad development is only better imagined than experienced. The picture of the Nigerians whose lives were literally cut short before a global audience is touching. These were all young Nigerians who had been caught, tried and kept on death row for about 10 years before the final execution date, last week Tuesday. Some of them had reportedly been reformed during their incarceration process and one had actually become a gospel singer, and had released about 7 gospel albums and written about 70 touching songs. Yet, the Indonesia's strict drug law which provides for death penalty had to be respected, so, the country's authorities turned deaf ears to entreaties from all parts of the world, including from the United Nations, European Union, Amnesty International and the Nigerian government, to spare the lives of the drug convicts. The country, to all intents and purposes, told the world that its laws were made to be implemented, to serve the purpose of keeping drug traffickers out of their territory. But for the gruesomeness of the executions, this lesson on the need to respect laws is actually good for certain Nigerians, who apparently think that laws are meant to be broken by anyone who is smart enough to get away with breaking them. Sadly too, 2 other Nigerians, Daniel Enemuo and Solomon Chibuike Okafor, had reportedly been executed in Indonesia on January 18, this year, while several others have been quietly executed in China in recent months. As saddening as these executions are, the killing of these our four compatriots is not the end of Nigeria's drug trafficking execution woes. Apart from the four that have now been killed, there are still 11 other Nigerians awaiting execution in Indonesia for the same offence of drug dealing. In China, 120 Nigerians have also reportedly been sentenced to death for drug running, while 1 person is on death row in Singapore. As crude and repulsive as the execution of these Nigerians for drug trafficking in Indonesia sounds, it is the law of that country and the punishment of death for the crime is said to be clearly stamped on all visas issued to anyone travelling there. That Nigerians have continued to be caught in this crime in Indonesia is, therefore, symptomatic of the desperation of some our citizens to make money from drug trafficking, even at a great risk to their lives. It is this desperation that also pushes our citizens to undertake the perilous journey by Libya into Europe, with many of them losing their lives in the process. The challenge before the incoming administration is, therefore, to address the factors that make drug trafficking attractive to Nigerians. Key, among these, is the fact that many Nigerians are finding it difficult to make a reasonable living in the country. Unemployment and underemployment readily lure unwary citizens to drug trafficking. Meanwhile, there is ready adulation of persons with sudden unexplained wealth, instead of questions being asked on the sources of their wealth. With the ease with which criminally-acquired wealth is flaunted without any questions asked, and the inability of many Nigerians, especially the youths, to make ends meet in the country, drug trafficking becomes an easy recourse, and there is no shortage of criminal gangs to lure the unwary into the dastardly business. To reduce the penchant of Nigerians for drug trafficking and other untoward activities such as armed robbery, Internet fraud and kidnapping, it is necessary for the authorities to make it easier for Nigerians to earn a reasonable living in the country. There is the need for a moral rebirth and social re-orientation. The glorification of sudden wealth must be stopped while the values of respect for work and dignity of labour must be taught, imbibed and demonstrated in our daily living. Incidentally, the menace of drug trafficking was one of the ills that gave the incoming president a bad name as his exasperated regime, at the time, passed laws that stipulated death penalty for the crime. The era of executing Nigerians for drug trafficking has certainly passed, but the nation's laws must be strengthened to serve as a greater deterrent to this crime. Our laws and judicial administration system must take a stricter view of drug offences. The era in which drug traffickers are given slaps on the wrists and let off the hook to later disgrace the nation abroad should come to an end. Above all, Nigerian youths have to be taught better and more honourable ways of earning a living. The country is in sore need of a moral and ethical re-orientation that must start from the top and percolate down to the entire population. The agency of government to handle this assignment must be empowered to do a good job. This is one sure way that the incoming government can try to make a break from the present collapse of values and develop a new charter of responsible citizenship for Nigerians. (source: Sun News) PAKISTAN----execution Murder convict hanged in Lahore A death row convict has been sent to the gallows at the Kot Lakhpat Jail Lahore, Dunya News reported. According to details, death row convict Zulfiqar was hanged on early Wednesday morning. Zulfiqar was guilty of killing two people during a robbery attempt. Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif lifted the moratorium on the death penalty on December 17, a day after Taliban gunmen attacked a school and killed 134 students and 19 adults. The killings put pressure the government to do more to tackle the insurgency. (source: Dunya News) ******************* Execution of Pakistan death row convict stayed in dispute over age A Pakistani judge on Tuesday stayed the execution of a man whose lawyers say was 14 when he was charged with murder, a case that has angered rights groups and prompted mercy appeals from his family. Shafqat Hussain was due to be executed on Wednesday. His lawyers say he was 14 in 2004 when he was burnt with cigarettes and had fingernails removed until he confessed to the killing of a child. It was the 2nd stay of execution for Hussain. In March, he was dressed in a white uniform ready for hanging and told to write his will before his execution was postponed while the Federal Investigation Agency looked into the question of his age. The agency, Pakistan's equivalent of the US FBI, later determined he was not a juvenile at the time of the killing and a new execution date was set. But that was also challenged. "The judge has ruled that the FIA did not have the mandate to conduct the investigation into Shafqat's age and this should be done by a competent judicial forum," Shahab Siddiqui, of the Justice Project Pakistan, a legal aid group representing Hussain, said. "So, until the matter is decided, his execution is stayed." The death sentence cannot be imposed on a defendant who was under-18 at the time of the crime. Testimony obtained by torture is also inadmissible. Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif lifted a moratorium on the death penalty on Dec. 17, a day after Pakistani Taleban gunmen attacked a school and killed 134 pupils and 19 adults. Since then, 102 people have been executed, according to the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan. Hussain's family has made heartrending appeals to the government, complaining of a flawed justice system that allowed months of torture to extract a confession. Human rights groups say convictions in Pakistan are highly unreliable because its antiquated criminal justice system barely functions, torture is common and the police are mostly untrained. (source: Arab News) SOUTH AFRICA: Maimane 'flip-flops' on death penalty referendum 2 days after DA leadership candidate Mmusi Maimane publicly expressed his support for a referendum on the death penalty, he has backed down. "I would stand up straight and say I don't support a referendum on the death penalty. We shouldn't have a referendum," Maimane told Netwerk24 in an interview on Wednesday. Perhaps he did not clearly articulate his position on the death penalty and gay marriage in a television debate with outgoing federal chair Wilmot James, said Maimane. In actual fact, Maimane is very opposed to the death penalty, and supports gay marriage. James said during the debate, broadcast on DStv's kykNET show Insig on Monday evening, that the DA's parliamentary leader did not understand the Constitution. On Wednesday, Maimane clarified he meant to say he was in favour of South Africans getting an opportunity to say how they feel, and re-evaluate their opinions. "People tend to assume when the Constitution provides for someone to have a referendum, the state has to implement the outcome." But that is not the case, said Maimane. "A referendum is the polling of people. My view was that if people want to give an opinion, they should be allowed to make a referendum, but that is not how you govern the state." "I've come to understand that people assume when you say a referendum is on the table you are saying those rights are up for grabs. That is not what I am saying." He denied that he did not understand the Constitution. "I disagree with that. I've upheld the Constitution. I spend my days in Parliament upholding the Constitution." During the debate, Rapport editor and Insig presenter Waldimar Pelser asked him how he reconciled his church's stance against gay marriage with gay rights enshrined in the Constitution. Since then, Maimane's critics have said he was sitting with a moral dilemma he needed to explain. "It is not a moral dilemma," Maimane told Netwerk24. "I have in my own church taken a stance on my support of gay marriages. I don't go to church because I agree with everything the church says. "I've been supportive of gay rights. Marriage is marriage, those things to me is not even a debate. I've married a gay couple. To me the church holds a particular view, my job is to help the church see my point of view equally so." Constitutional law expert Pierre de Vos said Maimane understood the Constitution correctly and that a referendum was not binding. (source: news24.com) From rhalperi at smu.edu Wed May 6 13:39:22 2015 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Wed, 6 May 2015 13:39:22 -0500 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide Message-ID: May 6 PHILIPPINES: 92 migrant Filipinos on death row; 3,800 jailed----The Philippine government is urged to create 'a special body that looks into victims' assistance' in cases of Filipinos on death row A week after Indonesia postponed the execution of Filipino worker Mary Jane Veloso, the Philippines said it is closely watching the cases of 92 Filipinos on death row around the world. In an interview on ANC's Beyond Politics, Philippine Foreign Undersecretary for Migrant Workers' Affairs Jesus Yabes also said the country is ready to help 3,800 Filipinos jailed in other countries. "We monitor them, and we have a program of visits for the family," Yabes said in an interview aired Tuesday evening, May 5. The Philippine Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) earlier said 88 Filipinos remain on death row, but Yabes said the DFA corrected this figure in a letter to Philippine President Benigno Aquino III on Tuesday afternoon. Yabes explained that most of the Filipinos on death row were convicted for murder and drug-related offenses. One of them was convicted for espionage in Qatar. He added that "only person right now" who faces imminent execution "is the one in Saudi Arabia." He said the Philippine government vows to help any Filipino on death row "whether the person is guilty or not." He said, "So long as these are Filipinos who are abroad and are in stress situations, then we assist." 'Special body' for death row cases Migrant workers' rights advocate Susan Ople pointed out, however, that the government needs to reform its processes to help migrant workers on death row. "There's a lot to be done. Just handling the families alone, you really have to show a great degree of compassion," she said. Ople cited the case of Veloso's mother, Celia, who drew criticism for denouncing the Philippine government even if it helped seek a reprieve for her daughter. Sentenced to death for drug smuggling, Veloso was supposed to be executed on April 29, but Indonesia delayed her execution because of Aquino's last-minute appeal. Ople said she understands the Veloso family's situation because the 30-year-old Filipino worker's case has been an "emotional roller-coaster for them." To better handle cases like this, she urged the Philippine government to create "a special body that looks into victims' assistance" in "death row cases or all major cases." There are roughly 10 million Filipinos working overseas - many as maids, laborers and in other low-paid jobs - because there are few job opportunities at home. With many coming from poor farming areas and lacking in street smarts, they are easy pickings for international crime gangs on the hunt for drug mules, migrant workers' group Migrante said. (source: rappler.com) ************ Family of Filipina on death row critical of Philippine govt Without giving in to global pressure, the Indonesian Government demonstrating its sovereign authority and that it operates on the doctrine that its laws are supreme, executed 8 prisoners in its death row shortly after midnight last Wednesday. Back in the Philippines, her family and just about every Filipino who finds the death penalty barbaric are praying that she'd be granted executive clemency, the only way, it seems, she'd be able to extricate herself from her dire circumstances. Coloma said Veloso was arrested in Indonesia for carrying illegal drugs. Coloma said he hopes that the whole process would show a reason for the Indonesian government to give Veloso a chance to live. We are just waiting for their official notification," he said. The task force was directed by Justice Secretary Leila De Lima to do case build up on the illegal drugs aspect of Veloso's case, considering that the human trafficking aspect is already pending with the department. Sergio denied she helped dupe Veloso into smuggling 2.6kgs of high grade heroin contained in a suitcase into Indonesia. As such, the spokesman said it was still possible that Veloso could be included in the next batch of death row convicts also convicted for illegal drug smuggling who are to be executed by firing squad under Indonesia's tough laws. "Moreover, we are committed to pursuing the complaints filed against Mary Jane's recruiter as this was vital in securing the reprieve of Mary Jane. We will sit with PDEA and PNP on Wednesday (tomorrow) to discuss this West African syndicate or any other syndicate, for that matter, involved in victimizing our countrymen". "Kristina had easily persuaded Veloso, a provincemate and godsister, to take up her offer to work as a housemaid in Malaysia. We heard that they will send their investigators here to question [Veloso] and also want her to testify via video conference," he said, adding that the Philippines government had agreed to cover all the expenses. It's inevitable to look into that link, " she said. (source: rapidnewsnetwork.com) AUSTRALIA: AFP refuse to apologise after Bali executions The Australian Federal Police has insisted its entire handling of the Bali 9 case was appropriate at every stage, and attacked criticism over the executions of Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran as 'in bad taste' and 'misinformed', saying it had no choice but to provide information to Indonesian authorities despite knowing the death penalty might result. At a media conference this morning, AFP Commissioner Andrew Colvin, flanked by Deputy Commissioners Mike Phelan, who was involved directly with the case, and Leanne Close, refused to apologise to the families of Chan and Sukumaran, declined to rule out Australians being executed on the basis of AFP intelligence in the future, and insisted that asking Indonesian police to pursue the group was the best operational decision. Phelan, specifically and in detail, rejected claims by the family of Bali 9 member Scott Rush and barrister Robert Byers that the AFP promised to prevent Rush from travelling to Bali after Rush's father had provided a crucial tip-off. He argued the AFP was already investigating the syndicate and Rush'744s involvement, and that it could not have arrested Rush or prevented him from travelling without reducing the chances of successfully prosecuting other syndicate members. No commitments were made to Rush's family, Phelan insisted. Phelan and Colvin also argued that the AFP was correct to not wait until the Bali 9 returned to Australia before acting. They claimed that the drug couriers may have passed the eight kilograms of drugs they were importing to other aircraft passengers or corrupt airport insiders (a possibility admitted by Phelan as 'remote') and that the arrest of the group in Indonesia helped the prosecution of another 6 members of the syndicate in Australia. Allowing the group to return to Australia might, Colvin and Phelan argued, would have allowed the drugs to be lost from the plane and would have reduced the chances of prosecuting syndicate organisers. Key organisers of the syndicate, however, remain at large or were able to flee, but the AFP questioned whether the claim that the 'kingpins' remained free was accurate, repeatedly saying it had prosecuted a further 6 low-level members of the group here in Australia. The AFP repeatedly came back to its insistence that its primary duty was to protect Australians from 'the scourge of drugs', with Close boasting that the AFP had in recent years stopped drugs worth '8 hits for every man, women and child in Australia'. However, despite his repeated declaration that there was nothing inappropriate or wrong about the AFP's actions, Colvin refused in the face of repeated questioning to say the AFP would act in the same way again, suggesting it might behave differently if circumstances were repeated. He claimed that the AFP was 'hampered' by restrictions on cooperation with death-penalty countries but that that was 'appropriate' given the government's stance on the death penalty. Colvin said criticism of the AFP, suggestions it had blood on its hands, and that it had traded the Bali 9 in exchange for a better relationship with Indonesian authorities on terrorism, were 'in bad taste' and upset individual officers engaged in dangerous anti-drugs operations. The AFP even rejected criticism that it had failed to explain itself, insisting its officers had answered questions in parliamentary committee hearings, court proceedings and media conferences, but had chosen not to do so recently out of concern for the government's efforts to obtain clemency for Chan and Sukumaran. The broader message from Colvin, Phelan and Close was consistent with its previous position: the AFP did nothing wrong on the Bali 9 and it has nothing to be sorry for in the case. (source: echo.net.au) ************ Narcotics, international law and the death penalty: The way forward The tragic execution of Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran and before that, Nguyen Tuong Van in Singapore in December 2005, have highlighted the limited avenues available to a government that seeks to avoid the unjust imposition of the death penalty upon one of its citizens. The events in Indonesia have also highlighted the arbitrary and capricious nature of the application of the death penalty with last-minute reprieves for Mary Jane Veloso and Serge Atlaoui being granted while Chan and Sukumaran were executed when serious and fundamental questions remained over their sentencing process. The application of the death penalty in the Asia Pacific is frequently inconsistent with international law. While international law does not necessarily prohibit the death penalty in all cases, there are a number of significant treaties and other international rules that expressly limit its application. In particular, the imposition of capital punishment for drug crimes is not permissible under international law to which Indonesia, and many other Asia Pacific countries, are subject. Indonesia is a party to the 1966 International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. The covenant was drafted in the recognition that, at the time of its conclusion, the death penalty was not prohibited by international law but that its application should be severely limited. It limits the application of the death penalty to "the most serious crimes". Although drug trafficking is clearly "a" serious crime, it cannot be characterised as "the most serious crime". It does not inevitably lead to lethal consequences. The United Nations Human Rights Committee has made clear that only exceptional crimes may carry the death penalty, and the United Nations Economic and Social Council has defined the relevant crimes to be those which necessarily lead to lethal consequences as constituting a most serious crime. Narcotics control treaties in force throughout the Asia Pacific refer to lengthy imprisonment as the most appropriate punishment for drug crime. In the case of Chan and Sukumaran, the fact that the drugs involved were to be trafficked to Australia, and not within Indonesia, meant that no Indonesian citizen faced any grave or lethal consequence as a result of their actions, and constituted a powerful basis to object to the application of a penalty of death. The blanket rejection of clemency bids by President Joko Widodo without any consideration of individual circumstances, the rush to arbitrary execution while substantial and fundamental legal issues remained before Indonesian courts and tribunals, and the determination to execute after 10 years of imprisonment are additional reasons that Indonesia's conduct failed to comply with its most basic international legal obligations. Despite the clear inconsistencies between international law and Indonesia's conduct, no international tribunal was able to rule on these matters. As Foreign Minister Julie Bishop has publicly stated, Australia unsuccessfully sought Indonesia's agreement to resolve these international legal issues before the International Court of Justice. The lack of compulsory international dispute-settlement processes in these cases renders it imperative that Australia now take a leadership role in seeking a regional moratorium on the application of capital punishment for narcotics offences, if not more generally. Amnesty International, which has maintained a lengthy campaign against the death penalty, has identified that well over half the countries in the world have now abolished the death penalty entirely. Abolitionist countries in the Asia Pacific now include Australia, Cambodia, Kiribati, Marshall Islands, Mauritius, Micronesia, New Zealand, Niue, Palau, Philippines, Samoa, Seychelles, Solomon Islands, South Africa, East Timor, Tuvalu, and Vanuatu. Of other countries in this region, Cook Islands, Fiji, Brunei Darussalam, Maldives, Myanmar, Nauru, and Tonga have essentially abolished the death penalty in all but the most exceptional cases. That leaves a much smaller number of regional countries which retain the death penalty, of which China is the most prominent. Alarmingly, Papua New Guinea is actively considering reintroducing the death penalty. A bipartisan consensus has emerged in recent days for Australia to do more to abolish the death penalty. A good place to start is within our region. Efforts must be directed at engagement through ASEAN and other regional fora. Our politicians and diplomats must speak with one voice, and with consistency, on the issue. Inconsistency limits Australia's ability to speak out on behalf of Australians abroad by removing the most powerful tool in the diplomatic armoury, Australia's consistent and implacable opposition to the death penalty. The example of rehabilitation of Chan and Sukumaran and their ability to speak to future generations of youth is something which Indonesia should today be celebrating. Instead, it faces justified international condemnation, increased friction with its neighbours and a much diminished place in the world community. Whatever Widodo may think, that is not in Indonesia's national interest. The time has come for Australia to seek to exercise real regional leadership on this issue and mount a sustained campaign for the abolition of the death penalty. That will ensure an ongoing legacy for these two Australians executed in Indonesia. (source: Commentary; Dr Christopher Ward (barrister and ANU College of Law Adjunct Professor) and Professor Donald R. Rothwell (ANU College of Law) were advisers on international law to Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran----Brisbane Times) ******************** United front against death penalty a myth 25 years ago a landmark Australian study was published which found the abolition of capital punishment was not in response to public opinion, but in spite of it. The paper by 2 academics from the Australian National University confirmed that "political elites" in the States had imposed their will against community wishes, but predicted that over time abolition might have the effect of shifting public opinion away from capital punishment. This was despite their study of national opinion polls that showed public support dropped to about 40 % after the Ronald Ryan hanging in Victoria in 1967, but recovered to the high 60s by the time WA became the last State to ban the death penalty in 1984. I was provoked to write this column by a peculiar article on the ABC's The Drum website headed "Death penalty: are we really united in our opposition?" Who's the "we" that "our" ABC suggests is united? In the article, another ANU academic, political scientist and former journalist Norman Abjorensen voices concerns that Nationals maverick Barnaby Joyce had broken some assumed consensus around the execution of Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran by calling for a discussion about the death penalty. "How does this square with the supposed steadfast opposition from Prime Minister Tony Abbott and Foreign Minister Julie Bishop," Abjorensen asked. "Were they sincere in their appeals for clemency or was it just a cheap and cynical political stunt for a hardline Government to look compassionate?" Abjorensen quoted an exchange between the last Victorian premier to send a man to the gallows, Liberal Henry Bolte, and former Labor leader Clyde Holding: "For f... sake, Henry, can't you see that every time someone is hanged, it's one of you bastards hanging one of us." That led Abjorensen to his real point: "The fact of the matter, as the late Holding so succinctly pointed out, is that one side of politics, the conservative side, has always been pro-capital punishment while the other, Labor, has resolutely been opposed to it. It always had a class element to it." Well, that was not the finding of the 2 ANU researchers Jonathan Kelley and John Braithwaite in their study. "Whereas the US experience suggests a general (if slight) affinity between political conservatism and support for the death penalty, in Australia the picture is mixed," they wrote. "Supporters of the conservative parties are no different from Labor supporters, once other demographic and attitudinal variables are taken into account." The researchers noted the death penalty was abolished by different parties in different Australian States. "We found that resentment towards outgroups is the aspect of conservatism that most strongly explains support for capital punishment," they wrote. Principal in the outgroups identified by the ANU pair were criminals - and drug dealers are squarely within that grouping. Abjorensen noted John Howard supported the death penalty for the Bali bombers in 2003 but declined to add that Labor leader Simon Crean also agreed and that in 2008, as the 1st executions approached, Kevin Rudd said those convicted "deserve the justice that will be delivered to them". Warning of a growing "populist" capital punishment sentiment, he quoted a Morgan poll from last year showing 52.5 % support the death penalty for deadly terrorist acts in Australia. That was up from only 23 % in 2009, confounding the predictions of the earlier ANU study. WA, by the way, was at 59 %, 2nd only to Tasmania on 63. But Abjorensen declined to mention a Morgan poll in January specifically about the Bali nine drug smugglers in which 47 % of Liberals opposed the Indonesian executions and 42 % of Labor voters favoured them. It clearly didn???t fit his class warfare script. And nowhere does he mention the democratic principle of the will of the people. That January poll for the ABC's Triple J, which reported 52 % support for the executions, led to a contorted article in the Fairfax press branding it "crude and misleading". Morgan replicated the findings in another survey 2 months later. So it appears not much has changed in 25 years. The political elites - which now clearly include a lot of journalists - impose their views about capital punishment on an often differing public. It becomes a problem for journalism when there is an attempt to create the perception of a united national position when the evidence points to none. (source: Opinion, Paul Murray; The West Australian) INDONESIA: The Indonesian case for executing for drug traffickers It is deeply regrettable that certain individuals must face the death penalty in Indonesia as a result of drug trafficking crimes. We understand the impact and deeply sympathise with the families and friends of those who have departed under the death penalty, both of foreign nationals and Indonesians alike. We also understand, and would like people to be aware of the impacts and sympathise with the victims, and their families and friends, of drug abuse. Indonesia is facing a crisis situation of drug abuse on a massive scale. Currently an alarming number of 4.5 million people in Indonesia are suffering from drug-related problems. A large portion of these people find their homes in rehabilitation centres, despite limited capacity, to try to restore their "normal lives". Among those, 1.2 million people cannot be cured. Every day there are 33 to 50 people who die from drug-related causes, amounting to around 18.000 people every year. Drug use is spreading at a shocking rate to all parts of the society including to children as young as primary school students. Indonesia is profoundly grieved by the severe consequences that result from this massive drug-abuse. Faced with this harrowing situation, Indonesia is resolutely determined to continue to combat drug-trafficking, a crime punishable by death limited to drug producers, syndicates and drug dealers. In August 2014 there were 67,786 convicted drug-offenders in Indonesian custody who are not under the death penalty. It is important to stress that the death penalty is carried out only after all legal defences provided by law are exhausted, and only after a verdict has a permanent legal force and clemency is denied. We do not deny that the death penalty is a harsh form of punishment, but the grave consequences of drug-related crimes are far reaching and harsher. The sad reality is that serious drug offences have called for an equally serious measure of penalty. Like most of New Zealanders, there are millions of Indonesians are against the death penalty. Opinion polls by Media Indonesia in 2006 show that, 78 % of Indonesians were in favour of the death penalty for drug traffickers and 22 % were against it. A poll by Kompasiana in December 2014 showed that 83 % in favour and 17 % are against. Polling by Forum in Januarythis year resulted in 87 % in support and 13 % against. Although these opinion polls may not be entirely accurate in representing the views of the 250 million people of Indonesia, they nonetheless reflect the on-going debate in the country on the issue of the death penalty. It is worth adding add that the death penalty is not something that Indonesians take lightly; it is extreme and unfortunate. However, it needs to beconsidered in light of the on-going crisis. A crisis that Indonesians are experiencing and dealing with, a crisis with severe and long-term effects on our young generation and the future of the nation. Unfortunately the severity of this crisis is all too familiar and real. The heated debate over the death penalty is unprecedented in Indonesia. The outcome is up to the nation to decide. Indonesia is open to any views or concerns that have been expressed on the matter as it gives us perspective on the pros and cons of our law, but in the end only Indonesia can decide whether to retain or abolish its death penalty law in accordance to what is acceptable to its people and the durability of its application. Presently, there is no legal process envisaged to change the law, and there is evidently increasingly stronger support for the death penalty from the public as one can observe from the opinion polls. Indonesia's criminal justice system, like that of a number of other big democracies, recognises the death penalty for cases of 'most serious crimes'. So far, there is no authoritative intergovernmental agreement in the United Nations on what constitutes a 'most serious crime'. It therefore falls within the sovereignty of each country to determine what it considers a 'most serious crime' and whether the death penalty is applicable in response to such crime. Indonesia believes that the application of capital punishment in the country is within the scope and consistent with article 6(2) of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and that this issue is an inalienable component of legal sovereignty of a country. It serves as a strong deterrent against what the country regards as one of the most serious crimes. In light of this, the concerns or objections that have been voiced against Indonesia's death penalty law may be more helpful if conveyed in the context of capital punishment in general, regardless of where it is practised or what crimes it is applicable to. (source: Commentary; Jose Tavares is the Indonesian ambassador to New Zealand----Stuff News) ***************** France, EU continue aid programs despite executions France has reiterated its commitment to maintaining a relationship with Indonesia, including by providing grants and loans in a number of different fields, despite the possible execution of 1 of its nationals in the country. According to French Ambassador to Indonesia Corinne Breuze, French aid programs for Indonesia will continue regardless of the possible execution of French drug convict Serge Atlaoui, who was spared from the firing squad last week. "[Atlaoui's legal] process is ongoing but we are still working with Indonesia, which is a very important partner. We signed a strategic partnership in 2011 and we are still cooperating on many issues of mutual interest," Breuze told The Jakarta Post on the sidelines of the European Union's (EU) Blue Book 2015 launch in Central Jakarta, on Tuesday. She said that France was currently working with Indonesia in many different fields, including science and education, coastal and coral ecosystem protection, as well as environment and climate change. With respect to the latter, the envoy said France was working with the National Development Planning Board (Bappenas) in drafting Indonesia's national contributions for the upcoming UN Conference on Climate Change in Paris, France, later this year. According to the newly launched Blue Book 2015, France disbursed almost euros 4 million (US$4.46 million) in grants and another euros 130.5 million in loans for Indonesia in 2014. Breuze said France would contribute at least euros3 million in grants for scientific support this year, while also giving loans to banks and state-owned electricity company PLN. "We are going to sign a new loan in a few days with PLN, but I can't announce it now," she said. Breuze signaled that French-Indonesian relations would remain normal, while the French government continued to cooperate closely with Indonesia to find a solution to Atlaoui's death sentence. "[Atlaoui] lodged an appeal and that's still ongoing, and the lawyers are still working because we have some issues on the judicial aspect, that he should not be executed before the other convicts in the same case, because there were many involved," she said. The ambassador previously said that the execution of Atlaoui would have "consequences" for the bilateral relationship between France and Indonesia. Atlaoui was arrested in 2005 when the National Police raided a secret factory producing ecstasy in Tangerang, Banten. He received the death penalty 2 years later in 2007 for the possession of 138 kilograms of crystal methamphetamine, 290 kg of ketamine and 316 drums of precursor substances. The Frenchman was given reprieve last week after his lawsuit to challenge President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo's clemency rejection was taken up by the Jakarta State Administrative Court (PTUN). Meanwhile, acting EU ambassador to Indonesia Colin Crooks also reiterated the European community's continued partnership with Indonesia, despite its outspoken stance on capital punishment. "We very much regret [...] the executions that took place last week. We continue to urge the Indonesian government to impose or reintroduce a moratorium on the use of the death penalty because we feel it's not effective as a response to the drugs issue," Crooks said on Tuesday. "You have to distinguish between that and the work that we do on development cooperation. We have a very good partnership; it's in our interest, ultimately, for Indonesia to continue to develop in terms of human development, democratic development and market development." Data from the Blue Book 2015 said that the EU donated euros 570 million to Indonesia last year. ************************* Greater Jakarta: Nigerian may face death for drug possession Prosecutors indicted Elele "Uzo" Uzoma Alpha, a 33-year-old Nigerian, on multiple charges of crystal methamphetamine, or meth, possession during a hearing at Depok District Court on Tuesday. Prosecutor Arnold Siahaan said Uzo was charged with violating a number of articles of the 2009 Narcotics Law, which carries a maximum sentence of death. "Based on the confiscated evidence, Uzo may face the death penalty," he said as quoted by tribunnews.com. 4 kilograms of meth and 4 grams of marijuana were found in Uzo's apartment at Margonda Residence, Depok, in December 2014. He was initially arrested for not having a Temporary Stay Permit (KITAS) during a raid. A subsequent urine test came up positive for narcotics.Yayan Kusnaedi of the Depok branch of the National Narcotics Agency (BNN), meanwhile, alleged that Uzo had received the drugs from a convict named Tobi at Cipinang Penitentiary. (source for both: The Jakarta Post) TURKEY: 43 years ago, Deniz, Yusuf, Huseyin----43 years ago, on 6 May 1972, Deniz Gezmis, Yusuf Aslan and Huseyin Inan were hanged in Ankara. 43 years ago, on 6 May 1972, Deniz Gezmis, Yusuf Aslan and Huseyin Inan were hanged in Ankara. Their trial had began on July 16, 1971. Gezmis and his comrades were sentenced to death on October 9 for violating the Turkish Criminal Code's 146th article, which concerns attempts to "overthrow Constitutional order". According to legal procedure, a death sentence must be endorsed by Parliament before being sent to the President of the Republic for final assent. In March and April 1972 the sentence was placed before Parliament and in both readings the sentence was overwhelmingly approved. After joining the Workers Party of Turkey (Turkiye Isci Partisi), Gezmis studied law at Istanbul University in 1966. In 1968, he founded the Revolutionary Jurists Organisation (Devrimci Hukukcular Kurulumu) and the Revolutionary Student Union (Devrimci Ogrenci Birligi). He became increasingly politically active, and led the student-organised occupation of Istanbul University on June 12, 1968. After the occupation was forcibly ended by the law, he spearheaded protests against the arrival of the US 6th Fleet in Istanbul. Deniz Gezmis was arrested for these actions on July 30, 1968, to be released on October 20 of the same year. As he increased his involvement with the Worker's Party of Turkey, and began to advocate a National Democratic Revolution, his ideas started to circulate and inspire a growing revolutionary student base. On November 28, 1968, he was arrested again after protesting US ambassador's visit to Turkey, but was later released. On March 16, 1969 he was arrested again for participating in right-wing and left-wing armed conflicts and imprisoned until April 3. Gezmis was re-arrested on May 31, 1969. The university was temporarily closed, and Gezmis was injured in the conflict. Although Gezmis was under surveillance, he escaped from hospital and went to Palestine Liberation Organization camps in Jordan to receive guerrilla training. On March 4, 1971, Deniz Gezmis and comrades kidnapped 4 U.S. privates from TUSLOG/The United States Logistics Group headquartered in Balgat, Ankara. After releasing the hostages, he and Yusuf Aslan were captured live near Siavs following an armed stand-off with law enforcement officers. Their trial began on July 16, 1971. Gezmis was sentenced to death on October 9 for violating the Turkish Criminal Code's 146th article, which concerns attempts to "overthrow Constitutional order". According to legal procedure, a death sentence must be endorsed by Parliament before being sent to the President of the Republic for final assent. In March and April 1972 the sentence was placed before Parliament and in both readings the sentence was overwhelmingly approved. On May 4, President Cevdet Sunay after officially consulting the Minister of Justice and Prime Minister Nihat Erim, refused to grant Gezmis a pardon. He was executed by hanging on May 6, 1972 in Ankara Central Prison along with Huseyin Inan and Yusuf Aslan. Deniz Gezmis was born in Ankara on February 24, 1947. One of the revolutionaries in Turkey who dedicated their lives to the socialist cause. In his last letter addressed to his father just before the hanging, he was explaining the spirit of sacrifice by the revolutionary movement of Turkey: "Men are born, grow up, live and die... The important thing is not to live for a long time, but to do more things in the lifetime... My friends who were ahead of me did not show hesitancy before the death... You should not have any doubt that I will not have hesitation...." Today Deniz Gezmis, Yusuf Aslan, Huseyin Inan and the many revolutionaries like them will be remembered in several places. (source: firatajans.com) AFGHANISTAN: Afghan Court Sentences 4 To Death For Mob Killing Of Farkhunda An Afghan judge on May 6 sentenced 4 men to death for participating in the mob killing of a woman who was falsely accused of burning pages from the Koran in Kabul. The 4 civilians were among 49 defendants, including 19 police officers, on trial in a case that sparked outrage and street protests in Kabul after video of the March 19 attack on Farkhunda, 27, appeared on the Internet. Farkhunda was beaten and bludgeoned to death by an angry mob near the Shah-e Do-Shamshera Shrine in the Afghan capital, then lit on fire and dumped into the Kabul River. Reading out the sentence on live television, Judge Safiullah Mujadidi said the 4 were guilty on charges including murder, burning Farkhunda's body, and violence against women. He sentenced 8 other civilian defendants to prison terms of 16 years, convicting them of violence against women and other crimes for their roles in the attack. 18 defendants were found not guilty due to lack of evidence -- rulings that drew criticism from members of a fact-finding mission set up by Afghan authorities. Mission members told RFE/RL they would appeal those 18 verdicts, saying the defendants should be held responsible for standing by and doing nothing. The police officers' verdicts and sentencing are scheduled for May 10. The officers, who were on duty in the area at the time of the attack, are accused of standing by and doing nothing to prevent the assault or stop it once it began. Farkhunda had told women at the shrine not to waste their money on amulets being sold by male fortune tellers and faith healers. Witnesses said the men responded by falsely accusing her of burning the Koran, which sparked the brutal attack against her. Police later confirmed there was no evidence to support the Koran-burning allegation. The killing prompted unprecedented protests across Afghanistan. It also sparked a civil society movement to limit the power of clerics, strengthen the rule of law, and improve women's rights. However, some public and religious figures said the killing would have been justified if Farkhunda had in fact damaged a copy of the Muslim holy book. (source: Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty) HUNGARY: Hungary Seeks EU Debate on Restoring Death Penalty A debate about restoring the death penalty has been a recurring issue with Hungary's prime minister since a 2002 bank robbery in which eight people were killed. Now, spurred by the April 22 stabbing of a young tobacco shop assistant but also aware of gains by the far-right Jobbik party, Prime Minister Viktor Orban has again called for the issue to be kept "on the agenda.'' The idea drew stern condemnations from the European Union, where the death penalty's ban is a cornerstone of human rights policies, and where Orban last week reassured Martin Schulz, president of the European Parliament, that Hungary had no plans to restore capital punishment. In a way, however, Orban has achieved his aim - on Thursday, the European Parliament's civil liberties committee will discuss "the possible effects'' of an EU member reintroducing the death penalty. After his phone call with Schulz, Orban said that he would "never agree'' with the EU about not being allowed to even discuss capital punishment. "In relation to Brussels, a debate about democracy has come about,'' Orban said in an interview on Echo TV. "Where are we living? In the Middle Ages, where they declare that there are taboos that are not worthy of debate?'' Orban has also framed the matter as a security issue, saying that the 2010 introduction of a three-strikes law and life sentences without the possibility of parole were insufficient deterrents for criminals. But his Fidesz party's loss of popularity after easily winning three elections last year and the strengthening of Jobbik also played a role in Orban's decision to revive the death penalty topic, said analyst Kornelia Magyar of the Magyar Progressive Institute. "This is a very old formula used by Fidesz, especially when it senses the strengthening of the far right,'' Magyar said. `"It is unlikely to work, and I would be surprised if Fidesz successfully drew voters away from Jobbik with this issue.'' Even if Fidesz had no intention of restoring the death penalty, raising the matter could easily be counterproductive, Magyar said. By bringing up the death penalty, "Fidesz has made its own supporters and voters in general more receptive to far-right issues,'' Magyar said. Hungary will hold a general election in 2018. A poll by the Tarki research institute showed support for Fidesz among likely voters falling from 45 % in November to 38 % in April, while in that same period Jobbik rose from 21 % to 24 %. The poll taken April 16-23 of 1,004 Hungarians had a margin of error of 3 % points. In 2002, weeks before leaving office after his 1st term, Orban said that while he had earlier opposed capital punishment, the killing of 8 people during a bank robbery in the town of Mor had changed his mind. The last execution in Hungary was carried out in 1988, and the country abandoned the death penalty in 1990, soon after the fall of communism. After the gruesome slaying of a police psychologist in 2012, lawmakers from Fidesz also called for the death penalty to be reconsidered, while Orban last year said the issue was "well worth a Mass.'' (source: Voice of America) From rhalperi at smu.edu Wed May 6 16:18:30 2015 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Wed, 6 May 2015 16:18:30 -0500 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----MISS., WYO., USA Message-ID: May 6 MISSISSIPPI: New trial for state's only female death row inmate?----The state is seeking a stay of a federal judge's ruling ordering Mississippi to grant its only female death row inmate a new trial within 120 days or release her from custody. The state is seeking a stay of a federal judge's ruling ordering Mississippi to grant its only female death row inmate a new trial within 120 days or release her from custody. On the last day of March, U.S. District Judge Carlton Reeves ordered the state to grant Lisa Jo Chamberlin a new trial within in four months, saying prosecutors intentionally struck seven black potential jurors from her capital murder trial. What's interesting is that Chamberlin is white. She argued on appeal that her rights were violated by prosecutors striking some blacks as potential jurors for non-racial neutral reasons. Chamberlin and her boyfriend, Roger Lee Gillett, were convicted of 2 counts of capital murder in the March 2004 slayings of Gillet's cousin, Vernon Hulett, 34, and Hulett's girlfriend, Linda Heintzelman, 37, in Hattiesburg and transporting their bodies to Kansas in a freezer. Gillett and Chamberlin were arrested March 29, 2004, after Kansas Bureau of Investigation agents raided an abandoned farm house near Russell, Kansas, owned by Gillett's father, and found the dismembered bodies of Hulett and Heintzelman in a freezer. KBI agents were investigating Gillett and Chamberlin for their possible connection to the manufacture of methamphetamine, according to published reports. Gillett and Chamberlin were living with Hulett and Heintzelman in Hattiesburg at the time of the slayings. Chamberlin, in a taped confession played at her trial, said the victims were killed because they wouldn't open a safe in Hulett's home. Chamberlain was sentenced to death row in 2006 and Gillett was sentenced in 2007. Last year, Gillett's death sentence was overturned by the Mississippi Supreme Court. While in custody in Kansas, Gillett attempted to escape. That crime was one of the aggravating factors prosecutors presented jurors to support the death penalty. In a 6-3 decision, the state Supreme Court said not every escape is considered a crime of violence under Kansas law. Therefore, the Kansas crime cannot be used to support a death sentence in Mississippi, the court ruled. Chamberlin filed a post-conviction challenge to her conviction in 2011 in U.S. District Court after the state Supreme Court upheld her conviction and death sentence. One of claims was that the prosecution improperly struck 7 blacks from serving on her jury. The prosecutor said he struck 7 blacks and 5 whites. He denied any effort to strike potential jurors based upon race. Reeves said federal law requires in death penalty cases that comparative analysis be done when black potential jurors are struck compared to white jurors allowed to remain in the jury pool. "Some may wonder why constitutional error in the jury's selection necessitates a new trial, especially given the horrific murders committed in this case," Reeves said in his court order. "But the Supreme Court has many times explained that a discriminatory jury selection process unforgivably taints a guilty verdict. Discrimination in picking a jury "causes harm to the litigants, the community, and the individual jurors who are wrongfully excluded from participation in the judicial process." Attorney General Jim Hood's office has filed an appeal with the 5th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals. Hood has asked Reeves to stay his order until the appeal is decided. Reeves has given Hood until May 22 to file court briefs supporting his position for staying the order. (source: Clarion-Ledger) WYOMING: Cheyenne man accused of murder could face death penalty Daniel Guajardo, accused of killing his ex-girlfriend last month with a shotgun and wounding her boyfriend, could face the death penalty. Laramie County District Attorney Jeremiah Sandburg said this morning in Laramie County Circuit Court the state has not yet made that determination, but it is possible. Guajardo was in court today for his initial appearance on charges of first-degree murder, first-degree attempted murder and aggravated burglary with a deadly weapon. Charging documents accuse Guajardo of killing 26-year-old Janessa Spencer and attempting to murder 24-year-old Samuel Cook, then fleeing to Fort Collins, Colorado, on April 12. (source: Wyoming Tribune Eagle) USA: Supreme Court gives new life to death penalty debate Kent Sprouse is set to die Thursday by lethal injection, a method of execution botched so often lately that the Supreme Court will weigh in on its constitutionality later this month. Sprouse, however, isn't likely to get a reprieve. That's because he's imprisoned in Texas, far and away the nation's leader in lethal injections and a state that has managed to carry out a regular schedule of executions without mishap. The state recently snared a new supply of pentobarbital, the drug of choice for executioners in a country fast running out of humane ways to kill death row inmates. That should give Texas enough of the barbiturate to execute four men at its Huntsville state penitentiary this month, bringing its total to 526 lethal injections since it spearheaded the practice in 1982. But other states - and some of the prisoners they have executed of late - can't find pharmacies willing to supply drugs that can kill reliably, without the gasps and groans the Supreme Court has indicated may violate the Constitution's protection against cruel and unusual punishment. In 3 weeks, the justices will consider a challenge from three death row inmates to Oklahoma's lethal injection method, one that's used by several other states. A ruling against the use of midazolam, a sedative that lacks the knockout punch of pentobarbital, as part of a three-drug cocktail would further crimp the country's ability to execute prisoners. Even if the court does not rule against Oklahoma, a number of other developments are pointing toward the diminution of the death penalty in America: -- 6 states - New York, New Jersey, New Mexico, Illinois, Connecticut and Maryland - have abolished capital punishment since 2004. -- Several other states have imposed moratoriums on lethal injections because of problems, ranging from botched executions in Oklahoma and Ohio to a "cloudy" drug concoction in Georgia. -- The Supreme Court has ruled that juveniles and people with intellectual disabilities cannot be executed, while judges, juries and prosecutors have turned increasingly to life sentences without the possibility of parole. -- Just last month, both the American Pharmacists Association and the International Academy of Compounding Pharmacists discouraged their members from participating in the process. The U.S. group called it "fundamentally contrary to the role of pharmacists as providers of health care." -- The difficulties involved in lethal injections are forcing states with capital punishment laws to rejuvenate backup methods once viewed as beyond the pale. Tennessee would allow electrocution, Utah death by firing squad. Now Oklahoma lawmakers are moving toward legalizing the use of nitrogen gas. "The lethal injection issues are coming at a critical juncture," says Robert Dunham, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center. Capital punishment is declining, he notes, "judicially, legislatively and as a matter of practice - all at the same time." 'OUR BUSINESS IS IN HEALING' There is good reason to believe the Supreme Court won't help that trend April 29 when it considers Glossip v. Gross - a case called Warner v. Gross until the justices refused to stop Charles Warner's lethal injection in January. Despite its rulings abolishing the death penalty for people with intellectual disabilities in 2002 and for juveniles younger than 18 in 2005, the conservative-leaning court has shown little inclination to move much further. Only 4 votes were needed to accept the Oklahoma case. Only the use of midazolam as part of a 3-drug protocol is in jeopardy. That's not the same three-drug protocol the court upheld in Baze v. Rees, the 2008 Kentucky case that upheld the method of lethal injection used in most states at the time. Midazolam was implicated in three botched executions last year in Ohio, Oklahoma and Arizona, where prisoners gasped, groaned and snorted before succumbing. Although Florida and Oklahoma used that protocol successfully in January, Texas and Missouri have had fewer problems with pentobarbital. The problem is in getting a reliable supply of any lethal injection drugs following the European Union's export ban in 2011. States that have turned to compounding pharmacies for their drugs are running into increased resistance - for good reason, says David Miller, executive vice president of the International Academy of Compounding Pharmacists. "As a pharmacist, I was trained to take care of people," Miller says. "This is not our business. Our business is in healing." The court will hear the challenge from Richard Glossip, John Grant and Benjamin Cole, whose executions had been scheduled for January, February and March. Glossip was convicted of paying another man to kill the owner of the Oklahoma City budget motel where he worked as manager. He has long declared his innocence. The battle lines in Oklahoma are clear. The state, which not only agreed to postpone those executions but asked the court to do so, hopes for a clear victory. "The families of the victims in these 3 cases have waited a combined 48 years for the sentences of these heinous crimes to be carried out," Attorney General Scott Pruitt has said. The best that death penalty opponents likely can hope for is a narrow decision restricting the use of midazolam. "I do not think the court is going to open the Pandora's box to broader discussions about the nature of lethal injection as a broad topic or the death penalty in general," says Rick Halperin, director of the Human Rights Education Program at Texas' Southern Methodist University. NO LONGER 'BUSINESS AS USUAL' While Oklahoma waits to execute more prisoners - along with states such as Ohio, where Gov. John Kasich has postponed all executions because of a drug shortage - Texas executions continue apace. Since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976, Texas has executed more criminals than the next 6 states combined - Oklahoma, Virginia, Florida, Missouri, Georgia and Alabama. Four executions have been performed already this year; 4 more are set for this month. Even by Lone Star State standards, Sprouse's crime was horrendous. He was convicted in 2004 of shooting to death a police officer and an innocent bystander at a gas station two years earlier. His conviction was upheld by a federal appeals court in 2007. In recent years, however, Texas has shown a decline in the number of death sentences imposed, death row inmates housed and prisoners executed. A confluence of factors has contributed, ranging from the risk of executing innocent people to the cost of capital punishment proceedings and the availability of life imprisonment without parole. "There are undeniable signs across the spectrum that America is having doubts about the death penalty, for a whole gamut of reasons," says Maurie Levin, a Texas lawyer who regularly represents capital defendants and has 3 lawsuits pending against the state. "Even though Texas has managed to continue to carry out executions, it's a mistake to think it's business as usual." Thus far, the drug shortage hasn't brought Texas executions to the standstill that has hit other states. It announced in March that it had obtained enough to get through this month's executions. But supplies are drying up everywhere. "Since 2011, it has become increasingly difficult to purchase drugs used in the lethal injection process," says Jason Clark, spokesman for the state Department of Criminal Justice. "The agency is exploring all options, including the continued use of pentobarbital or other drugs." The drug shortage doesn't win much sympathy from the people who stand vigil outside Huntsville's "Walls Unit" during each evening execution. They will be there again Thursday night, barring a last-minute postponement - most likely opposite a group of death penalty proponents supporting the execution of a convicted cop-killer. "I wish that I thought we were at a turning point," says Cheryl Smith, minister of Wesley Memorial United Methodist Church in Huntsville, who attends every vigil she can. "I don't know that it will ever come in Texas, unless it comes from the Supreme Court. There is a point of pride here in Texas about being tough on crime." (source: USA Today) ********************* 'Burned Alive': Lethal Injection Gets Day in Supreme Court ---- Absence of correct execution method 'might show that death penalty is not consistent with 8th Amendment' A lethal-injection "cocktail" at the center of a Supreme Court showdown over the death penalty can make the condemned feel like "being burned alive," the US top court heard Wednesday, April 29. Liberal justice Elena Kagan made the comment as supporters and critics of capital pun-ishment went head to head before the court over a drug that is supposed to block the pain of execution. Lawyers for 3 death-row convicts in Oklahoma told the nation's highest court that midazolam, a depressant and anesthetic, cannot guarantee a humane execution. But the conservative south-central state responded that its use of midazolam as part of a 3-drug "cocktail" for executions is legal under the US Constitution. The case could have broader implications for capital punishment in the United States if the Supreme Court opts to use it as a way to make a larger statement on the deeply divi-sive issue. The United States remains the only Western country to maintain the death penalty, with 13 executions already so far this year and 35 last year. Lawyers for the plaintiffs argued that the use of midazolam represents an "unacceptable risk of pain" that violates the Constitution's Eighth Amendment prohibition of cruel and unusual punishment. Conservative justices on the Supreme Court bench, however, quickly broached the wider issue of the legitimacy of capital punishment itself. While alternative drugs exist, "these drugs have been rendered unavailable by the aboli-tionists," said Justice Antonin Scalia. Chief Justice John Roberts pressed the plaintiffs' legal team on whether "alternative methods that are preferable (and) more humane" are available. 'Not consistent' Among the liberal justices, Stephen Breyer said the absence of any correct execution method "might show that the death penalty is not consistent with the Eighth Amendment." Kagan added that, with no sure anesthetic effect, a convict risked the sensation of "being burned alive" resulting from the ineffectiveness of midazolam. A ruling is expected sometime in June, after a series of lower courts ruled consistently in Oklahoma's favor. The Supreme Court, in an April 2008 decision, upheld the constitutionality of execution by lethal injection. But since then, a refusal by manufacturers - mainly European - to supply the required drugs has led states like Oklahoma to seek out alternatives. Last April, Oklahoma death-row inmate Clayton Lockett took an agonizing 43 minutes to die and could be seen writhing in pain during the prolonged execution. On January 16, 2014, Ohio inmate Dennis McGuire took 26 minutes to die, and Arizona death-row convict Joseph Wood took 117 minutes on July 23. Lethal injection executions are expected to take 10 minutes, and in all three cases, the men could be seen gasping for air. A 4th plaintiff, Charles Warner, was executed in Oklahoma in January, after the Supreme Court rejected his last-minute appeal for clemency. On the execution table, he snorted that it felt like "my body is on fire." Deep unconsciousness Oklahoma, however, contends that a large dose of midazolam produces a deep uncon-sciousness that renders one unable to feel "even extremely painful stimuli." Outside court, Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt told reporters he anticipated "good outcomes" from the Supreme Court hearing. "I think that we demonstrated to the court that our selection of midazolam is in fact a drug choice that does pass Eighth Amendment review," he said. Robin Konrad, for the plaintiffs, said "plenty of states" have been using alternative drugs, such as pentobarbital, in their execution processes. "As problematic executions have demonstrated, midazolam cannot reliably produce con-stitutional executions," she told reporters. "This method, this drug formula (using midazolam) is unconstitutional because the first drug will not prevent a prisoner from feeling the severe pain and suffering of the 2nd and 3rd drug." (source: jewishvoiceny.com) *********** Prosecutors reject Marvin Gabrion's request for secret appeal of death sentence Prosecutors oppose Marvin Gabrion's efforts to appeal his murder conviction and death sentence under seal. Gabrion filed a motion in U.S. District Court in Grand Rapids seeking to vacate, set aside or correct his sentence in the 1997 killing of Rachel Timmerman. He kidnapped and killed Timmerman, 19, 2 days before he was to stand trial in Newaygo County for raping her. She was bound and gagged, weighed down with a concrete block, then thrown into a shallow, remote lake in the Manistee National Forest. The government contends he also killed her 11-month-old daughter, Shannon Verhage, whose body has not been found, and 3 others. He was tried by the federal government, which permits the use of the death penalty, because the killing occurred on federal land. Michigan has no death penalty. A federal appeals court said Gabrion showed "utter depravity" in Timmerman's killing. Gabrion recently filed a Section 2255 petition seeking to have his conviction or sentence overturned. The grounds for the latest action were filed under seal. Assistant U.S. Attorney Timothy VerHey said there is no reason to seal any of proceedings. "The law is decidedly against his request. Historically, there has been a presumption of openness and public access to judicial proceedings and documents," he wrote in response to Gabrion's request. "In this case, Gabrion has failed to demonstrate why the presumption has been overcome and the balance should tip in his favor," VerHey wrote in documents filed Tuesday, May 5. "The Court will recall that, at the time of his conviction and trial, there was much public interest in the case because of, among other things, the rarity of death penalty cases in Michigan. By claiming his case was a miscarriage of justice, Gabrion has provided the public with an opportunity to learn more about the process. Further, the public always has an interest in determining whether its judicial system is working properly. This is especially true in a high-profile case such as this one." He said Gabrion wants his petition kept from the public because "there are certain psychological and personal records that are 'highly relevant but sensitive.'" He said Gabrion wants to file all of his documents under seal, accessible only to the judge and attorneys. "If granted, his motion will prevent the public from all access to the arguments by which he seeks to set aside his conviction and death sentence. The First Amendment and the law recited above will not tolerate such an outcome," VerHey wrote. Gabrion earlier this year sought an "emergency" psychiatric review as part of an "exhaustive claim" to show his trial counsel was ineffective. U.S. District Judge Robert Holmes Bell, who sentenced Gabrion to the death penalty, rejected that claim. Bell will rule on Gabrion's request to file documents under seal. A federal appeals panel once overturned the penalty but it was re-instated in a ruling by the entire Sixth Court of Appeals in Cincinnati. (source: mlive.com) *************** Death for Drug Dealers and Quarantines for AIDS Victims: The Mike Huckabee You May Not Remember----What the presidential candidate's first campaign says about his current one. On Tuesday, Mike Huckabee made it official. The former Republican Arkansas governor and Fox News host launched his second bid for the White House in his hometown of Hope, Arkansas, vowing to stop the "slaughter" of abortion and calling for the protection of the "laws of nature" from the "the false God of judicial supremacy." Huckabee is joining a GOP field that's bigger and more competitive than the one he out-hustled to win the Iowa caucuses 7 years ago. The Christian conservatives who flocked to the former Baptist preacher in 2008 can now turn toward other evangelical-minded candidates in the GOP presidential race. Texas Sen. Ted Cruz is already in the hunt; former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum and and ex-Texas Gov. Rick Perry are mulling bids. But Huckabee of today is also a far different candidate than the affable ex-gov who once rocked a bass guitar while stumping with Chuck Norris (although Walker, Texas Ranger is officially on board for this campaign too). Since dropping out of the 2008 race, he's flaunted a more combative, occasionally conspiratorial brand of politics - flirting with birtherism, advising prospective enlistees to avoid joining the armed forces until President Barack Obama has left office, and, just last month, warning social conservatives that the United States is "moving rapidly toward the criminalization of Christianity." By the standards of his political career, 2008 was in many ways an aberration. As he mounts a second run for the nomination, Huckabee is staying true to the kinds of red-meat issues he first entered politics to promote, in a long-shot 1992 bid for Senate against Democratic incumbent Dale Bumpers. Huckabee, then a Baptist pastor who operated a small television station out of his Arkadelphia church, made sex and morality the centerpieces of his '92 campaign - and he preached as fiery a message from the stump as he did from the pulpit. The novice politician let loose with eyebrow-raising tirades that occasionally put him to the right of the most fire-breathing conservatives. He endorsed quarantining AIDS patients, condemned efforts to shield homosexuals from discrimination, and called for the death penalty to be imposed on big-time drug dealers. He attacked Bumpers repeatedly as a libertine who supposedly supported giving condoms to 12-year-olds, sanctioned gay throuples, and voted to use taxpayer funds on "pornographic" art. Huckabee's 1992 platform was an artifact of the Moral Majority's high-water mark. In interviews and on the stump he explained that the nation had strayed toward "selfishness and sensuality" and had been "savaged by radical groups bent on a moral and social agenda" at odds with Judeo-Christian values. "When I was in school, they passed out Gideon Bibles - today, they pass out condoms," he said at stop after stop on the trail. In the new liberal order, Huckabee warned his hometown paper, the Hope Star, a family would consist of "3 homosexual men living together." The gay agenda, he believed, was influencing and restricting the nation's response to the AIDS crisis. He endorsed quarantining AIDS patients from the rest of society - a radical view even among conservatives at the time - while arguing that the severity of the epidemic had been exaggerated because gay people wielded so much political clout. The federal government should spend less money on AIDS, he insisted, and more on diseases that the afflicted had not brought on themselves, such as cancer. "I realize a lot of people have received AIDS through blood transfusions, but AIDS is basically a lifestyle disease, and when the lifestyle is changed, the disease risk goes significantly down," Huckabee said in one interview. AIDS advocates themselves, not taxpayers, should pony up: "Elizabeth Taylor went before Congress and made a big pitch that we needed more federal funding for AIDS. If Elizabeth Taylor would take one of the rings off her finger and sell it, she could get more money for AIDS research than the average Arkansan will make in 2 years of hard work. If she's really serious about it, she's got assets that she could dispose of. Why should she make me take money from my children's future, and take it right off my table when she needs to cough up some of her own coin for that?" Huckabee's campaign literature made frequent note of Bumpers' alleged favoritism toward gays. He attacked his opponent for supporting the Americans with Disabilities Act (because it included protections for AIDS patients) and a 1991 civil rights bill that would have prohibited housing discrimination based on sexual orientation. "Mr. Bumpers voted for all the bills which help to give homosexuals rights but takes away employers and others rights to protect themselves," a Huckabee mailer asserted. According to Huckabee, being gay wasn't just a sin - it should be a criminal offense. Another Huckabee fact sheet noted that "Bumpers voted no on an amendment saying that 'the homosexual movement threatens the strength and survival of the American family,' and calling for enforcement of state sodomy laws," which made gay sex a felony "crime against nature" in many states. The ongoing conservative attack on the National Endowment for the Arts fit neatly into Huckabee's narrative of Bumpers as a tool of the gay rights crowd. At the time, the federally funded agency was in the hot seat over a handful of artworks presenting religious symbols in ways critics considered blasphemous. Bumpers had said the art was in poor taste, but he voted not to defund the agency. Huckabee ran a radio ad accusing Bumpers of funding "pornography." Bumpers called the ad "vile." "What's vile," Huckabee replied, "is having our tax dollars spent on photos of a man urinating in the mouth of another man, using tax dollars to fund a fictional story about the biblical character of Lazarus having homosexual liaisons with Jesus Christ before and after his resurrection, and funding for a jar of human urine in which a crucifix had been placed and entitled, 'Piss Christ.'" Then as now, Huckabee was a staunch opponent of abortion, a procedure he believed women underwent for superficial reasons. "Should we take a perfectly viable human being and end that human being's life because the mother wants another semester of college or wants to play in a tennis tournament?" he asked one interviewer. And he proposed expanding the death penalty to include major drug dealers and anyone who, after committing a previous felony, shot someone with a gun - even if the shooting wasn't fatal. "I know that's harsh, but someone who has shot someone in the leg could easily shoot someone in the heart," Huckabee said. (Huckabee did not respond to a request for comment on whether he still holds these views.) Although Huckabee would later draw the ire of conservatives for raising taxes as governor of Arkansas, he took a die-hard stance on government spending. He called welfare "a new type of dependency and slavery" and warned that "the government has become a plantation system ... The master is in the big house and we're the sharecroppers out here." Late in the race, Huckabee discovered that his rival's campaign had purchased more than a dozen videotapes of Huckabee's old sermons, a potential opposition research gold mine. He suggested Bumpers watch them. "I hope he listens to the message on pornography that I presented a couple of years ago," he said in a press release, "because then he'll know why I feel so strongly about the way pornography degrades women and children, dehumanizes sex into animal behavior, and why I so vigorously oppose the use of my tax dollars being used to fund it." The Bumpers campaign never did anything with the tapes Huckabee had encouraged the senator to watch. Fire-and-brimstone Huckabee ultimately fell flat - he lost by 20 points. But the race provided a launching pad for his quick ascent up the political ladder. In later years, as he grew into a more polished politician, Huckabee became more protective of his old sermons. During the 2008 presidential campaign, reporters were told that videos of his sermons had been destroyed - or that they still existed and were open to the public but not to reporters. Huckabee, meanwhile, lasted longer than anyone expected in 2008 by crafting a reputation as a wisecracking pol who poked fun at Republicans who use "summer as a verb." "I think he's the same guy who started out," says Max Brantley, editor of the Arkansas Times, who covered the 1992 race. "He's got a penchant for sort of cheap-shot quips. He thinks a lot of himself. He thinks he can talk himself out of anything. The main thing I still marvel at is how many people think he's a nice guy, because he's got a real mean streak." But at this point, after spending the years since the 2008 election feeding red meat to his base, the tapes may not even matter much. In just the last six months, he's urged states to ignore a possible Supreme Court ruling on same-sex marriage and attacked Jay-Z for "arguably crossing the line from husband to pimp by exploiting his wife [Beyonce] as a sex object." Researchers won't have to scour church basements for dusty VHS cassettes containing his stem-winding sermons. They can just turn on the television. (source: motherjones.com) From rhalperi at smu.edu Wed May 6 16:19:15 2015 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Wed, 6 May 2015 16:19:15 -0500 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide Message-ID: May 6 IRAN: A Report about the Conditions in Central Prison of Zahedan Zahedan prison with more than 2,000 prisoners and about 350 death row prisoners is considered as one of the great centers of human rights violations in Iran. According to the report of Human Rights Activists News Agency in Iran (HRANA), about 300 prisoners in Zahedan prison on charges of drug and 50 others on charges of murder are in the death row and are enduring imprisonment waiting for execution. Also, ward 3 of this prison, which is allocated to political-security prisoners, includes more than 230. However, according to a recently released prisoner, in this ward, which is called ward of security prisoners, a number of prisoners with non-security charges are also kept. Zahedan prison has 8 wards that ward seven and eight are two floors and larger than the other wards and there are more prisoners in them. The populations of the wards are always more than number of the beds and a large number of prisoners sleep on the floor and are called floor sleepers. Prison personnel and officers behave violently and with lack of respect towards the prisoners and illegal behavior and beating prisoners in violation of the law have become part of the process of this prison. One of HRANA's sources, as an example of abuse by prison authorities, said: "Last February, Prison officials were suspect to a prisoner named Esmail Rezaie, 28, who had recently come back from Leave, because of transporting drugs was fasten for 3 days to especial column. Eventually it becomes clear that he had not carried drugs, and when he protested and threatened to sue the officers, he was severely beaten and 2 of his teeth were broken. Beaten prisoner made a complaint, and instead, he was sent to the quarantine for 20 days and so far, he is incommunicado until he cancels his complaints against them and give consent." Also in late April, during the "Prison Director General" visit of this prison, in response to prisoners' complaints of lack of basic facilities, he ordered that all the TVs and refrigerators that had been provided by prisoners own expense, must be collected. The condition of nutrition and health care in Zahedan prison, like most of the prisons is inappropriate and in addition, transferring prisoners to a hospital outside the prison, due to the prison authorities and the prosecutor's lack of cooperation is difficult. The process of sending prisoners on leave, similar to most of the prisons in Iran, depends on the approval of the Council of Prison and Judge of the Court. Prisoner's ability in reading and remembering Quran is one of the factors that can lead to a Council of Prison's permission for leave. According to HRANA, Zahedan prison with a population of over 2,000 prisoners and more than 350 death row prisoners has been managed for 3 years, from April 2012, under the presidency of Mohammad Hossein Khosravi. (source: HRANA News Agency) ITALY: Hands Off Cain chooses Pope Francis as the "Abolitionist of the Year" "The Abolitionist of the Year" Award is presented by Hands Off Cain (HOC) to recognize the person, who, above all others, has shown extraordinary commitment to the struggle for a moratorium on capital executions and the abolition of the death penalty. The decision to award Pope Francis stems from His loud and clear statement against the death penalty, punishment till death and death through penalty, pronounced on October 23, 2014 when he addressed the delegates of the International Association of Penal Law. After the abolition of life imprisonment and the introduction of the crime of torture in the Vatican City penal code, in this "lectio magistralis" of extraordinary humanistic, political and juridical value, the Pope said that "a life sentence is nothing more than a death penalty in disguise", which should be abolished at the same time as the death penalty itself. He added that he holds that solitary confinement in maximum-security prisons is "a form of physical and mental torture". Hands Off Cain, the association against the death penalty, was founded by the Nonviolent Radical Party in 1993. Its name is inspired by the Book of Genesis and the phrase "and the Lord set a sign for Cain, lest any finding him should smite him" to affirm the value not only of life, but also of the dignity of the person as a whole. By conferring the Award, Hands Off Cain recognizes the Holy Father the value of the Holy Father's prodigious words, on which HOC intends to work by translating them into concrete steps towards the final overcoming of anachronistic punishments and treatments. Concrete steps are increasingly necessary and urgent if we consider the present context of the death penalty in the world, where the recent executions in Indonesia are but the last abhorrent example of a State becoming Cain. (source: radicalparty.org) FRANCE/PALESTINIAN AUTHORITY: France urges Palestinians not to execute suspects in Arafat's death France has demanded that the Palestinian Authority promise that it wouldn't impose the death penalty on anyone found guilty of killing former PLO leader Yasser Arafat, a senior Fatah official said on Wednesday. Tawfik Tirawi, member of the Fatah Central Committee and head of the Palestinian commission of inquiry into the death of Arafat, revealed that the French demand was relayed to the PA about 3 weeks ago. Tirawi's statement came in response to reports that French judges have completed their investigation into the circumstances surrounding Arafat's death in November 2004. "We received a letter from the French authorities 20 days ago asking us to promise that that we wouldn't impose the death sentence or execute the killer of Yasser Arafat," Tirawi said in an interview with the Voice of Palestine radio station. "They asked that we reply to their letter within 15 days." Tirawi said that after holding consultations with PA President Mahmoud Abbas and the PA Ministry of Justice, he informed the French authorities that the Palestinian judicial system is an independent body. "We asked the French authorities to brief us about the results of the investigation into the death of Arafat before asking us to make the pledge concerning the death sentence," he added. Tirawi denounced France's position as "negative." He said that the French authorities have failed to contact the Palestinians ever since samples were taken from Arafat's remains more than a year ago. "The only information we get is through the media," he complained. He expressed his belief that the French authorities were trying to "hide something." Tirawi rejected earlier reports published by French and investigators, who maintained that Arafat had died of natural causes. Tirawi and other Palestinians continue to accuse Israel of being behind the "poisoning" of Arafat. They are convinced that someone close to Arafat was complicit in the purported Israeli scheme. French judges re-examining the evidence surrounding the death of Arafat have concluded their investigations, AFP reported Wednesday. "The judges have closed their dossier and it was sent to the prosecutor on April 30," the prosecutor's office in the Paris suburb of Nanterre said. The prosecutor now has 3 months to prepare his submissions on whether to dismiss the case or put it forward to court. (source: Jerusalem Post) INDONESIA: Lindsay Sandiford writes to Russell Brand to appeal for help to escape drug smuggling death penalty in Bali Convicted drug smuggler Lindsay Sandiford has written to comedian-turned-campaigner Russell Brand to beg for his help in overturning her death sentence. Sandiford, 58, was found guilty of smuggling 1.6million pounds worth of cocaine to Indonesia. She was handed a death sentence in January 2013 by Denpasar District Court. She was friends with the "Bali Nine" group of drug smugglers sentenced to death by Indonesia. Her fellow prisoners - including Australian pair Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran - were executed by firing squad in April. She is now the last prisoner in Kerobokan jail. Brand appealed for clemency in the cases of Chan and Sukumaran before their deaths. He argued that the pair had reformed, and that Indonesia was using the pair as "human sacrifice" to cover up the country's financial dependence on the illegal drug trade. Brand said: "It's a gesture, an empty gesture, a mask and a veil that conceals the corruption on Indonesia and the true nature of international drug smuggling." He added: "Drug addiction and drug smuggling is an essential black economy - it's part of our global culture." Sandiford wrote to the comedian to ask for help. "Mr Brand, you have spoken very eloquently and movingly about the plight of my friend Andrew who was a dear friend to me. I am truly heart-broken over his death because he helped me through some extremely difficult times after I was first sentenced to die... "That is why I would like to ask for your help to support and promote my attempts to have a fair, final hearing into my own case. "My situation is extremely urgent and if you can raise awareness of my case in any way it would be a great help and comfort to me." Brand has previously given advice to a Select Committee about UK drugs policy. Sandiford has admitted that she did bring the drugs into Indonesia, but said that she had been forced into doing it, and that threats were made to kill her son. (source: The Independent) ************ Murder-accused Noor Ellis to find out if she'll face death penalty An Indonesian woman accused of ordering the murder of her wealthy Australian husband is due to learn whether she will face the death penalty. Noor Ellis told her trial in Bali last week that she approached 5 men to teach her husband, Robert Ellis, a lesson, but "not to hurt or bruise" him. It was a different account to that she gave weeks earlier; when asked who gave the order to have Mr Ellis murdered, she replied: "Probably me." Mr Ellis, 60, was set upon by the men in the kitchen of his Sanur villa in October last year, his throat slashed, and his body dumped in a field. His wife of 25 years, also known as Julaikah Noor Aini, is set to find out on Thursday whether the prosecution will seek the death sentence for premeditated murder. In court last week, Judge Beslin Sihombing scolded her for crying while explaining why she resorted to violence to solve her marital problems. "I wanted a divorce, but he didn't want it," she said sobbing. "It's been 11 years that I haven't been treated as a wife." The judge said: "There's no need for the crying." Ellis also admitted that their 2 sons were furious with her, despite her defence 2 weeks ago presenting a statement purportedly from her elder son John asking that she be given a lenient sentence. The 23-year-old says the statement was forged and should be removed from the trial. Prosecutor Dipa Umbara told AAP they would base their Thursday sentence request more on the evidence given at trial rather than the statement. "That testimony will not affect much because we're basing it on the trial facts," he said. (source: 9news.com.au) From rhalperi at smu.edu Thu May 7 09:53:46 2015 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Thu, 7 May 2015 09:53:46 -0500 Subject: [Deathpenalty] TEXAS DEATH PENALTY ACTION ITEM Message-ID: Action Alert Call Texas Senators to vote against SB 1697. The vote was delayed on Tuesday and will come up soon in the Texas Senate. MESSAGE: No matter what you think of the death penalty, you care about open and transparent government and accountability of government to the citizens of the Texas. Legislation does not need to be made in the dark. The death penalty and executions in Texas are public policy. Call and Email: Senator Whitmire 512-463-0115??????????john.whitmire at senate.state.tx.us Senator Huffman??????????????????? 512-463-0117 joan.huffman at senate.state.tx.us Senator Burton?????????????????????512-463-0110 ?????konni.burton at senate.state.tx.us Senator Creighton??????????????????512-463-0104??????????brandon.creighton at senate.state.tx.us Senator Jose Menendez 512-463-0126??????????jose.menendez at senate.state.tx.us Senator Perry???? ?????????????????512-463-0128 charles.perry at senate.state.tx.us Senate Bill 1697: 1.???? Takes information regarding the death penalty from public view and undermines open government. The public has a right to obtain public information. These transactions involve the State paying a private entity for an item or service using taxpayer money to perform executions, yet the Legislature wants to withhold the procedure and substances names from the taxpayer. 2.???? Transparency is a basic principle of a democracy, yet information regarding the substances and procedures will not be transparent to the public. The bill restricts information. 3.???? There is an ongoing lawsuit on ?credible threats to the supplier,? but several sources and one court have questioned the existence of these threats. 4.???? If the State of Texas is going to continue to administer the death penalty, it is essential that the public have confidence that we are doing so in an appropriate manner. Cutting the public?s access to information will only inhibit public confidence. Call Texas Senators now! Link to all the Texas Senators is located at: www.capitol.state.tx.us/Members/Members.aspx?Chamber=S SB 1697 (Huffman) This bill relates to the confidentiality of certain information regarding procedures and substances used in the execution of a convict. The bill allows confidentiality of any person who participates in an execution procedure, including a person who uses supplies or administers a substance during the execution and any person or entity that manufactures, compounds, prescribes, dispenses, or provides a substance or supplies used in an execution. From rhalperi at smu.edu Thu May 7 16:47:46 2015 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Thu, 7 May 2015 16:47:46 -0500 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, VA., N.C., FLA., MISS., LA. Message-ID: May 7 TEXAS----impending execution Death Watch: Generations of Madness----Charles death penalty raises question of mental illness Next up on Texas' execution schedule - May 12 - is 32-year-old Derrick Charles. On July 2, 2002, then-19-year-old Charles beat, strangled, sexually assaulted, and eventually killed his 15-year-old girlfriend Myiesha Bennett, her mother Brenda Bennett, and her grandfather Obie Lee Bennett in their Houston home, for reasons Charles never could explain. He pled guilty, and was sentenced to death May 14, 2003. At trial, his attorneys did very little to help Charles save his life. According to petitions for writs of habeas corpus filed at the state and federal levels, his trial attorneys Connie Williams and Sid Crowley called only 4 witnesses, and did no mitigation investigation whatsoever. Crowley in particular did "virtually nothing to prepare the punishment phase of Derrick's trial," wrote Randall Sorrels, who represented Charles during a petition for relief in 2009. Crowley reportedly billed only 15 hours on the case: 10 to read the prosecution's file, 5 to prep testimony for 1 witness, and zero for mitigating evidence. Those petitions also pointed to serious hardships Charles faced as a child growing up in Houston. He was born prematurely to an allegedly schizophrenic, unemployable mother and a father who left before he was born. His stepfather was an alcoholic abuser who regularly violently assaulted Charles' mother. Charles grew up in extreme poverty, the petitions reported, and was the product of a "multi-generational pattern of severe mental illness." He was intermittently hospitalized (and sent to psychiatric facilities) throughout his childhood, and tested at the second grade level of reading when he was 16. Charles had a petition for rehearing denied in January 2014 and a petition for writ of certiorari denied by the U.S. Supreme Court last October. Still at issue now is his competency and ability to understand his eventual execution. His attorney Paul Mansur told the Chronicle Monday that federal HIPAA laws (relevant to his client's family's medical history) bar him from speaking specifically about recent efforts, but that he had plans to argue Charles' incompetence though certain filings scheduled after this story goes to press. (source: Austin Chronicle) VIRGINIA: Virginia bishops urge Catholics to shift focus of death penalty debate Virginia's bishops called on Catholics in the state's 2 dioceses to step up to change the debate about the use of the death penalty. Bishop Francis X. DiLorenzo of Richmond and Bishop Paul S. Loverde of Arlington said it was time to shift the conversation from who should be executed and how to execute people to why the death penalty continues to be applied, especially when other means to protect society without taking a human life exist. Citing the words of Pope Francis in opposing capital punishment, the bishops said in a statement released May 6 that by ending the death penalty in the state, "we would take 1 important step ... to abandon the culture of death and embrace the culture of life." They pointed to the tenets of Catholic teaching, which hold that all human life is sacred, fueling the church's drive to advocate for the needs of poor and vulnerable people, the elderly, the unborn and immigrants and refugees. "But our faith challenges us to declare sacred even the least lovable among us, those convicted of committing brutal crimes which have brought them the ultimate penalty, the penalty of death," the bishops said. The statement also cited the U.S. bishops' 2005 statement "A Culture of Life and the Penalty of Death, which summarized church teaching on the death penalty in saying that ???no matter how heinous the crime, if society can protect itself from without ending a human life, it should do so." The Virginia bishops' statement noted that since 1973, 152 death row inmates nationwide, including 1 in Virginia, have been exonerated. "We must also be aware of the racial inequity inherent in the system, and that the death penalty has been administered to individuals with severe intellectual disabilities," they wrote. "These circumstances further illustrate that, in Virginia and elsewhere, we are having the wrong debate," the 2 bishops said. "We should no longer debate which inmates we execute and how we execute them. Instead, we should debate this: If all human lives are sacred and if a civilized society such as ours can seek redress and protect itself by means other than taking a human life, why are we continuing to execute people?" (source: Catholic News Service) ***************** Jesse Matthew: Death penalty sought for man charged with Hannah Graham's killing Based on newly discovered forensic evidence in the case against Jesse Matthew Jr., the man formerly charged with the abduction with intent to defile and the 1st-degree murder of 18-year-old UVA student Hannah Graham, prosecutors have upped the charges and said on May 5 that Matthew was being charged with Graham's capital murder. If the case against Matthew goes to trial and he's convicted, he would be looking at a death sentence instead of life in prison, according to CNN. Denise Lunsford, Attorney for Albemarle County, would not go into detail about the new forensic evidence her office obtained in late February. But she said it was enough for her to seek the capital murder charge against Matthew and to ask for the death penalty in his case. It was coincidentally last February when prosecutors in the case against Matthew said that the state will not be seeking the death penalty for the former hospital worker and taxi driver, according to Fox News. Matthew appeared at a hearing yesterday to hear the new charge after being served with his capital murder indictment earlier in the day, according to The Huffington Post. He showed no emotion while in the courtroom, handcuffed and shackled. Graham was last seen on surveillance video in the early morning hours of September 12, 2014. Matthew was also seen in those videos walking along with Graham, whose remains were discovered by searchers on October 18, 2014, in an abandoned property in Albemarle County. Matthew's trial date will be set at a hearing scheduled for June 25. (source: The Examiner) NORTH CAROLINA: Prosecutors eye death penalty for Graves A man already facing a possible death penalty in the slaying of a 9-year-old Durham boy could be looking at a capital punishment request in a 2nd homicide. The defendant, Everett Lamont Graves, made an initial appearance Wednesday in Durham County Superior Court in the shooting death of 28-year-old Desmond Romario Williams, whose body was found in a street on Dec. 17, 2013. Graves, 24, already was awaiting trial in the fatal shooting of 9-year-old Jaeden Sharpe of Durham. The boy was in a car on Lucas Drive with his mother, Lakeisha Holloway, when shots were fired into the car about 6 p.m. Jan. 4, 2014. Holloway was able to drive a few blocks away to get help. She and her son were taken to the hospital, but Jaeden died 6 days later. Holloway recovered. In the death of Williams, police responded to a "shots fired" call in the 2600 block of East Shoreham Street at 2:21 p.m. Dec. 17, 2013. They found Williams in the street with a gunshot wound, and he was pronounced dead at the scene. Attorney Lisa Williams, who represents Graves in the child's death, said the circumstances surrounding the shooting of Williams are unclear. Prosecutors have declined to discuss a motive. Graves was in jail awaiting trial in Jaeden's death when a grand jury indicted him last month in Williams' death. Prosecutors plan to seek the death penalty against Graves in the boy's death. But at Wednesday's hearing, Chief Assistant District Attorney Luke Bumm said his office is still considering whether to seek capital punishment in the death of Williams. "We have to consider that in every 1st-degree murder case," Bumm said in an interview. "It's a decision that our office and every DA's office has to make in any case in which someone might qualify for it." Graves remains in the Durham County jail without bond. His next hearing is set for June 1. (source: Herald Sun) FLORIDA: FIU law grant to train defense lawyers handling capital cases Florida International University's College of Law has received a grant to help improve the quality and effectiveness of defense lawyers handling capital cases. Florida is the 2nd state in the nation in both the number of people sentenced to death and the number of executions. The law school's Death Penalty Clinic, through its Florida Center for Capital Representation (FCCR), will spend the next 2 years providing education and consultation to lawyers who are representing clients facing the death penalty as a result of a $620,000 grant from the Themis Fund, a Proteus Fund initiative. The Themis Fund is aimed at abolishing the death penalty. The FIU College of Law is the only Florida law school working on this effort. "Our professors will be assisting lawyers in specific research and investigations, and training future lawyers on how to properly represent someone facing the death penalty," said R. Alexander Acosta, dean of the FIU College of Law. "The law school will act as a 'measuring stick' of what is effective representation." FIU law school students, under the supervision of the law school faculty, will learn first-hand how to manage capital punishment cases. Students will work alongside practicing lawyers on the cases, pleadings, motions, and will help interview witnesses and clients. "The goal is to improve attorneys' investigation skills and teach them how to create mitigating profiles on behalf of the client," said Professor Stephen Harper, who is the supervising attorney for the Death Penalty Clinic and who will lead the training program. "We will also teach them how to present powerful and compelling arguments, how to get their client to plea, when necessary, and how to preserve the record for appeal," he said. "The training will include jury selection and how to integrate the 1st phase of a capital case with the penalty phase." For more information on the Death Penalty Clinic and how to participate, call 305-348-4242 or send email to Stephen Harper at stharper at fiu.edu. (source: Palmetto Bay News) ***************** Tomoka prison corrections officer killer on death row seeks to have conviction overturned Attorneys for a 2-time rapist sentenced to die for killing a corrections officer at Tomoka Correctional Institution were in court on Wednesday asking a judge to overturn his conviction in part because his defense attorneys at trial failed to call a psychologist. Enoch Hall, 46, was sentenced to die for beating, strangling and stabbing corrections officer Donna Fitzgerald at the prison on June 25, 2008. Hall's claim of ineffective counsel is a common one by inmates who have had their appeals rejected by the Florida Supreme Court as Hall's was in 2012. Hall was serving 2 consecutive life sentences when he killed Fitzgerald, stabbing her 22 times with a makeshift knife. Fitzgerald was supervising Hall, a welder on a work crew. Fitzgerald's body was found over a cart and her pants had been pulled down, which prosecutors said had shown an intent to rape. Circuit Judge J. David Walsh sentenced Hall to die, following a jury's unanimous recommendation in 2010 after it found him guilty of first-degree murder. And Walsh presided over the hearing Wednesday at the S. James Foxman Justice Center in Daytona Beach. Hall, wearing an orange jail jumpsuit and shackles, occasionally spoke to his attorneys, including Ann Marie Mirialakis. She questioned Assistant Public Defender Matt Phillips about the decision not to call the psychologist during the trial's penalty phase. Phillips said he made the decision not to provide jurors testimony from Dr. Harry Krop, a Gainesville psychologist who evaluated Hall. "My psychological expert is thinking that he's got more bad things to say than good things," Phillips said. Krop would have testified that Hall suffered "mild cognitive deficits," Phillips said. Weigh that, Phillips said, versus opening the door for prosecutors to call their expert Dr. Jeffrey Danziger, a psychiatrist. Danziger could have testified that Hall had said he considered raping Fitzgerald. Danziger also could have testified that Hall had considered using Fitzgerald's uniform as part of an escape attempt. Phillips was also questioned by Assistant Attorney General Stacey Kirchner, whose job for this proceeding was to defend Phillip's work. Phillips said that the only mitigation the defense found was that Hall had a cognitive deficit and that Hall was raped in the Escambia County jail around 1990. But Kirchner said there was no documentation of the rape. Phillips said that rape could explain some things. "When you are trying to explain to an ordinary group of citizens why did this guy go down such a bad path in life," Phillips said. "What went wrong, especially somebody that had a relatively nice middle class life growing up, what went wrong, well that was it." (source: Daytona Beach News-Journal) MISSISSIPPI: How The FBI Majorly Screwed Up A Death Penalty Case And Admitted It Just In Time An African American death row inmate was just added to the growing innocence list compiled by the Death Penalty Information Center (DPIC), after he was cleared in the murder of an elderly woman and her daughter - but he's still sentenced to die for the murders of 2 college students. The twist? He may be exonerated in that crime as well, since the FBI admitted flawed forensic testimony was used to convict him. In 1994, Willie Manning was convicted for the murder of two Mississippi State University students, Jon Steckler and Tiffany Miller, and received 2 death penalty sentences. During the murder trial on behalf of Steckler and Miller, prosecutors relied on witness and FBI expert testimonies. An FBI forensics expert said Manning's hair matched hair found at the crime scene. A ballistics expert from the FBI, who also testified against Manning, argued that a tree in Manning's mom's yard was used as target practice, and that bullets found inside were fired from the same weapon used to kill the victims (even though the firearm was never found). The testimony was based on a microscopic comparison of tool marks on the bullets. Additionally, witness Earl Jones, who was serving jail time, said Manning confessed to killing the 2 students and co-conspiring with a 2nd person. 2 years later, Manning was convicted in the murders of 90-year-old Alberta Jordan and Emmoline Jimmerson, who were killed in 1993. He subsequently received 2 more death penalty sentences, but was absolved of all charges in February, after a key witness recanted his testimony and the police failed to turn over additional evidence. However, the retrial was only possible because of a surprising turn of events in 2013. Hours before Willie Manning's scheduled death on May 7, the execution was stayed by the state's Supreme Court. While an official reason for the stay was never provided, Manning's defense attorneys are confident that FBI failures were responsible. Days before his execution for killing the college students, the FBI sent 3 letters to the district attorney's office, admitting that the experts who testified against Manning presented flawed evidence. The 1st letter, addressed to District Attorney Deforest Allgood on May 2, states, "We have determined that the microscopic hair comparison analysis testimony or laboratory report presented in this case included statements that exceeded the limits of science and was, therefore, invalid. While this case did not involve a positive association of an evidentiary hair to an individual, the examiner stated or implied in a general explanation of microscopic hair comparison analysis that a questioned hair could be associated with a specific individual to the exclusion of all others - this type of testimony exceeded the limits of science. 2 days later, the FBI wrote, We have determined that the microscopic hair comparison analysis testimony or laboratory report presented in this case included additional statements that exceeded the limits of science and was, therefore, invalid ....The scientific analysis of hair evidence permits an examiner to offer an opinion that a questioned hair possesses certain traits that are associated with a particular racial group. However, since a statistical probability cannot be determined for classification of hair into a particular racial group, it would be error for an examiner to testify that he can determine that the questioned hairs were from an individual of a particular racial group. A 3rd letter sent on May 6 reads, The science regarding firearms examinations does not permit examiner testimony that a specific gun fired a specific bullet to the exclusion of all other guns in the world. The examiner could testify to that information, to a reasonable degree of scientific certainty, but not absolutely. Any individual association or identification conclusion effected through this examination process is based not on absolute certainty but rather a reasonable degree of scientific certainty. Federal authorities are now conducting DNA tests of the physical evidence collected at the scene, but the FBI's findings of flawed evidence in Manning's case barely scratches the surface of a larger problem. Just last month, the FBI acknowledged its use of flawed forensic evidence to convict people over several decades - and that many of of the cases resulted in death sentences for the defendants. Specifically, comparisons of hair belonging to the defendant and hair found at respective crime scenes were scientifically erroneous. In 2012, the Bureau launched an investigation into the use of flawed hair analysis, the FBI found that hair matches were used in 2,500 cases. As of mid-April, the FBI reviewed 342 of those cases, and found that FBI forensic experts presented flawed evidence 257 trials. Robert Dunham, the executive director of DPIC, says the FBI has discovered 33 capital cases in which hair analysis was used. "It is always stunning when a man is exonerated from death row with evidence of his innocence, but Mr. Manning's case presents the unimaginable possibility that an innocent man may have been wrongly convicted and sentenced to death in 2 different trials for 2 different offenses," Dunham said, in a recent press release. "His cases present some of the classic hallmarks of innocence: racial overtones, unreliable witnesses, and police or prosecutorial misconduct. His 2nd case includes an additional horrifying dimension - 2 different types of junk science masquerading as forensic evidence of his guilt." Robert Mink, one of Manning's defense attorneys, told ThinkProgress that forensic and ballistics evidence wasn't the only questionable evidence presented in trial. Indeed, circumstantial evidence from a car burglary was used against the defendant, because items from a stolen vehicle were in Manning's possession. Prosecutors theorized that the murdered students left a fraternity house, witnessed Manning in the act of stealing a car (that didn't belong to them), and tried to intervene. Then, he pulled a gun on them, forced the two to drive to the countryside, and killed them. Moreover, according to Manning's 2nd defense attorney, David Voisil, Jordan's since admitted he lied about Manning's confession. Voisil told ThinkProgress that he and a 3rd investigator located the ex-felon, at which point Jordan recanted his statement. But Jordan never signed an affidavit, so Jordan's statement has very limited usefulness. "We believe he's actually innocent," said Mink. "He's always maintained his innocence. He didn't have any violent convictions. His criminal history was for things like theft." As to how Manning is feeling about these recent developments, Voisin shared, "He's very happy that his conviction was vacated and that the prosecutor decided not to seek additional charges on the case involving the death of the elderly woman. He's very cautious about it - he's still on death row. He came within hours of being executed, and that was a very difficult experience, having to live through something like that." According to the National Registry of Exoneration, 45 people have been exonerated this year. In 2014, 125 inmates were exonerated - the highest count for any year on record. 6 of the former inmates were on death row. And of the 1589 people exonerated to date, 743 are black - including the 6 taken off of death row last year. (source: thinkprogress.org) LOUISIANA: Baton Rouge death penalty case: Relatives testify about convicted murderer Lee Turner's family What happens in someone's life that results in them murdering 2 people? A Baton Rouge jury on Wednesday (May 6) took a deep dive into the family background of Lee Turner Jr., who was convicted earlier this week of 2 counts of 1st-degree homicide. He's now facing the death penalty for his crimes, in the 1st capital murder case in Baton Rouge in 5 years. Turner, 25, was convicted of killing Edward Gurtner, 43, and Randy Chaney, 54, during an armed robbery at a CarQuest auto parts store in March 2011. All 3 of them worked for CarQuest -- Turner was a recent hire. Several family members took the stand Wednesday to describe what Turner's life was like growing up in New Orleans, and in the various cities he lived in post-Katrina, as the defense aimed to make him more sympathetic to the jury. The penalty phase of the trial is scheduled to continue on Thursday. Much of the testimony painted Turner's mother, Melissa Moss, as the most problematic figure in his life: His relatives described her as unloving and neglectful, too busy fighting -- sometimes physically -- with a series of live-in boyfriends to pay much attention to her children. "I can count on one hand how many times my mom hugged me and actually told me she loved me," said DeMarcus Moss, Turner's older half-brother. Turner lived with his mom in New Orleans before Hurricane Katrina hit the city when he was a teenager. After that, he bounced around from place to place, staying with various relatives. But as prosecutor Tracery Barbera pointed to her in questioning, it seemed from the parade of relatives that spoke in Turner's defense that he did have a support system in place. Multiple relatives from Turner's extended family testified that they cared for him and spent time with him as a child and teenager. "Melissa wasn't a good mom, and you recognize that, and you united as a family around Lee Turner," Barbera told one of the relatives. "You recognized there was a void and you did everything you could to fill it." And when Turner committed the murders, he was about to have a child with his long-time girlfriend Melanie Williams. They met while working together at a shoe store when Turner was 17, and were together for more than 4 years. Williams, who is a few years older than Turner, said she was disappointed in herself when she found out she was pregnant, unmarried and not at the time in her life when she wanted to have a child. "That's not how my parents raised me," she testified. But Turner was thrilled. "He was on Cloud 9," Williams said. "That's all he talked about. He kept saying he wanted a boy, he wanted to carry on his name." Williams gave birth to Turner's son about a month and a half after the murders occurred, and the 2 have only ever met in prison. Turner's relatives said they didn't know what to say about the murder charges. "I don't know what happened," his father, Lee Turner Sr. said quietly. "I wish I could just take it back. I wish I could do something." He then told his son, "I still don't think you're guilty." But defense attorney Scott Collier reminded him that the jury had already convicted Lee Turner Jr. He asked the father to describe how it would impact him "if they decide to kill your son." Lee Turner Sr. didn't say anything for about 30 seconds. "It would be like killing me," he said. (soure: Times-Picayune) From rhalperi at smu.edu Thu May 7 16:49:47 2015 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Thu, 7 May 2015 16:49:47 -0500 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----IND., ILL., NEB., IDHAO, WYO., CALIF., WASH. Message-ID: May 7 INDIANA: Gary man charged with killing 2 told death penalty possible A judge on Wednesday formally informed a Gary man charged with murder in the deaths of 2 women and suspected of killing 5 others that he could face the death penalty. Darren Vann, 44, told Lake Superior Court Judge Diane Boswell that he understood the cases involving the deaths of Afrikka Hardy and Anith Jones had been joined and that he could be sentenced to die if he's convicted, The Times of Munster reported (http://bit.ly/1FPzZcL ). Police have said that Vann confessed to having killed 7 women whose remains were found over 3 days in October. He has only been charged in the deaths of Hardy and Jones, though. The court last year issued a gag order prohibiting officials from commenting on the case, and Boswell on Wednesday granted the state's request to prevent the coroner's office from releasing the women's autopsy reports. Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Michelle Jatkiewicz said the motion was in response to Freedom of Information requests for information from the reports. The defense agreed with the state's non-disclosure motion for the autopsy reports. During a previous hearing, Hollandsworth said Vann asked prosecutor Bernard Carter in the letter if the state was going to seek the death penalty against him. On Wednesday, Boswell granted the state's request for a handwriting sample to determine if Vann wrote the letter. Jatkiewicz said the state was seeking the sample as a precaution. Defense attorney Teresa Hollandsworth said Vann didn't deny writing the letter and would file a stipulated agreement stating that. However, she objected to her client having to submit a handwriting sample. Boswell also vacated the June 22 trial date she set earlier because Vann now faces the death penalty. She said she would set a new trial date at a hearing on May 22. (source: Associated Press) ************* Cannibal killer - who ate girlfriend's brain and heart - says he's 'too handsome' to rape A man accused of killing his girlfriend before eating her organs is furious at being charged with her rape. The 'cannibal killer,' known as Joseph Oberhansley, told the court he was 'too handsome' to be a rapist. However he seemed less bothered by the charges relating to him eating his girlfriend's brain, heart and lung. 34-year-old Oberhansley confessed to the murder of Tammy Jo Blanton, sawing open her head and body so he could gain access to her vital organs. According to court documents, Oberhansley broke into Blanton's home, stabbed her to death with a knife before using an electric jigsaw to open her skull and eat parts of her brain. He then consumed parts of her heart and lung. A worker contracted to clean up the crime scene in Indiana, USA, said he was wiping the bathroom floor when he saw a bloodied jigsaw blade underneath a trash can. Prosecutors only have to prove one of the following - dismemberment, burglary or rape - on top of murder, in order for the man to qualify for the death penalty. 'I've never seen such bulls***' said Oberhansley. 'Excuse my language. They keep falsifying s***.' Police were called to 46-year-old Tammy's home on the day of the incident, and asked Oberhansley to leave. However 7 hours later, when she failed to turn up to work, police were called again and she was discovered dead in her bath tub. 'The front of the victim's skull appeared to have been crushed and brain tissue appeared scattered around the bathtub,' read court documents. The trial continues. (source: closeronline.co.uk) ILLINOIS: Chicago-area firm asks states to return drugs used in lethal injections A Chicago area drugmaker has asked states to return supplies of the company's products that could be used for lethal injection, saying it strongly objects to the drugs being used for capital punishment. Akorn, based in Lake Forest, made the request in a letter sent in March to attorney general's offices in states including Alabama, Florida, Ohio, Oregon and Texas. The March 4 letter refers to midazolam, a sedative, and hydromorphone, a painkiller. Akorn contends using the drugs for lethal injection violates federal drug regulations and may also violate federal drug laws. "Additionally, such use is contrary to Akorn's commitment to promote the health and wellness of human patients," states the letter from general counsel Joseph Bonaccorsi. Neither the company nor its distributors will sell the drugs directly to prisons and distributors will use their best efforts to keep drugs from getting to prisons in other ways, the letter said. Bonaccorsi did not return messages left by The Associated Press. Several states that confirmed receiving the letter to the AP didn't plan a response to Akorn. Good for Akorn. If states need to carry out executions, then do them in the traditional manner like hanging, firing squad, beheading, etc. Using drugs to calmly and quietly kill people is far too neat and hypocritical. It's unclear what triggered Akorn's letter, which appeared to go only to states with the death penalty. The only 2 states that have used the 2-drug combo in executions, Arizona and Ohio, had previously dropped the drugs after problematic executions. Ohio says it didn't get either drug from Akorn. The state adopted a new lethal injection policy earlier this year calling for single doses of drugs it has had difficulty obtaining in the past. Executions are on hold until next year while Ohio tries to find those drugs. In Oregon, capital punishment has been on hold since 2011, and its previous rules called for a single dose of pentobarbital. Court challenges have halted executions in Pennsylvania, where the state's lethal injection drugs don't include those named by Akorn. Texas, which also received the letter and doesn't plan to respond, uses compounded pentobarbital whose source the state won't identify. Alabama's system calls for midazolam as the 1st of a 3-drug protocol, as does Florida's. In Oklahoma, the prisons agency says it had obtained drugs to carry out 3 executions that have been delayed while the U.S. Supreme Court considers whether the use of midazolam is appropriate for capital punishment. States have been scrambling to find new drug supplies or adopt new execution methods as drugmakers clamp down on their products' use in capital punishment. Oklahoma enacted a law allowing nitrogen gas as an alternative, Utah reinstated the firing squad and Tennessee brought back the electric chair as a backup. Other drugmakers including Hospira, also based in Lake Forest, Illinois, have stopped selling drugs for use in executions. States that confirmed they received the Akorn letter: Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Mississippi, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, Texas, Tennessee, Utah and Washington. (source: Chicago Tribune) NEBRASKA: Nebraskan convicted of 3 separate killings dies in prison A 3-time convicted killer died in the Nebraska State Penitentiary on Tuesday morning. Clarence Victor, 82, who suffered from a long-term medical condition, died in the state prison's nursing facility, said James Foster, a spokesman for the Nebraska Department of Corrections. An official cause of death has not yet been determined. A grand jury will conduct an investigation into Victor's death, as required by state law. Victor was sentenced to death row after being convicted of killing Alice Singleton, 82, in 1987. Victor stabbed her and clubbed her with a metal pipe. Victor had been Singleton's gardener. His death penalty sentence was changed to life in prison after the Nebraska Legislature passed a law in 1998 prohibiting the execution of inmates with IQ levels lower than 70. Victor had an IQ of 65. In 2000, the Nebraska Supreme Court rejected then-Attorney General Don Stenberg's request to reinstate Victor's death penalty sentence. Victor had also been convicted in 2 other killings. In 1964, he was convicted of manslaughter after he strangled and beat 40-year-old Hilda Williams. Her body was found in a park. He served 5 years in prison. In 1976, Victor slashed the throat of a 24-year-old Jerry Black in her home. He served 10 years in prison for 2nd-degree murder. Both times he was released early for good behavior. (source: omaha.com) IDAHO: Prosecutor: Renfro could face death penalty An attempted murder charge against Jonathan Renfro is expected to be amended to 1st degree murder early Thursday morning, following the death of Sergeant Greg Moore, the Coeur d'Alene police officer he allegedly shot on Tuesday morning. Kootenai County Prosecuting Attorney Barry McHugh would not comment on the case but did tell KHQ it's possible Renfro could be looking at the death penalty. If McHugh files an intent to seek the death penalty it'll be the 2nd time he's done so in less than a year. If an intent to seek is filed, it'll be up to a jury when the case goes to trial if the death penalty will be enforced. According to Idaho state law there are only 3 crimes that would warrant the death penalty; 1st degree murder, aggravated kidnapping and perjury resulting in the execution of an innocent person. First a jury would have to determine if Renfro is guilty of 1st degree murder and then they have to determine if that murder meets a different set of criteria, known as aggravated circumstances. These aggravated circumstances range from if the crime is especially heinous to if the person who committed the crime also killed another person in that same day. KHQ spoke with a former criminal prosecutor who said he wouldn't be surprised if the death penalty was sought in Renfro's case. Peter Erbland said, "If in fact the officer was attempting to contact this individual, responding to a call and he was killed because he was performing those duties, then that's a statutory aggravating circumstance." Court documents detail the events leading up to Moore being shot. He was called into a northwest Coeur d'Alene neighborhood investigating a suspicious persons call. According to a police affidavit, Renfro repeatedly admitted to shooting Moore, telling investigators he had a gun on him and knew the officer would find it. Renfro is due back in court for a preliminary hearing on the 15th. (soure: KHQ news) WYOMING: Accused murderer Guajardo could get death penalty Daniel Guajardo, the man accused last month of murdering his ex-girlfriend and trying to kill her boyfriend, could face the death penalty. Guajardo, 26, made his initial appearance Wednesday in Laramie County Circuit Court. The prosecution has not yet decided whether it will seek the death penalty, but it is a possibility, Laramie County District Attorney Jeremiah Sandburg told Magistrate Tim Kingston. Sandburg said in court that there is strong evidence to suggest a great deal of pre-planning went into the shooting, that it wasn't just a spur-of-the-moment decision for Guajardo. "We believe he set up an escape route in advance of the event," Sandburg told Kingston. He added that Guajardo had to walk over Janessa Spencer's body to exit through the back door of her house. Guajardo then got in his car, which was parked in the alley, and drove to Fort Collins, Colorado, Sandburg said. Law enforcement there arrested Guajardo just hours after the April 12 shooting. He was extradited to Laramie County on Tuesday. Guajardo was charged the day of the shooting with 1st-degree murder for the shooting death of 26-year-old Spencer. He also was charged with attempted 1st-degree murder for shooting 24-year-old Samuel Cook as well as with aggravated burglary. At Sandburg's request, Kingston ordered Guajardo to remain in custody at the Laramie County jail without bond pending his preliminary hearing, which is set for May 15. Sandburg asked Kingston not to set a bond for Guajardo or to set a $1 million bond for each of his alleged victims for a total bond of $2 million. The district attorney outlined some of Guajardo's criminal history for Kingston. He said Guajardo was convicted of felony burglary in 2007 and added that the district attorney's office is trying to have his juvenile criminal record unsealed in Colorado. "This is certainly not his 1st contact with law enforcement," Sandburg said in court. Guajardo's attorney, public defender Eang Man, said she would reserve her bond argument for the preliminary hearing. But she asked Kingston to set a reasonable bond. Charging documents say Guajardo entered Spencer's house in the 1400 block of East 23rd Street armed with a shotgun. He reportedly located Spencer and Cook in the bathroom, where they were trying to hide from him. Cook jumped out of the window and was shot in the back when he stood up to run. Police found Spencer's body between the kitchen and living room of the house. Like Cook, she suffered a gunshot wound to her upper right back. Cook was taken to Cheyenne Regional Medical Center and was treated there 8 days before being arrested on an unrelated matter. (source: Wyomingnews.com) CALIFORNIA: Defense team petitions appeals court to halt death-penalty trial The defense team for an accused cop killer has turned to the Court of Appeal, trying to bring a halt to his murder trial that's now in its 4th week. Lawyers for Henry A. Smith Jr. asked the appellate court to both halt the trial and to issue an order forcing the Solano County jury commissioner to provide them with myriad pieces of information about thousands of potential jurors from 2014. The defense attorneys have said they believe that the numbers of African-Americans is under-represented among potential jurors showing up for jury duty at the Fairfield courthouse when compared with those showing up for jury duty at the Vallejo courthouse. Jury selection has been ongoing since the trial got underway April 15. 2 groups of potential jurors are expected to be in court Thursday to answer questions from Judge Peter B. Foor, the defense team and prosecutor Karen Jensen. Several of those potential jurors will likely be asked to return May 11 with as many as 75 other potential jurors when the final panel of 12 jurors and 7 alternates is chosen for the trial that???s expected to extend into June. The prosecution is seeking the death penalty for Smith, who has pleaded not guilty to charges of murdering a peace officer, robbery and being a felon in possession of a gun. In a request received Tuesday by the Court of Appeal, the defense team states that past decisions by Foor and a visiting judge rejecting the release of the 2014 jury information must be reversed if Smith is going to get a fair trial with an unbiased jury. The defense team has spent seven months leading up to the trial trying to get the 2014 jury demographic information along with information about how the jury commissioner handles hardships and no-shows among potential jurors. The defense team accuses the jury commissioner of using stalling tactics and "cynical obstructionism." Smith is accused of robbing a Bank of America in Vallejo in November 2011 and then getting into a high-speed pursuit with Vallejo police officer Jim Capoot. The car chase ended in a residential neighborhood in east Vallejo, where Capoot rammed Smith's truck before Smith fled the wrecked truck on foot. Capoot followed Smith over a fence into a nearby backyard, where the veteran officer was fatally shot in the back. Smith was arrested a few moments later and police wrested a gun from him. (source: Daily Republic) WASHINGTON: Carnation killer jury to weigh mercy or death for 6 murders Jurors considering the fate of Joseph McEnroe are being asked to decide if he is a coldblooded killer or the victim of a manipulative woman who coerced him into murdering 6 people in Carnation on Christmas Eve 2007. 12 jurors will gather in a small room at the King County Courthouse starting Thursday to weigh whether Joseph McEnroe is a coldblooded killer or the victim of a manipulative woman who coerced him into murdering her family. Those 2 portraits of McEnroe were painted Wednesday by the prosecution and defense attorneys in their daylong closing arguments in the penalty phase of his nearly 4-month trial. The same jury that convicted him of aggravated murder in March will decide if his crimes warrant life in prison without the possibility of parole or the death penalty. As King County Senior Deputy Prosecutor Scott O'Toole urged the jury Wednesday to send McEnroe to death row for the murders of 6 people, the 36-year-old man shook, twitched, sweated and appeared to be crying. Members of the audience cried when O'Toole displayed photos of the 6 bodies. "We know that the man sitting in this courtroom killed all these people. He murdered them," O'Toole told jurors. Calling jurors the "conscience of the community," O'Toole said it's their job to condemn McEnroe to death for the murders in rural Carnation on Christmas Eve 2007. He said of a death sentence: "It's right, it's just." O'Toole said McEnroe did far more than murder 6 people. He also wiped out 3 generations of the Anderson family. "What Joseph McEnroe has done literally changes and destroys history," O'Toole said. "You will never know what the future might have been. This defendant, Joseph McEnroe, destroyed them for all time." Defense attorney William Prestia, during his 2-hour closing argument, told the jury that even though his client did something "terrible," he deserves mercy. "Joe McEnroe is filled with regret, he is riddled with remorse. He is worthy of mercy," Prestia said at the end of his closing argument. "We ask you to choose life." Prestia rattled off a list of reasons mercy should be granted, including: McEnroe's mental illnesses; his troubled childhood filled with bullying; and the fact he has been a trouble-free inmate in the 7 years he's been living in solitary confinement at the King County Jail. "There is good in him and there is the potential for good. He is seeking redemption," Prestia said. "At the end of the day, I'll say this to you: This is one of the worst of the worst crimes, I'm not going to sugarcoat it for you. Joe is not one of the worst of the worst offenders." As Prestia talked, McEnroe continued twitching and rocking in his seat. Prestia blamed the murders on McEnroe's former girlfriend and co-defendant Michele Anderson, who he said orchestrated the deaths of 6 of her relatives. He said Anderson "reeled in" and manipulated McEnroe, making him "into the tool she needed" to commit mass murder. "When she wants something, she's truly relentless," Prestia said about Michele Anderson. "She's got a pattern of manipulation, a pattern of wanting to be in control. What we've got here is a pathological relationship." Prestia added: "Joe's fragile personality made him susceptible to Michele." The same jury in March convicted McEnroe of killing Michele Anderson's parents, Wayne and Judy Anderson; their son Scott and his wife, Erica Anderson; and the younger couple's children, 5-year-old Olivia and 3-year-old Nathan, during a holiday gathering. McEnroe's defense claims he was coerced into the murders by Michele Anderson, who he claimed was angry at her family because she believed the family owed her money and mistreated her. Unlike the criminal trial, when jurors had to be unanimous in their verdict, in the penalty phase only a single juror has to vote for a life sentence for McEnroe to be spared the death penalty. "You decide whether the defendant gets what he wants," O'Toole said, referring to a life sentence. "Or what he deserves." Michele Anderson, 36, is scheduled to be tried this fall. (source: Seattle Times) From rhalperi at smu.edu Thu May 7 16:50:42 2015 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Thu, 7 May 2015 16:50:42 -0500 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----USA Message-ID: May 7 USA: Tsarnaev: The Cost Of A Death Sentence Versus Life Imprisonment The penalty phase of the trial of the Boston Marathon Bomber, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, is well under way. The jury heard Tsnarnaev's family from Russia give tearful testimony on Monday of how delicate and emotional he was as a child. Apparently, young Tsarnaev cried when Mufasa died in the Lion King. Even Tsarnaev was seen wiping away tears during the testimony. While this type of presentation is meant to pull at the heartstrings of the jurors, to humanize Tsarnaev, perhaps it is backfiring. People seem to be absolutely indignant that Tsarnaev can show emotion for his family or himself, but display no remorse for the victims or their families. This case has sparked heated debates about the death penalty. One justification made by those who are in favor of the death penalty is that it is cheaper just to execute Tsarnaev rather than use our tax dollars to keep him alive. I wondered whether this was true and decided to explore it. To compare the cost of pursuing a conviction of death versus life imprisonment, we have to look at different scenarios, like (1) what would it cost if Tsarnaev is sentenced to life in prison (2) what would it cost if Tsarnaev is sentenced to death and appeals, and (3) what would it have cost if the death penalty was never on the table and he was sentenced to life in prison. The 1st scenario is if the jury sentences Tsarnaev to life in prison without the possibility of parole. To calculate this we have to consider the cost of Tsarnaev's defense, the cost incurred by the government in prosecuting the case and the cost of caring for Tsarnaev for the rest of his natural life. There have been 2 federal death penalty cases in Massachusetts since 1998, not including Tsarnaev's trial. One of those cases was against Kristin Gilbert, a 30 year old nurse indicted in 1998 for murdering 4 of her patients and attempting to murder 3 others by injecting them with the heart stimulant epinephrine. Ultimately, the jury sentenced her to life in prison. The cost of her defense was approximately $1.6 million. The prosecution in that case spent approximately $350,000 on experts and a jury consultant. The salary of the prosecutors and their investigators are not included. Additionally, it cost $80,000 for stenographers and transcripts and $125,000 for the jurors. That's $2,155,000 for the cost of a federal capital murder trial that ended in life imprisonment in Massachusetts in 2001. Let's take that number and assume it is higher now because of inflation and factor in things like the cost of flying Tsarnaev's family in from Russia. For the sake of argument, let's make that number $2.5 million. If Tsarnaev receives life in prison without the possibility of parole, he will likely be housed at the United States Penitentiary Administrative Maximum Facility, or ADX, the "supermax" federal prison in Florence, Colorado. According to the Federal Bureau of Prisons, the average cost to house an inmate for 1 year in a federal prison is $26,309. Tsarnaev is 21 now. If he lives to 71, that means approximately $1,315,450 in government money for his care. That???s just the average. It is probably more expensive to house prisoners at ADX, but let's assume the average cost for the purposes of this exercise. That's a little over $3.3 million for scenario 1. The 2nd scenario is a little trickier because of all the variables. Let's limit the scenario to the cost associated with sentencing Tsarnaev to death, him exhausting all of his appeals and ultimately being put to death. In that scenario, we would take the same $2.5 million figure from the cost of trial above and add the cost of the appeals, the cost to care for him during the appeals and the cost to execute him. There is no data on the cost of appealing a death conviction in Massachusetts, but in 2014, the average cost in Nevada was approximately $140,000. Moreover, the appeals process can take decades. Tsarnaev will have to be housed in a federal prison during that time. Let's say his appeals take 10 years, multiplied by the $26,309 per year to care for him. That totals $263,090. If his appeals fail, he will be executed by lethal injection and the costs associated with that are minimal and do not need to be factored in. Scenario 2 is a little over $2.9 million. So, it appears that those who are in favor of the death penalty are correct that at this stage, it is cheaper to execute Tsarnaev than sentence him to life in prison. However, let's look at the 3rd scenario, where the death penalty was never on the table. The average cost of a federal death penalty trial is 8 times more than a federal murder case. This is because in a federal death penalty case, much more is at stake - someone's life - and no corners are cut. There are usually multiple defense attorney assigned to ensure competent representation, more experts involved and because there are 2 phases, the trials are much longer than in a non-death penalty case. So let's take that $2.5 million figure and divide it by 8. That leaves us with $312,500 for the cost of trial. Add in the $1,315,450 for his care for the rest of his life in ADX. Scenario 3 is approximately $1.63 million. These numbers are merely estimates based on what I could find in public records, but I think they are a fair representation of the cost considerations in pursuing a federal death penalty case. (source: Commentary; Aivi Nguyen is a trial lawyer with the Law Firm of Bowditch & Dewey, LLP in Worcester----golocalprov.com) **************** Dead Man Walking Nun to Testify at Tsarnaev Trial----As debate turns to what Boston bomber could expect at Colorado's Supermax The nun and death-penalty foe behind Dead Man Walking is due to testify in Dzhokhar Tsarnaev's sentencing trial today and defense attorneys hope she portrays the death penalty as an unjust punishment for the 21-year-old. Sister Helen Prejean, who developed a close relationship with Louisiana death row inmate Patrick Sonnier before his execution in 1984, is 1 of 2 witnesses left to testify for the defense, though federal prosecutors plan to file a motion to bar her from taking the stand, NBC News reports. With Prejean in mind, talk has already turned to where Tsarnaev would end up should he get life in prison. NBC News reports Tsarnaev is likely to spend the rest of his life at Colorado's Supermax - described in a recent lawsuit - if the jury rules against the death penalty. There, under special conditions, he could get 2 15-minute phone calls per month and visits from parents and siblings only, according a former warden of a death-row prison in Indiana. Testifying for the defense, he argued Tsarnaev would be shut out from the rest of the world at the prison, where inmates spend about 23 hours a day in isolation, the Christian Science Monitor reports. Tsarnaev's lawyers are suggesting such a fate is nearly on par with execution. Attempting to bolster their case for the death penalty, prosecutors noted inmates are subject to special administrative measures which can be renewed annually, challenged by inmates, and are often lifted via a "step-down process," a prosecutor said. The prosecution also took issue with the defense's aerial photo of the prison covered in snow, which made it look like it was "an extremely forlorn, forbidding institution," per the Boston Globe. Prosecutors aruge there's no guarantee Tsarnaev will end up at the Supermax, or that he won't be moved from it in the future. (source: newser.com) ******************* The Death Penalty Is Barbaric, Let's Torture Instead! Capital Punishment and the Supermax Alternative Many Americans are conflicted about the death penalty. There are cases where criminal defendants appear to deserve death, for example, mass murderer and terrorist, Timothy McVeigh. The actions of these defendants are so outrageous that they call for the most extreme condemnation possible: complete and irreversible removal from the human community. However, Americans are also repeatedly told that the death penalty is barbaric, inhumane, and racist. The pope is opposed to it. Likewise, so is almost all of Europe. Phil Zuckerman, the noted sociologist, even argues in his recent book, Living the Secular Life, that strong opposition to the death penalty among most nonreligious Americans is an indication that the nonreligious may be more moral than the religious, at least in some respects. Well, we certainly don't want to be immoral, racist, or barbaric, do we? But how to reconcile the sense that a defendant deserves the ultimate penalty with the increasing repugnance toward the death penalty? Enter supermax! Supermax as salve for the hypocritical conscience The attorneys for convicted terrorist Dzhohkar Tsarnaev made an argument the other day that has become all too common in capital cases. In their eagerness to persuade jurors to spare Tsarnaev's life, they emphasized how miserable Tsarnaev will be if he is sentenced to life imprisonment. That's because he'll be serving his time in the federal supermax facility in Colorado. Along with the other prisoners there, Tsarnaev will be kept in isolation. He will be spending 23 hours a day for the rest of his life in a roughly 90 ft. cell, where he will eat, sleep, urinate, and defecate. For the 1 hour a day that he is let out of his cage for exercise, he will have no contact with other inmates. Yeah, that'll teach him! Don't kill him; make him suffer alone for 50 years. So we can punish murderous criminal defendants harshly without resorting to that barbaric death penalty. Problem solved. Just lock 'em away and forget 'em. The death penalty taboo Tsarnaev will suffer if he imprisoned in supermax. Studies have shown that prisoners in supermax facilities are more prone to develop mental illness because of the psychological deprivation and isolation they experience. This extreme isolation is a form of torture, as stressful, if not as immediately painful, as physical torture. Only someone who has lost their moral compass or someone who has developed a taboo mentality toward the death penalty could possibly regard supermax confinement as a humane alternative to the death penalty. And much of the opposition to the death penalty is based on a taboo mentality. It is derived primarily from the notion that life is "sacred," ironically an attitude seemingly more prevalent among secular Americans than religious Americans. Do I exaggerate? Aren't there good arguments against the death penalty? There is one good argument, which I will get to below, but to demonstrate that opposition to the death penalty is mostly based on emotional repugnance, not sound arguments, consider some of the arguments that have been offered: The state shouldn't be killing people. Who should then? Governments took over responsibility for criminal punishment as way to end private vengeance. If the death penalty is appropriate, it is precisely the state, not relatives of victims, that should impose the penalty. The death penalty is racist. There is little doubt that much of the American justice system is affected by either explicit or implicit racial bias. This bias manifests at all levels, from disproportionate traffic stops and arrests of blacks to disproportionate death sentences for blacks. But ultimately, this argument against the death penalty is no more than a makeweight. Removing the death penalty is not going to end racism in the American justice system. Moreover, if the adverse impact on blacks were the real reason for opposing the death penalty, presumably opponents would be satisfied with a quota system, whereby no death penalty could be imposed on blacks, Hispanics, and so forth until the requisite number of whites were sentenced to death. A quota system would remove the effects of racial bias. I doubt, however, that this would satisfy death penalty opponents. Capital cases are more costly. It is true the death penalty cases cost a lot-- but they cost a lot precisely because death penalty opponents wage decades-long court battles to prevent the imposition or the carrying out of a death sentence. The death penalty is not a deterrent. The most objective, comprehensive study on this issue was carried out by the National Academy of Sciences. In its 2012 report, the NAS stated that no firm conclusion could be drawn about the effect of the death penalty on homicide rates, in part because of the limitations of such studies. The death penalty is vengeful; it appeals to our darker emotions. This is simply arguing through characterization. One could respond by counter-argument that the death penalty expresses the just outrage of the moral community. The death penalty is cruel. And supermax isn't? The one good argument against the death penalty Erroneous convictions. Because of its irreversibility, that's the real problem with the death penalty. We always knew that our criminal justice system was imperfect, but until the advent of DNA evidence, we did not realize how imperfect. We have now had dozens of death-row inmates exonerated. The best study on this issue estimates that about 4% of those sentenced to death have been wrongly convicted. That translates to several hundred persons wrongly sentenced to death. This concern has no application to Tsarnaev, of course. He has effectively conceded his guilt. However, it is doubtful that we can devise a criminal justice system that reserves the death penalty only for those that we really, really know are guilty. Being honest about the death penalty and the limits of criminal justice Because of the unacceptably high possibility of an erroneous conviction, I am a reluctant opponent of the death penalty. Reluctant, because some murderers undoubtedly deserve to die. But for me at least, it is no consolation to be told these murderers will be locked away in isolation for decades. Except for the extremely rare Hannibal Lecters of the world, there's no possible rationale or justification for supermax facilities. They are vehicles for prolonged psychological torture. If we can't utilize the death penalty because of the danger of wrongful convictions, we just have to accept that. But we're only deluding ourselves if we think somehow we are morally superior because we reject the death penalty in favor of supermax. (source: Ronald A. Lindsay, President & CEO, Center for Inquiry; Author of The Necessity of Secularism----Huffington Post) ************************** Michigan death row inmate files suit in bid for freedom Convicted killer Marvin Gabrion is trying a new tactic to quash his 2002 conviction and death sentence for killing a 19-year-old woman on federal land in Newaygo County. In a civil lawsuit filed last week, Michigan's only death row inmate is asking a federal judge to set aside what he calls an illegal sentence for the 1997 murder of Rachel Timmerman. The young mother from Cedar Springs was found in a lake in the Manistee National Forest bound with chains and cinder blocks. Gabrion, 61, is on death row at the federal penitentiary in Terre Haute, Indiana. Unlike other court petitions, Gabrion wants to keep this case sealed due to psychological and personal records that are "highly relevant but sensitive.'' That doesn't sit well with the U.S. Attorney's Office. It filed a response this week opposing Gabrion's petition to keep the case under wraps. "There is no rule or precedent that permits Gabrion's request,'' Assistant U.S. Attorney Timothy P. VerHey wrote in the government's response. "The law is decidedly against his request.'' VerHey's 5-page response is the only document available for public inspection in the civil case filed April 27. "The Court will recall that, at the time of his conviction and trial, there was much public interest in the case because of, among other things, the rarity of death penalty cases in Michigan,'' VerHey wrote. "By claiming that his case was a miscarriage of justice, Gabrion has provided the public with an opportunity to learn more about the process,'' VerHey contends. "Further, the public always has an interest in determining whether its judicial system is working properly. This is especially true in a high-profile case such as this one.'' Gabrion's attorney, Scott G. Graham of Portage, was not immediately available for comment. Gabrion has exhausted all appeals in his criminal case, a voluminous file containing 771 entries over the course of 16 years. 8 defense attorneys have worked on the case since its inception. A federal appeals court in Cincinnati 4 years ago upheld his conviction and death sentence. In April, 2014, the U.S. Supreme Court said it would not hear Gabrion's case. Earlier this year, Gabrion filed a request for an emergency psychiatric review. That request was rejected. (source: Detroit Free Press) ********************* The Socialization of Evil: Robert Jay Lifton on the Death Penalty, the Holocaust & Armenian Genocide For the past 5 decades, eminent psychiatrist Robert Jay Lifton has written extensively on the psychological dimensions of war, from the U.S. atomic bombing of Hiroshima, to doctors who aided Nazi crimes, to nuclear war. In 1967, Lifton won a National Book Award for his work "Death in Life: Survivors of Hiroshima." In 1970, he would testify before a Senate Committee about the Vietnam War, warning about the need to help rehumanize returning veterans into society. In 1986 he published the seminal book "The Nazi Doctors: Medical Killing and the Psychology of Genocide." In the final part of our interview, Lifton expounds on what he calls "the socialization of evil," from the Holocaust to Vietnam to the death penalty. AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now! democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I'm Amy Goodman with Nermeen Shaikh. Our guest is Dr. Robert Jay Lifton, leading American psychiatrist. Among his books, "Witness to an Extreme Century: A Memoir" and "Who Owns Death? Capital Punishment, the American Conscience and the End of Executions." Dr. Lifton, U.S. prisons are feeling the effect of global revulsion against the death penalty. The U.S. is the only industrialized country in the world to have it. So when European companies cut off the drug supply to be used in the execution cocktail of a prisoner, states have had to put off executions because they don't have the proper death cocktail. Utah just passed, as a backup, firing squad, execution by firing squads; and Oklahoma just passed gassing. Not clear exactly how that gassing of a prisoner would be done, if they aren't able to get their hands on the drugs. Can you talk about this? You have written this book, "Who Owns Death?" and you have talked to many different people involved in the death chain. ROBERT JAY LIFTON: At issue is the mythology of humane killing, of course, a contradiction in terms; and with each form of killing by the state in carrying through a death penalty, whether it is hanging, gas chamber, electric chair or the use of chemicals, with each of the shifts from one to the other there is the claim that this is more humane. But there is no such thing as humane killing. Each of them brings about suffering, cruel and unusual punishment which is prohibited according to our laws, and one can't overcome that. It is another situation where you judge a society and many wise writers including, for instance Albert Camus, have focused on judging a whole society in terms of whether it will kill individual people. There is always also the added idea of human culpability or the inability of human beings to be certain about convictions that lead to the death penalty. So with human fallibility, there is always the danger, whatever the technical tools, DNA or anything else, there is always the danger, and it has happened, of executing innocent people. If you have the danger of executing innocent people, there must be no execution carried out by society. NERMEEN SHAIKH: Dr. Lifton, you have also talked about, in the context of the research that you have done on genocide and war, that you were surprised to find that the socialization of evil is all too easy to accomplish. So could you talk about that in the context of both the death penalty in the U.S. as well as the expending numbers of prisoners here, the incarceration system? ROBERT JAY LIFTON: It's as if even rightwing Republicans, when they experience the prison system, sometimes get the urge to reform it. Most of these reform movements haven't gone very far. I hear there's a new one that combines rightwing people and the usual people from the left who see the unfairness and cruelty within the prison system. Yes, the prison system has become a norm and it involves selectively enormous numbers of blacks, African-Americans, who are imprisoned and there are various reasons for that including methods of policing and lack of opportunity in various environments and that forms a norm that becomes part of the way society runs. Then police departments, politicians, people in everyday life simply adjust to it. You know, adaptation is the great human achievement in evolution. We are the champions of adaptation, so much so that we have made the planet our habitat. That is not true of any other species. But adaptation is also a vulnerability because sometimes immediate adaptation is contrary to larger necessities and ethical issues in more extensive adaption and that is what we are talking about, a narrow, normalized adaptation to a cruel and unfair prison system. AMY GOODMAN: Robert Jay Lifton, you wrote the book "Witness to an Extreme Century: A Memoir." Explain what you mean by extreme century. ROBERT JAY LIFTON: You know, there is a group now that wants to say we are making progress because if you look statistically, there seem to be fewer wars and relatively fewer people according to population size. That has not been my experience. In studying both Auschwitz and Hiroshima I found these to be defining events of the 20th Century and, although they are very different events, they converge in threatening the human future. One has to do with, of course, the gas chambers in Auschwitz that was a high technology of the time and it's our capacity to destroy ourselves, in this case, with chemicals or other substances. The other, of course, has to do with nuclear threat and that is a more immediate danger. Nuclear weapons still, although not thought about much publicly now, certainly when one looks into it, still a looming threat, if anything greater than in recent past. So these are 2 events that define the 20th century. And when one looks for ways, and you know I would be the first to want to look for human progress, but when one looks for ways of diminishing killing in war those who make the claim are hard put to explain the 20th century; more people killed in that century than any other century. So Auschwitz and Hiroshima are defining events of the 20th century. Still, we can look toward expressions, antinuclear expressions, confrontations of the holocaust and of weapons of mass destruction of any kind that we mount as sources of hope and as commitments that we continue to make, that has to do - that's what I mean by being a witness. When I did my research on, say, Auschwitz and Hiroshima I was looking to be accurate in what I found psychologically. I also saw that research as a form of witness. A witness is someone who opens himself or herself to experience, takes it in and retells the story, tells the tale, gives it a new narrative. That is what I saw myself as doing with Hiroshima and with Auschwitz and with other events of the 20th century. Also to the Vietnam war and the Vietnam antiwar veterans who admirably found meaning in the meaninglessness of their war. So witness and research become combined. The other thing I would say about it is AMY GOODMAN: What do you mean they found meaning in the meaninglessness of the war? ROBERT JAY LIFTON: Every soldier who fights a war and, for that matter, those in the society that is mounting a war need to have a sense that there is justification for this war and every politician must explain to his or her people these soldiers of ours did not die in vain. That becomes harder and harder to say in counterinsurgencies like Vietnam with an atrocity producing situation that is psychologically and militarily created. The antiwar veterans developed the insight that this war was wrong and bad. They confronted this insight which is painful to do - very painful thing to do for a veteran because one has killed people and one has seen one's buddies dying right next to one. That was a brave and hard thing to do. Most veterans' groups come home often to victory parades or celebration or whatever and declare the just achievements of the war, the heroic victory for which they're celebrated. Of course, the Vietnam veterans were not welcomed, they came home individually; but these antiwar veterans came home with no feeling that there was anything like victory or a just cause in relation to their war. They got up in 1971, the Winter Soldier Hearings and other such events, described how they had witnessed and been involved in atrocities and that was the truth about their war. They found meaning in this political and personal opposition to their war. Their war which could not be justified so that was what I meant by the meaning they found in the meaninglessness of their war. NERMEEN SHAIKH: Dr. Lifton, before we conclude I would like to ask you about the Armenian genocide about which you spoke last night at the PEN Festival. You talked about the significance of cultural genocide and the targeting in genocides of this kind of intellectuals, writers, artists and why that is particularly important. Could you talk about that? ROBERT JAY LIFTON: Yes, when Raphael Lemkin, a heroic man, came to the concept of genocide he included what he called cultural genocide; the destruction of the institutions and ritual elements of a culture which all of us live from. And I talked last night about how intellectuals, professionals of all kinds, are key groups in sustaining these rituals and structures and institutions that we call culture because we human beings are meaning-hungry creatures and we don't take in perceptions nakedly. If you sit across the table from me I don't just see you as you are but I reconstruct you as people I know, I think about, who are doing certain things. We all use this wonderful and dangerous gray matter of our brain in this symbolizing and meaning constructing process. The intellectuals and professionals are key because they create words and images in not only sustaining but in criticizing culture; and when you seek out intellectuals and professionals to put them to death, as perpetrators of genocide often do, you are making a wound in the whole spiritual side of culture which is crucial to human life and that is another source of great human suffering and that was what much of the panel was about last night. NERMEEN SHAIKH: The other point that you make is that genocides, in fact, rely on the participation at one level or another of the professional classes, intellectuals, etc. Could you explain why? ROBERT JAY LIFTON: Yes. When I did my study of Nazi doctors I was, of course, very intent on looking at how professional collude in genocide by this egregious example of Nazi doctors. But looking more generally at genocide, I came to see that professionals are crucial to carrying out any form of genocide. They are well educated and capable of doing the nitty-gritty work of genocide so they often develop the rational for the genocide, the technology, some of the science. They often create images or poems or songs which render the genocide heroic and in that way professionals are socialized to evil. AMY GOODMAN: Robert Jay Lifton, we want to thank you for being with us. We are going to continue this discussion afterwards and post it on line. Robert Jay Lifton, leading American psychiatrist, author of many books. He is a distinguished professor emeritus of psychiatry and psychology at City University of New York, author of "Witness to an Extreme Century," "Who Owns Death" and much more. I'm Amy Goodman with Nermeen Shaikh. This is Democracy Now! (source: Democracy Now!) ***************** Tsarnaev's defiance turns to resignation Day after day, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev strides into the courtroom eager, it seems, to be anywhere but the tiny jail cell where he has spent most of the last 2 years. He chats with his lawyers who treat him kindly as they try to convince a jury that "life in prison" is the better choice. I first saw Tsarnaev at his arraignment July 2013. He was taller than I'd expected and still healing from gunshot wounds incurred during the Watertown shootout and his subsequent capture. Back then, he seemed defiant, speaking in a Russian accent, which his wrestling buddies told me he had never done before. But since his trial began in January, his defiance has given way to resignation. For the most part, Tsarnaev has seemed disengaged, showing little emotion, fidgeting in his seat as if he is bored or perhaps impatient. He knows there are two possible outcomes. He will be sentenced either to death or to life in solitary confinement in a Supermax prison. Tsarnaev is ready to accept his punishment, or at least that's what his lawyers say. Last month, 21-year-old Tsarnaev was found guilty of using a weapon of mass destruction, guilty of conspiracy, and guilty of actions that caused the death of four people and irreparably changed the lives of 260 others injured by the bombs he and his brother detonated at the Boston Marathon in 2013. In court, people have wept as they've listened to survivors testify about how it was such a great day until "that moment" when the blast lifted spectators into the air and dropped them bleeding onto the sidewalk. It is the story of the brothers' last hours together that had jurors on the edge of their seats as they watched surveillance videos showing Dzhokar, then 19, and Tamerlan, 26, trying to make their escape after their photos were made public. Their flight began with another murder. Surveillance video shows 2 shadowy figures crossing MIT campus, surprising an officer as he sat in his police cruiser. The brake lights flash brightly as Officer Sean Collier apparently struggles with the men who are trying to steal his gun. The struggle lasts 50 seconds and then another flash -- the fatal shot fired at point blank range. The jury heard how the brothers carjacked an SUV driven by Chinese national Dun Meng, and they heard how Tamerlan told Meng he was behind the attack. "He asked, 'You know who did it? I did it and I just killed a policeman in Cambridge,'" Meng testified. Powerful images from the Boston bombing trial Meng described how they pulled over at a gas station, how he counted the steps in his mind, slipping off his seatbelt and opening the car door in a single gesture, then bolting across the street to another gas station. Security cameras capture the fear on Meng's face as he begs the store clerk to call 911 and then crawls into a storage room to hide. Other surveillance video shows the younger Tsarnaev inside the gas station store carefully picking out chips, drinks, snacks -- possibly for a drive to New York where prosecutors say the Tsarnaev brothers intended to explode the remaining pressure cooker and homemade pipe bombs. After Meng's escape, Tamerlan looks unhappy as he races to the door to get his brother who puts down the armful of snacks and races out the door. In the hours that follow, one brother died. The other became the subject of a massive manhunt that ends in his capture. How did Tsarnaevs prepare for Boston bombing? Prosecutors had little difficulty convincing the jury of Tsarnaev's guilt. Yet, in the penalty phase, it is Tsarnaev's lawyers who have tried to focus the jury less on what he did and more on who he was. They have done this by showing the jury two starkly different images of the brothers. Tamerlan was portrayed as manipulative, controlling, a dangerously aggressive, frustrated boxer who was unemployed and who traveled to Dagestan to wage jihad. Dzhokhar, on the other hand, was portrayed as a gifted student and athlete, eager to learn and please his teachers. A young man who ultimately could not separate himself from the destructive path of his family. Several of his teachers from grade school have testified on his behalf, smiling as they fondly remembered the child they believed had so much promise for the future. High school and college friends who once adored Tsarnaev and his goofy humor and kindness now feel betrayed. Only toward the end did Tsarnaev seem to show any emotion. Smiling back at his teachers and dabbing a tear after aunts and cousins testified about the child they knew whose kindness brought out the best in people. People who once saw so much potential, who now see a life wasted. (source: CNN) ****************** Professor: Colo. shooter was smart, 'socially immature' A professor who helped run James Holmes' doctoral program testified Wednesday that the man accused in the Aurora theater shooting was not a good fit in his lab, and another professor described him as very smart but a "socially immature" person who made awkward jokes. Holmes faces the death penalty in connection with the July 20, 2012, shooting that left 12 dead. Prosecutors are laying out their case that he secretly plotted for months as his professional and personal life unraveled. Holmes was withdrawing from the University of Colorado neuroscience program at the time on the shooting. Defense attorneys say Holmes suffers from schizophrenia, was delusional, and his mental illness prompted him to plan and execute the shooting without understanding that what he was doing was wrong. Prosecutors persuaded Judge Carlos Samour to let them introduce one of Holmes' school presentations as evidence, over defense objections. Holmes' instructors say even though he was essentially failing, they offered him a chance to re-take tests and remain in the program. He quit instead. Defense: Theater shooter killed to improve self-worth "I think very much intellect is a very huge issue in this case, if not for the defense, it is for the prosecution," Samour said. "Both sides have talked about the defendant's performance in school." Proceedings paused several times Wednesday afternoon after 2 jurors alerted Samour that they recognized witnesses. In both cases, jurors said they could maintain their impartiality toward Holmes. Testimony on Wednesday also came from bomb-squad investigators who checked out Holmes' car, which was parked outside the theater. The trial, which is in its 2nd week, is expected to last 4 or 5 months. (source: USA Today) From rhalperi at smu.edu Thu May 7 16:51:43 2015 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Thu, 7 May 2015 16:51:43 -0500 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide Message-ID: May 7 EUROPEAN UNION: Civil liberties MEPs to debate how return to death penalty could hurt EU status The possible effects of an EU member state decision to reintroduce the death penalty, including those on its rights and status as a member state, will be debated in the Civil Liberties Committee on Thursday at 16.30. The debate was prompted by the Conference of Presidents' decision of 30 April to ask the Civil Liberties Committee to examine the issue "as a matter of urgency". At the meeting President Schulz and political group leaders discussed the recent statement by Hungary's Prime Minister Viktor Orban about a possible restoration of the death penalty there. Ms Paraskevi MICHOU, acting Director General of DG Justice, will represent the European Commission in the debate. (source: European Parliament News) SAUDI ARABIA----execution Saudi beheads 79th convict this year Saudi Arabia on Wednesday beheaded one of its nationals convicted of drug trafficking, bringing to 79 the number of executions this year. According to AFP tallies, that figure compares with 87 for all of last year and adds to what Amnesty International has called a "macabre spike" in the kingdom's executions of locals and foreigners. Authorities carried out the death sentence against Hussein al-Omairi in the northwestern region of Tabuk, the interior ministry said in a statement carried by the Saudi Press Agency. He was guilty of smuggling amphetamines, it said. Visiting French President Francois Hollande said in Riyadh on Tuesday that his country was "campaigning across the world to abolish the death penalty." Drug trafficking, rape, murder, apostasy and armed robbery are all punishable by death under Saudi Arabia's strict version of Islamic sharia law. The interior ministry has cited deterrence as a reason for carrying out the punishment, despite criticism from London-based Amnesty and other watchdogs. (source: Agence France-Presse) ***************** 79 people have been executed so far in 2015 in the desert kingdom Saudi Arabia carried out its 79th execution in 2015 on Wednesday (6 May). The news comes amidst renewed calls from Amnesty International to bring to a halt the "macabre spike" in Saudi Arabia's executions. In 2014, an estimated 87 executions were carried out by the Kingdom, according to AFP News tallies, which is a stark reminder of the alarming rate with which executions are being carried out in 2015. The latest death sentence was carried out in the Kingdom's northwestern region of Tabuk, reported AFP News. Hussein al-Omairi, a Saudi national, was executed for trafficking amphetamines, according to a statement from the interior ministry. French President calls for death penalty ban French President Fran???ois Hollande called on Tuesday (5 May) for a ban on the death penalty. Hollande was in the Saudi capital Riyadh for the Gulf Co-operation Council summit, where he met several GCC leaders, including Saudi King Salman. "France is campaigning across the world to abolish the death penalty. The death penalty should be banned," said Hollande told reporters after meeting GCC leaders including Saudi King Salman. "This unprecedented spike in executions constitutes a chilling race to the bottom for a country that is already among the most prolific executioners on the planet" - Said Boumedouha of Amnesty International Saudi Arabia executed 5 foreigners on Monday (4 May) over murder and robbery charges. Crimes that can result in the death penalty in the Kingdom, include adultery, armed robbery, blasphemy, drug trafficking, murder and rape to name a few. Said Boumedouha, the deputy director of Amnesty International's Middle East and North Africa Programme, said: "This unprecedented spike in executions constitutes a chilling race to the bottom for a country that is already among the most prolific executioners on the planet. "If this alarming execution rate continues, Saudi Arabia is well on track to surpass its previous records, putting it out of step with the vast majority of countries around the world that have now rejected the death penalty in law or practice." (source: International Business Times) IRAN: Call for ending executions in Iran According to state-run media, tens of prisoners have been executed, in recent weeks in Iran. Some reports state the number of executions over 2 weeks (13 April till 26 April), reached 115. But the real number of those executed could in fact be much more than this. One report says that a large number of prisoners have been executed secretly in the city of Arak in recent weeks. The Iranian dictatorship surrounded by growing political, social and economic crises are worried about the consequences of the nuclear negotiations and have resorted to executions, torture and killings of the Iranian people more than any other time in order to create an atmosphere of fear and repression. Many of these executions are carried under the excuse of drug crimes and other offenses that simply do not meet international standards for the justification of the death penalty. But worse still, many are punishments for things that are not crimes at all, but rather for political dissent. Such "crimes" are often identified by vague, religious-sounding charges like "enmity against God" and "spreading corruption on the Earth." The regime has abused the inaction of the international community against the brutal and systematic violation of human rights in Iran. The Iranian government is sending a delegation from the Majlis (parliament) to Brussels for some meetings in European Parliament this week on 6-7 May. A protest letter by Iranian refugees association in Belgium sent to the MEPs states that: "The members of Majlis are not elected representatives of our people, in fact they are representatives of different factions of the clerical establishment. We do not have any real elections in Iran and only the candidates who are absolutely loyal to the "values of the Islamic Republic" are eligible to stand in so called elections in Iran. Thus meeting these "MPs" in any parliament in Europe would only provide more publicity and propaganda for the ruling theocracy and will be used to justify more repression inside Iran." As we have previously said, any expansion of relationship with Iran must be conditioned to a clear progress in human rights. We call on the EU High Representative and EU member states to urge Iran to immediately end the executions and the gross human violations against its citizens. Gerard Deprez MEP Chair, Friends of a Free Iran European Parliament, Brussels [Friends of a Free Iran (FoFI) is an informal group in the European Parliament which was formed in 2003 and enjoys the active support of many MEPs from various political groups] (source: NCR-Iran) UGANDA: Amnesty lauds Uganda for saving convicts----But a report on Death Penalty in Africa by Amnesty International says Uganda is among the few African countries which uphold death sentence but did not execute any convict last year. As the World is still recovering from the diplomatic row triggered by the recent judicial executions of nine foreign convicted drug traffickers in Indonesia, a 2015 Amnesty International report has cited Uganda among the few African countries sparing convicts from the gallows. While several countries led by Australia urged clemency for the convicts, Indonesia hurriedly executed the convicts by firing squad. The convicts came from Australia, Philippines, Indonesia and Nigeria. But a report on Death Penalty in Africa by Amnesty International says Uganda is among the few African countries which uphold death sentence but did not execute any convict last year. The same report named Equatorial Guinea, Egypt, Somalia and Sudan as countries that heavily execute convicts. Equatorial Guinea executed 9; Egypt 15, Somalia 14 and Sudan 23, making a total of 61 judicial killing executed in Africa. Amnesty indicated that the continent registered 1446 death sentences in 2014. The report revealed that Nigeria recorded the highest number of death sentences standing at 659, followed by Egypt with 509 cases. Other countries with outstanding death sentences last year were Tanzania with 91 cases, Somalia 52+, Zambia 13, Zimbabwe 10 and Sierra Leon 3, Morocco 9, Sudan 14, Kenya 29, Ghana 9, Algeria 16, Mali 6 among others. Amnesty International observed that the 1446 death sentences on the continent posted a 139% increase in death sentences in 2014 as compared to 2013. But the report expressed concern about the death sentences on grounds that trying suspects in Africa may not match the internationally recognized standards. The mass death sentences in Nigeria, Gambia and Egypt also raised eyebrows. "Amnesty International is very concerned about the continued use of the death penalty in Africa; the emerging pattern of imposing mass death sentences against scores of people highlights the concerns," the report read. In Egypt Amnesty 120 people were handed mass death sentences by Courts while in Nigeria 70 soldiers involved in the fight against the militants group, Boko Haram were sentenced to death by military courts for mutiny, the report read. It's not clear why Uganda is backtracking on hanging convicts having conducted the last execution in 1999. The spokesperson of Prisons department in Uganda, Frank Baine told Sunday Vision said: "As Prisons we are reformists who do not support death sentence." He also noted that it is traumatising and dehumanizing to pronounce to 'fellow human beings'. "Who would smile at death knocking at their door step?" Baine asked, adding that there are 210 inmates on death row. He noted that before the 2005 landmark judgment in the Kigula's case, the number of imamates on death row was very high and that his department was struggling with congestion. Records show that the ruling assisted about 900 convicts who were on death row. The Kigula case filed in 2003 by Kigula and 16 other death row inmates against the Attorney General was challenging the death sentences. In the ruling, the Constitutional Court declared the death sentences passed on the 17 petitioners unconstitutional. The 2005 landmark judgment also commuted over 100 death sentences which had overstayed their execution to life sentences. The judges indicated that the mandatory (automatic) nature of the imposition of death sentences was unconstitutional because it did not provide Court with the opportunity to take into account any individual mitigating circumstances that might make the sentence inappropriately severe. Court advised Government give effect to the judgment of the death sentence within a 2-year period for all death sentences after which they should be set aside. The ruling also meant that any prisoners who had been on death row for more than 3 years were entitled to have their sentences commuted to life imprisonment. Baine said that the judgment reduced the congestion in cells as some inmates where either freed and others taken to other sections for minor sentences. The appeal filed by the Attorney General against the decision of the Constitutional Court did not succeed as in 2009; the Supreme Court upheld the Constitutional Court ruling. Why executions are delayed Baine explained that after convicts are given death sentences, they remain with a window of hope to survive the gallows since they can challenge the sentences in the Courts of Appeal and also in the Supreme Court. He added that on several occasions 1 of the 2 higher courts has reversed the judgment of the lower court and either freed convicts or reduced their sentences. He also noted that the Prerogative of Mercy which the President can exercise makes the Prison's authority delay the executions. "Each year we present 1500 names of convicts to the committee of the Prerogative of Mercy headed by the Attorney General which submits the approved names to the President for consideration," he said. Baine disclosed that Brig. Ali Fadhul and Chris Rwakasisi benefited from the Presidential Prerogative of Mercy. But he noted that since 2000, President Yoweri Museveni who has the mandate of endorsing executions has not signed anyone single document sending a convict to the gallows. Death sentences in other countries Whereas the rate of judicial executions in Africa is on the rise, Amnesty noted that countries in the West including America and East were ahead in executing convicts. Amnesty says that majority of executions happen in a handful countries, like China, USA, Iran, Saudi Arabia and Yemen. According to the report, none of the African countries were among the first 8 countries executing convicts. Sudan and Somalia only come 9th and 10 in the queue. Mukulu's experience in Luzira When George Mukulu left Luzira Prison last year after spending 3 months on remand, he returned with a hot story of a prominent inmate who was herded to the hangman - noose like a goat. "A few minutes after he was herded into the room, he was pronounced dead," Mukulu said. But he added that the man's last minutes were traumatising. "He cried, pleaded besides soiling his pants. "But nothing could stop those who were herding him to the gallows from executing a mandatory duty," Mukulu said. Mukulu added that today every inmate on capital offense who enters Luzira is ushered with the narrative of that man's story leaving many new comers in deep fear. "Since that execution whenever there is talk of a looming execution, everyone in the Condemn Section develops cold feet fearing that they might be the next on the list," he said. According to Amnesty International website, death sentence should be scrapped because it is cruel, degrading, and inhumane denying culprits a chance to reform. (source: New Vision) NIGERIA: Govs Shouldn't Be Afraid of Signing Death Warrants - - Justice Adebajo (retd) interview--By Bartholomew Madukwe Justice Ebenezer Adebajo is a retired judge of the Lagos StateHigh Court. He spent 10 years on the bench before he bowed last year following the statutory mandatory retirement age of 65. In this interview he spoke on his challenging period on the bench, death sentence, too many lawyers in the system and why influential people charged with criminal offences go almost scot-free. Excerpts: What have you missed about being a judge since your retirement? Before the date of my retirement, I had wound down mentally from the work. My frame of mind was that the work was coming to an end. But, as of today, I do miss the camaraderie with my colleagues. When I joined the bench, I think judges in Lagos State at that time were somewhat stiff to one another. But along the line we started going on retreats. We were spending between a week to 10 days out of the country, in another location, going through some legal matters and also having a laugh with ourselves. It has engendered a comradeship within the Judiciary and I think it has been good for the Judiciary. So, on that note I have missed my colleagues. What was your experience like on the bench? I was appointed as a judge in January 2004, sworn in as judge of the High Court of Lagos State in May 2004. I had a period of 10 years on the bench because the law says I must retire at 65, but much of the period that I spent on the bench was at the Badagry High Court. On the formation of the Badagry Division of the Lagos High Court, I was the first judge to sit there and I was the only judge in that division for 6 years. I was involved in general civil litigations, which means I handled cases ranging from divorce to land matters, to obaship (mornachy) disputes, to monetary indebtedness to fundamental human rights and what have you. It was such a cocktail of work and it brought out everything that I had learnt from the Bar. But for the time that I was there, which was overlong, I think I appreciated being in Badagry. It was a most enjoyable experience. Why do influential people charged with criminal offences go almost scot-free? In America, we all know what happened to a very well known sportsman, who was accused of having killed his wife, who had been unfaithful to him. He got some of the best defence lawyers around in America and he was able to go scot-free. So many people were dissatisfied that he got free but he got free because he got competent lawyers. Now, if you look at the Criminal Law practice, you will find that most of the top lawyers are not there. In fact, no lawyer premises his practice on Criminal Law practice, otherwise, you are seen as a 'charge and bail' lawyer. So the Criminal Law practice is left for those who just want to make ends meet. And your big men are now able to pay the top lawyers top money for them to sit down and analyse their case and put it to the court and if they are able to put it to the court strongly enough and they are successful, you cannot begrudge them. The Indonesian government recently executed 8 drug convicts, including 4 Nigerians, what would you say about that? I congratulate the Indonesia government, I congratulate the Indonesian judiciary for standing by the laws they have made. This law is made to protect that society and the people in Indonesia. They have a right to protect themselves in the manner that they deem fit. The Australia nationals are not obliged to go there; the ones that went there, by going, submitted themselves to the law of that land. If any country should say that Nigeria should not do this or do that, it is a disregard for the sovereignty of the nation. I find it unfortunate that government, such as the Australian government, could not respect the laws and judicial system of a sovereign nation. If the position of a law in that country is that where there is criminal activity in the area of drugs, either by carrying drug or dealing in drugs, in whichever manner, and the law punishes it by conviction, by a death sentence, it is valid because it is their country and their right. That is the paste at which its own custom and culture has moved, so it must be respected. Australia cannot act as a colonial power; stretch its hands in order to manipulate the judicial process in another country. The efforts of the western world, particularly America, to push Nigeria in accepting homosexuality as a way of life, was another attempt at impinging on our sovereignty. I thank God that both the people of Nigeria and arms of government in Nigeria rejected what they were doing. The judiciary has stood by its sovereignity. Don't you think that the Nigerian government owed those Nigerians executed in Indonesia an obligation of protection? These individuals were free agents and yes they (federal government) might owe them an obligation of protection that is if they stay within the law. But these people stayed out of it voluntarily; they deliberately stayed outside the law. What obligation does government have to do? I feel that things have gone as it should be in Indonesia. However, did our government say anything? They have not said anything; and that is how it should be. Do you support abolition of death sentence? I do not agree with it. While our institutions are failing, the prison as an institution is half-failing. When people now believe that they can get away easily with anything wrong that they do, what would happen? When they now say even that law is nothing, I will kill you and I will just get in touch with my uncle and I will get away with it, what would happen? There is a general failure of the institutions and the prison system is not a guarantee for anything. I do not believe that we are ripe to take the death penalty out of our laws. The corollary to that is that we have to remind the state governors that they voluntarily chose to take that position, and one of the duties of the governor of a state is to sign death warrants for people who have been convicted and sentenced to be hanged. It is failure in their duty when they neglect to sign death warrants. It is part and parcel of the duties of a governor and it is a frustration of the order of the court when the governor does not sign death warrants. In Lagos State, for example, I don't think any death warrant has been signed in the last 10 to 12 years. It is a failure, it is a neglect of the lawful and valid order of the court when the governor fails to sign the death warrant. They should have asked what does it involve and if you know you are going to have nightmares about signing death warrants, then don't go near that sit. I was a criminal court judge and I convicted somebody who had killed his wife and sentenced him to death, why couldn't they do their duty too? We are not ripe for death sentence to be taken off our laws. Delayed justice has continued to be an issue, in your experience as a judge, how best do you think this can be addressed? It is not for the inability of judges; it is not for lack of attention to duty on the part of the judges. When I came into the Law profession at the beginning of the 80s, in the High Court of Lagos State, Igbosere, in January they would start numbering from LD/1/the number of that year and by the time you reach December, may be you are at LD/900+/the number of that year and that means that in that year, there were less than 1,000 cases filed. But now, about 1,000 cases have been filed already. So, that is the differential that we are talking about. It takes one quarter of the time that it took before for people to file that number of cases. Litigation has grown in a monstrous way. There is the belief that there is a decline in the quality of the Bar; having spent over 20 years in practice before going to the bench, what would be your take on this? Yes, there is no doubt that the quality of legal practitioners in the country is on the decline. There is no doubt that the Body of Benchers, which is the body responsible for calling lawyers to the Bar, is not doing its job. If you look at the Accountancy profession, they have insisted on minimizing the number of people coming into that profession so that they could look after the standard. The standard has been eroded in the legal profession. English is the tool of the lawyer. There are so many untutored chambers. I don't know whether it is error or innovation, they present processes in court attempting to make innovations and Law is not a profession that gives room for innovations. It is a very staid profession and on the bench I have had to admit to lawyers that look, I am 'old school' and the legal profession is about being old school. It is a very conservative profession. But the Body of Benchers are the people who would see to the number of lawyers being admitted into the profession. (source: The Vanguard) From rhalperi at smu.edu Thu May 7 16:52:40 2015 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Thu, 7 May 2015 16:52:40 -0500 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide----GLOBAL, ASIA, PAKIS., SING., MALD., AUST., HONG KONG Message-ID: May 7 GLOBAL: The execution debate ---- The recent riots and protests in cities as diverse as Baltimore and Ferguson after police killings have highlighted how trigger-happy the police can be. In no instance has a law enforcement officer ended up in death row despite a number of convictions The 1st recorded parliamentary debate on the use of the death penalty was held in 427 BC when Diodotus, arguing that the penalty was not a deterrent, persuaded the Athenian assembly not to execute the Mitylene rebels. The debate goes on in the US in particular, a big time user of the penalty where opinion, belatedly, is turning towards using it more sparingly and, recently, in Australia, when Indonesia decided to go ahead with the execution last week of convicted Australian drug traffickers. This event got major news coverage all over the world. These 2 developments suggest that in many countries there is a new thought going around about the efficacy and morality of capital punishment. The modern abolitionist movement is usually traced back to the Italian, Cesare Beccaria's pioneering work, On Crimes and Punishment, published in 1764. However, it was a US state, Michigan, which in 1846 became the first jurisdiction in the world to abolish permanently the death penalty. In 1863, Venezuela became the first country. Amnesty International recently reported that the number of countries still executing people fell from 41 in 1995 to 22 last year, while the number of states that have abolished the death penalty climbed from 59 to 98. Abolishment-minded governments are often ahead of their own public opinion. Even in Europe, the word's pioneer in abolition, if there has been a particularly gruesome and heinous murder polls often show an upswing in support for its re-introduction. In Hungary last week the prime minister proposed re-instating the death penalty following the stabbing of a young tobacco store clerk. In Asia, a number of countries in recent months have ramped up the giving of death sentences with the aim of cracking down on terrorism and drug trafficking. In December, Pakistan ended a 6-year moratorium on the death penalty after the Taliban attacked a school in Peshawar that left more than 140 people, mainly children, dead. However, moving in the opposite direction are many states in the US. The Boston Marathon Race bomber has just been convicted. Despite the strong emotions aroused by the incident, polls show that most Bostonians do not want to see him executed. Hillary Clinton, now running for president, is today part of a growing movement among politicians in both political parties re-questioning publicly their "tough on crime" reflex. When her husband was president she backed his draconian agenda on crime, which led to the mass incarceration of young, black, non-violent offenders. The US has now ended up with the largest prison population in the world - over 2 million - on a par with Russia and China. Moreover, it ranks 5th in the number of people it executes, not far behind China, Iran, Saudi Arabia and Iraq. It executes more than North Korea. In the US, evidence of racial bias in capital sentencing is now beyond doubt. It is not just that 1 in 3 of the people executed are black; it is that they tend to be executed for killing whites. Yet the number of whites executed for killing blacks is proportionately a good deal less. US police officers shoot and kill upwards of 400 people a year. A disproportionate number of the victims are black. The recent riots and protests in cities as diverse as Baltimore and Ferguson after police killings have highlighted how trigger-happy the police can be. In no instance has a law enforcement officer ended up in death row despite a number of convictions. Execution is the ultimate, irrevocable punishment. The risk of executing an innocent person can never be eliminated. Since 1973, 150 US prisoners sent to death row have later been exonerated. A good number have been executed despite serious doubts about their guilt. Countries that execute commonly cite the death penalty as a way to deter people from committing crime. This claim has been repeatedly discredited, most recently in a study carried out at Oxford University. There is no evidence that the death penalty is any more effective in reducing crime than imprisonment. In a number of countries the means of capital punishment can be sadistic. In Saudi Arabia, there are beheadings with some of them being public. Even adultery can be a capital crime. In some Muslim countries women can be punished with over 100 lashes for being the victim of a rape. This is perverse. In some countries retribution is regarded as a good enough justification for capital punishment. In Guinea, West Africa, I covered an abortive coup for the New York Times and witnessed a mass execution. But the crowd watched it as a sheer spectacle, not as some religious purifying act of retribution for a wounded society. But then you either believe in capital punishment or you do not. I do not. (source: Opinion; Jonathan Power----The writer has been a foreign affairs columnist for the International Herald Tribune for 20 years and author of the much acclaimed new book, Conundrums of Humanity - the Big Foreign Policy Questions of Our Age----The Daily Times) ASIA: Time to fight for a moratorium on the death penalty in Asia As Australians mourn the executions of Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran we should also ask, what good can come of this? Might it be, paradoxically, that the time has come to collaborate with nations across the Asia Pacific to agree upon a moratorium on the death penalty as a 1st step towards ending it for good globally? The community and media attention given to the heroin trafficking by, and conviction of, the Bali nine and the 10-year journey by Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran of repentance and rehabilitation has prompted unprecedented and bipartisan efforts to convince the Indonesian President to grant a reprieve. While we have focused on the two Australians as we followed their plight over recent months, Indonesia has employed the death penalty against the nationals of many other countries, including Norway, Brazil, Nigeria, Thailand and the Netherlands. The leaders of these countries have been rebuffed, among them the king of Norway, as was Australia's Prime Minister. The irony is that, somewhat inconsistently, Indonesia has pleaded for the lives of its own citizens under sentence of death in other countries such as Saudi Arabia. There is some evidence of a trend in south-east Asia towards abolition of the death penalty. Cambodia, Timor L'Este, Nepal, Bhutan and the Philippines have ended executions and de facto moratoriums have existed for some years in Laos and Thailand. Some states, including Singapore and Malaysia, have reduced the number of offences attracting the death penalty and commutations are common in Malaysia, Myanmar, Singapore and Thailand. In the Pacific, Fiji has de facto ended the death penalty and New Zealand abolished it in 1989. While the UN Secretary General has argued that the "death penalty has no place in the 21st century", China, Vietnam, Japan and Indonesia maintain a harsh policy of executions. There are several vehicles through which diplomatic and institutional initiatives could promote a moratorium on executions within the Asia Pacific. Member states could add a discussion of the issue to the agenda of the forthcoming Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in November. It is time for CHOGM to confirm its 2012 commitment to the inherent right to life in the Commonwealth's Charter of Human Rights. ASEAN's Intergovernmental Commission on Human Rights could also be influential in seeking a consensus, building upon its 2012 Human Rights Declaration. Australia could link our aid programs in the region more directly to improving human rights and governance according to the rule of law. We could also expand our bilateral human rights dialogues with China and Vietnam to other nations within the Asia Pacific. National human rights institutions across the region have called for an end to the death penalty. The Human Rights Commission of Malaysia has, for example, recently urged its government to abolish the death penalty. The chair, Tan Sri Hasmy Agan, has asked for the mandatory death sentence for drug offences to be amended to return the discretionary power to judges to decide the appropriate penalty for such crimes. When considering a strategy to end the death penalty in the Asia-Pacific region, it should be recognised that by global standards, the region is exceptional in its approach to human rights. Unlike the European, Inter-American and African Courts of Human Rights, or the proposed Arab Court of Human Rights, nations of the region have not agreed to a legally binding human rights charter or to a regional commission or court to promote legal jurisprudence. Many Asian nations have not engaged with the global human rights monitoring regime. Most are not party to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and have been unresponsive to calls by the Human Rights Council to accept responsibility to protect the right to life. While many Asian states remain outside the international human rights treaty system, cultural norms are, nonetheless, changing in the region. Political leadership, building on recent de jure and de faco moratoriums on the death penalty, has the potential to prove highly effective. Vital to any regional initiative to end the death penalty is a clear understanding of the law. International law does not prohibit the death sentence absolutely. Article 6 of the ICCPR provides that the death penalty "may be imposed only for the most serious crimes" and if pursuant to the judgment of a competent court. The Human Rights Committee, in its General Comment No 6 of 1982, has argued that the phrase "the most serious crime" should be read restrictively to mean the death penalty should be a "quite exceptional measure". That the execution of those trafficking in drugs is contrary to international law is strongly arguable. Moreover, to execute drug traffickers who have been rehabilitated fails to respect their human dignity and inherent right to life. The death sentence also creates an unacceptable risk of executing an innocent person and the evidence indicates that it is not an effective deterrent to serious crimes. The United Nations has been active in promoting the abolition of the death penalty by promoting the Second Optional Protocol to the ICCPR, under which states agree to end executions. The General Assembly has also adopted 4 resolutions calling for the progressive restriction of executions and reduction of the kinds of offences punishable by death. Under the Universal Periodic Review, in which countries review each others' human rights record, recommendations have been made to abolish the death penalty. The sad executions of Michael Chan and Myuran Sukumaran provide an opportunity to build on community rejection of the death penalty, on regional trends toward abolition and on United Nations efforts to end executions. Their deaths could be the spark that ignites a consensus among all states of the Asia Pacific to rethink adherence to a policy that is increasingly cruel and out of place in the 21st century. (source: Commentary; Gillian Triggs is President of the Human Rights Commission----The Age) PAKISTAN: Saulat Mirza's wife files plea seeking halt to his execution Death row inmate, former Muttahdia Qaumi Movement (MQM) activist Saulat Mirza's wife on Thursday has filed a plea in the Sindh High Court (SHC) seeking halt to her husband's death penalty. The petition forwarded by Nighat Mirza states that the execution should be halted until the inquiry of the joint investigation team's (JIT) report is finalised. The petitioner maintained that the names mentioned by Mirza during his investigation must be included in the related cases and until these are finalised, execution should be postponed. Separately, the inspection team 2 of the SHC has formed its report regarding Mirza's cases. According to the report, there is no case pending in the SHC against the death row inmate. SHC chief justice (CJ) had ordered the team to put forth a report. (source: Dunya News) SINGAPORE: Abolish Capital Punishment ---- Join Global Moratorium Against Death Penalty Singapore's execution of Mohammad bin Kadar on April 17, 2015, should be the last use of capital punishment in the country, Human Rights Watch said today. Singapore has about 25 people on death row. At least 2, recently sentenced, could face execution in the coming months. In place of these and other potential executions, Singapore should join the 117 United Nations member countries that in 2014 voted for a global moratorium on the death penalty and move ultimately to abolish it. "Singapore should realize that its use of the death penalty makes it an increasing outlier among nations," said Phil Robertson, deputy Asia director. "It's a barbaric practice that has no place in a modern state." Singapore authorities hanged 39-year-old Mohammad bin Kadar after he spent 8 years on death row for the 2005 murder of his neighbor, a 69-year-old woman. The court determined that Mohammad bin Kadar, who had a borderline IQ of 76 and was in a drug-induced state, knew what he was doing when he stabbed the victim repeatedly, establishing he had an "intention to kill," which under Singapore law made the death penalty mandatory. Philip Alston, the UN special rapporteur on extrajudicial executions at the time said in reference to a 2005 drug case in Singapore that having a mandatory death penalty violates international legal standards. Making such a penalty mandatory, thus eliminating the discretion of the court "makes it impossible to take into account mitigating or extenuating circumstances and eliminates any individual determination of an appropriate sentence in a particular case. ... The adoption of such a black-and-white approach is entirely inappropriate where the life of the accused is at stake." In November 2012, Singapore's parliament revised the law to restrict the kinds of drug and murder convictions for which the death penalty is mandatory. In murder cases, death sentences are not mandatory if the convicted murderer had "no outright intention to kill." Mohammad bin Kadar appealed his death sentence on the grounds that the law had been amended, but his appeal was rejected. According to Amnesty International, since the laws were amended, courts have reviewed and eventually commuted death sentences to life imprisonment and caning in at least nine cases. However, the law still provides for mandatory death sentences, in contravention of international standards. At least 2 of those on death row in Singapore, Kho Jabing and Michael Galing, received mandatory death sentences after being convicted in separate murder cases. Human Rights Watch opposes the death penalty in all cases because of its inherent cruelty and irreversibility and urges the government to commute the sentences of all those held on death row. In July 2012, Deputy Prime Minister Teo Chee Hean reiterated the Singaporean government's longstanding position on the death penalty, saying that "the death penalty has been an effective deterrent and an appropriate punishment for very serious offences, and [Singaporeans] largely support it. As part of our penal framework, it has contributed to keeping crime and the drug situation under control." In its December 18, 2007 resolution calling for a worldwide moratorium on the death penalty, the UN General Assembly stated that "there is no conclusive evidence of the death penalty's deterrent value and that any miscarriage or failure of justice in the death penalty's implementation is irreversible and irreparable." "How many people will Singapore execute before they understand that the death penalty is not an effective deterrent to crime?" Robertson said. "Singapore should join with the UN secretary-general in recognizing that the 'death penalty has no place in the 21st century.'" (source: Human Rights Watch) ******************** Man accused of killing brother gets pro bono lawyer A former Singapore Polytechnic student accused of murdering his older brother at their family home has found a lawyer to represent him free of charge. Ng Yao Wei, 21, appeared in court via video link from Changi Prison yesterday and was remanded for another 3 weeks at Changi Medical Centre for further evaluation and treatment, on the request of the Institute of Mental Health. He is accused of killing 26-year-old motion graphics artist Ng Yao Cheng on April 13 at the Windermere condominium in Choa Chu Kang, where the brothers lived with their parents. Ng will be represented pro bono by Mr Josephus Tan of Fortis Law Corporation, who saw his client for the 1st time yesterday as he appeared on screen. Mr Tan said he was appointed last week after the defendant's parents approached him. He told reporters outside the courtroom: "I know it was reported that they are living in a condo, but apart from the house, I don't think they have the financial capability. I can't be expecting them to sell the roof over their heads to fund their legal fees. Our concern is for the parents to seek counselling themselves and leave the legal proceedings to us." Ng called police to report a murder on the night of April 13 and paramedics arrived to find the elder Mr Ng lying in a pool of blood in a bedroom, reportedly with knife wounds to his neck. He was pronounced dead at 11.16pm. It is believed that the brothers had been arguing. Ng was arrested on the spot and taken to Changi General Hospital as he had injuries. He was charged with murder there on April 15. Ng recently completed a diploma course in business information technology at Singapore Polytechnic where his results put him on the Director's Honour Roll in his 2nd year. If found guilty, he could face the death penalty. The case will next be heard on May 27. (source: asiaone.com) MALDIVES: 'Maldives will not back down on religious stand' Maldives has on Wednesday maintained that it would end the moratorium on death penalty, uphold laws that forbid religious freedom and allow flogging, despite the United Nations??? member countries urging for it to do otherwise. The UN Human Rights Council???s Universal Periodic Review (UPR) saw Maldives being questioned over its stand on religious matters. Countries such as Norway, the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, Belgium, Canada, Nepal, Montenegro, and Ukraine and urged the Maldives to withdraw its decision to implement the death penalty. The UN's member nations had voiced their concerns at a time when President Yamin Abdul Gayoom had announced that the death penalty will be implemented by the end of 2015. He said this on the 27th of April in regard to the death penalty against those that were sentenced for MP Afraasheem Ali's murder. "We are saddened by the fact that Maldives makes it compulsory for an individual to be a Muslim to acquire citizenship in the country" the US' statement said. The States further noted a complete lack of rights for the LGBT community. Foreign Minister Dhunya Maumoon said that Islamic principles have become the foundation for Maldivian society and is a key part of its identity. Therefore, the Maldives will not heed calls for freedoms that violate the tenets of Islam, she said. "Foreigners have the right to practice their religion in secret but for Maldivians, Islam is a principle part of their identity" the Minister further said "I assure you that this will not change". The President's Office's Legal Affairs Secretary Aishath Bisham - who was also part of the delegation - said that Maldivians believe that Islamic principles and human rights go hand-in-hand. Bisham said that laws on flagellation are very solid and that the recipient is treated in a way that protects his rights. She further said that while pregnant women and children are exempted from flogging; out of the 425 articles in the new Penal Code describing what constitutes a crime, flogging is used to punish only 5 of those crimes. "Flogging is used to prevent crime as opposed to being used as a punishment" she said "And even then, it is used with civility". (source: haveeru.com) TAIWAN: Dane faces death penalty for heroin smuggling in Taiwan; How Carl-Erik Jensen, 43-year-old from Aarhus, went on holiday to Thailand, was robbed and quickly found himself working a courier----Jensen is currently awaiting trial and could be executed Like many Danes, when Carl-Erik Jensen went to Thailand on holiday in the spring of 2014, he imagined he'd be back home before he knew it. Just one year later, the 43-year-old sits in a Taiwanese prison, charged with trying to smuggle 1,500 grams of heroin out of the country, knowing he could face the death penalty if convicted. 5 people were executed last year for similar offences. The warning signs are clear in the airport at Taiwan (the Republic of China) The belly of Bangkok In his home city of Aarhus, Jensen led a pretty ordinary life. A worker in the North Sea oil industry, he was single, content and occasionally in trouble with the law. As a streetwise individual, he could handle himself on the streets of the Jutland city, contends a source close to the Dane, but he hadn't bargained on the belly of Bangkok. A fateful night out On his first night out in the Thai capital, he met some girls in a bar, took one out for dinner and drinks, and then returned to his hotel room for a party. The rest of the night was a blur. He woke up the next morning in a trashed hotel room without any of his clothes and money and, most importantly, without his passport. A 'chance' meeting It was Saturday morning, and Jensen knew the Danish embassy was closed. He borrowed some clothes at the hotel and started to wander the streets. He didn't know where he was going. Out of nowhere, a European-looking man asked him whether he needed help. Together, in a brand new Range Rover, they drove first to a department store to buy some clothes, and then to a large mansion on the outskirts of the city. Like Hef's mansion Upon arriving, Jensen was given a glass of champagne and invited to get into a jacuzzi. More girls. Several days passed, and with the mansion, pool and Thai girls en masse at his disposal, Jensen had few complaints. But soon it was time to pay. Jensen's hosts told him it was time to pay them back for all the help he had received. The bill came to $15,000. But there was also good news: they'd managed to recover his passport and they just happened to have a job for which the payment was $15,000. Life as a courier Jensen took the job and smuggled an unspecified amount of heroin into Taiwan. Upon his return, he was allowed to return to the mansion where the champagne and girls never ran out. And he was even allowed to keep the money. More courier jobs followed. Jensen, by this time, was hooked on the lifestyle. And even though he briefly returned to Denmark, he couldn't wait to return to get back to work. Hooked on the lifestyle Jensen mostly smuggled heroin from Taiwan into Thailand, either disguised as a businessman wearing a nice suit, watch and shoes, or as a school teacher dressed more casually, carrying schoolbooks and folders. Each job commanded a payment of between $25,000 and 40,000 and involved smuggling between 1 and 2 kilograms of heroin. Jensen moved to Thailand and settled into a routine of making 2 courier trips per month. Love in Cambodia But after a few months, he moved to the Cambodian capital of Phnom Penh where there were fewer visa issues and the living costs were even cheaper. Besides, the beaches were nice and the girls pretty. At an apartment showing, Jensen met Sery, a 27-years-old Cambodian woman with 3 children from a previous relationship. For Jensen it was love at first sight, and he married Sery a couple of months later. Unfortunately for the happy couple, their honeymoon period didn't last long. Jensen and his bride Sery's happiness was cut short Taken in Taiwan In early March, Sery received a call from the Danish representation in Taiwan, which has also since confirmed Jensen's retention to the Weekly Post. Her husband had been arrested at the country's airport carrying an airline ticket to Cambodia and 1.5 kilograms of heroin taped to his thigh. She was told that she wouldn???t be able to speak to Jensen for at least 2 months while the police investigations continue. Death by firing squad Jensen, meanwhile, is being held in Taiwan, a country where the punishment for drug-related offences is execution by firing squad. When he eventually appears in court later this year, he will be provided with a lawyer to defend him. If found guilty, it is likely he will be sentenced to death. Some 48 people have been killed in the past 15 years, including 17 in the last 3. (soure: Copenhagen Post) HONG KONG: Jackie Chan 'supports death penalty' for drug offences Hong Kong actor Jackie Chan has said he supports the use of the death penalty for some drug offenders. Chan, whose son was jailed for drugs offences, said that with drugs "you're hurting thousands of young children". Jaycee Chan spent 6 months in prison in China after police found marijuana in his home. Jackie Chan is Singapore's 1st celebrity anti-drug ambassador. He was named official Narcotics Control Ambassador by Chinese police in 2009. Both Singapore and China have enforced capital punishment for drug trafficking. In an interview with journalists conducted in both English and Mandarin, he said drugs were not only hurting young people, they were hurting his family. "On some issues, I do support the death penalty," he said. "When you're hurting thousands and thousands of young children, I think these kind of people are useless. "You should get the right punishment." He added: "[Young people say] 'it's okay, it's just like a cigarette'. I say 'it's not okay, not in my family'." Jaycee, 32, was imprisoned for not just using drugs, but for the additional and more serious crime of "providing a shelter for others to abuse drugs", Beijing police said at the time. When asked about Jaycee's time in prison, Chan said he felt "ashamed" and "shocked" and that he was now more focussed on his son. "I'm more concentrating on him now, used to be just, 'you are a grown man.' But now I find out, he's still a boy," Chan said. (source: BBC news) From rhalperi at smu.edu Thu May 7 16:53:40 2015 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Thu, 7 May 2015 16:53:40 -0500 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news---worldwide Message-ID: May 7 CHINA: Kiwi's China drug trial to begin A young New Zealander facing drugs charges and a possible death penalty goes on trial today in China. Peter Gardner, 25, has been detained in China accused of trying to smuggle 40kg of methamphetamine out of the country. A trial for Gardner, a dual citizen of New Zealand and Australia, was set to be begin today. It was expected to last no longer than 2 days. Gardner's former boss Michael Kulakovski, earlier told The New Zealand Herald he was surprised to hear of the charges. "He's a young kid who's got so much ahead of him, so it's shame if he gets convicted." Gardner was a "great guy," he added. The 25-year-old was expected to plead not guilty in a case that 3 judges will hear in a small Guangzhou courtroom, News Corporation reported. "If he is convicted he will have 10 days to launch an appeal," Chen Yong, partner of Guangzhou Baijian Law Firm told News Corp Australia. (source: New Zealand Herald) INDONESIA: Indonesian court postpones appeal of Frenchman on death row An Indonesian court Thursday postponed the start of an appeal by a Frenchman on death row to next week, indicating the country's slow-moving justice system could delay his execution for some time yet. Serge Atlaoui, 51, had been due to face the firing squad with 7 other foreign drug convicts last week but was removed from the list after authorities agreed to let an outstanding legal appeal run its course. It was due to start at the Jakarta State Administrative Court on Thursday, however judge Ujang Abdullah adjourned the case to next Wednesday after Atlaoui's lawyer failed to attend as she was ill. In the appeal, Atlaoui, a welder, is challenging President Joko Widodo's decision to reject his request for clemency, claiming the Indonesian leader did not properly consider his case. A plea for presidential clemency is typically a death row convict's final chance to avoid the firing squad. The latest legal bid is widely expected to fail -- an appeal filed in the same court by 2 Australian traffickers was rejected, and the pair were among those put to death last week. However the Australians' appeal took weeks to resolve due to repeated delays. Following Thursday's adjournment, a French diplomatic source told AFP: "The Indonesian legal process is following its usual course and that could take some time." France stepped up pressure on Indonesia in recent weeks to abandon plans to put Atlaoui to death, with President Francois Hollande warning of "consequences" if the execution goes ahead. Atlaoui was arrested in a 2005 raid on a secret drug laboratory outside Jakarta. He has maintained his innocence, claiming that he was installing machinery in what he thought was an acrylics plant. However, police say he was a "chemist" in the drugs factory. Indonesia's execution last week of 7 foreign drug convicts -- 2 from Australia, 1 from Brazil, and 4 Nigerians -- sparked a firestorm of international anger, with Canberra recalling its ambassador from Jakarta. But Indonesia stayed the execution of Filipina Mary Jane Veloso, who was supposed to face the firing squad with them, after the woman who allegedly recruited and duped her into carrying a suitcase hiding heroin turned herself in to authorities. British grandmother Lindsay Sandiford, 58, is also on death row in Indonesia and said last week she feared her execution could be imminent and had started writing goodbye letters to family. Widodo has insisted he will not change course on the death penalty, as Indonesia faces an emergency due to rising narcotics use. (source: ionteraksyon.com) *************** Indonesia says tourism not hit by campaign over death sentences The number of Australian visitors to Indonesia rose in March and the island nation's tourism industry has seen no impact from a Boycott Bali protest over death sentences passed on two Australian drug traffickers, a government official said. Nia Niscaya, director of international tourism promotion at the Minister of Tourism, said however that figures for April, the month when the executions of a total of 8 drug traffickers were actually carried out, were not yet available. Death penalty opponents launched the Boycott Bali protests after the traffickers, arrested in Bali, were condemned. Visitors from Australia, with has deep commercial and political ties with its neighbour, rose 6.6 % to 84,400 in March, according to data from Indonesia's tourism ministry. This increase showed the boycott had had no impact on Indonesia's tourism sector, Niscaya told Reuters. Figures for April were not yet available, she said. Australia is Indonesia's 3rd biggest source market for foreign visitors, behind Singapore and Malaysia. Tourism represents a small, but growing part of Indonesia's economy, generating receipts of about $9.85 billion a year, while total gross domestic product was $868.3 billion in 2013, according to World Bank data. TOURIST VISAS Indonesia aims to attract 20 million tourists annually within 5 years, which would be roughly double 2014's total of 9.44 million, Niscaya said. The country's target for 2015 is 12 million visitors, which would be a 27 % annual increase, steeper than 2014's rise of 7.2 %. As part of this push, the country will extend visa-free travel to another 30 countries by the end of May, up from 15 at present, Niscaya said. These will include states from Europe, the Middle East and Asia, she said, predicting this would help attract an extra 500,000 visitors annually. Niscaya said the government had raised its annual tourism marketing budget to 1.3 trillion rupiahs, from 300 billion rupiahs previously, to help achieve its aims, while additional flight routes from the likes of Dubai-based airline Emirates would also swell visitor numbers. "Not only from the Middle East but all over the world because Dubai is a hub," said Niscaya. About 2.3 million tourists visited Indonesia in the 1st quarter of 2015, up 3.5 % year-on-year, ministry data showed. (source: Reuters) ****************** They asked for mercy, but there was none I can never understand why they had to be shot to death especially after they had repented and shown remorse Like so many around the world, I was hoping Indonesian President Joko Widodo would pardon the 8 condemned at the last minute. They asked for mercy, but there was none. I can try to understand their anguish but I can never understand why they had to be shot to death especially after they had repented and shown remorse. At that moment my wife, Kim, happened to be reading an article by Wang Mingdao. She showed it to me. Then I understood why Jokowi could show no mercy. But they did not die in vain. All 8 refused the blindfolds. They stared death in the eye and sang hymns and praises to their God till they were cut down by the cruel burst of gunfire. Indonesia, as in many countries like Malaysia and Singapore, imposes the mandatory death penalty for drug-related offenses even though there is no empirical evidence correlating the death penalty to crime reduction. This barbaric law has no place in our society, any society. There is absolutely no justification. Given a chance, criminals can be reformed and even transformed as in this case of these 8. The sane thing to do is to give them a second shot at life but the law as it stands is impotent to do this. This is where grace steps in. Amazing Grace. Immediately following their executions, the families of Australians Myuran and Andrew said in a statement: "In the 10 years since they were arrested, they did all they could to make amends, helping many others. They asked for mercy, but there was none." Reading the article "The Relevance of the Atonement" by Wang Mingdao (1900 - 1991), it became clear to me why the Indonesian law could show no mercy to the 8 even though there is a provision for presidential clemency. They had asked for mercy, but there was none. Wang, who was among the pioneering Christian leaders in China like Dr John Sung and Watchman Nee, was no stranger to suffering. Both he and his wife were repeatedly tortured in prison and labor camps for 22 years simply on account of their beliefs. Mrs Wang was released only in 1973, blind in one eye, and Wang in the end of 1979, old, toothless, and nearly blind and deaf. Wang cited the case of a murderer who repented and became a Christian and who had been "completely reformed," yet was eventually executed. He too had asked for mercy, but there was none. He wrote: "As we talked about this matter (with fellow Christians) I sat on my chair and thought ...Was God's law even more severe than man's? Was God not holier than man? And did not God hate sin more than man did? If that was so, was it not perplexing that one who had repented of his sin could be forgiven by God but not forgiven by man?" He said, "I continued to ponder this question when suddenly an important truth lit up my heart like a flash of lightning." He continued: "The explanation was clear. God could forgive this man, greatly though he had sinned, because where God was concerned there was a Savior. That Savior had already accepted punishment and died in his place. Yet where the laws of the land were concerned there was no arrangement (indeed there could not be) for a savior to die in his place. So although he had shown contrition and had repented, it was till necessary for him to undergo the punishment ordained by the law." Those who were executed asked for mercy, but there was none under the law of the land. However, when they asked for grace, it made the difference. A crowd of relatives and local Christians had kept a candlelight vigil outside and someone recited part of Psalm 23 - The Lord is my Shepherd - in Indonesian, "Sekalipun aku berjalan melalui lembah bayang bayang maut, aku tidak takut bahaya,kerana Engkaulah yang menyertai aku." (Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil for you are with me). The 8 then walked to their death singing "Amazing Grace." (source: Commentary; Bob Teoh is a freelance journalist in Malaysia and a former prison volunteer and missionary. He was formerly the secretary general of the Jakarta-based Confederation of Asean Journalists----rappler.com) ***************** Antony De Malmanche had no translator or lawyer, drug trial told A Bali drug squad officer has told the trial of an accused Kiwi drug mule he didn't seek a translator or lawyer for the accused man when he was first interrogated. Antony De Malmanche was intercepted at Bali's international airport in December carrying 1.7kg of methamphetamine and he could face the death penalty. He argues he was the victim of an online scam and didn't know the drugs were in his backpack. Bali drug squad officer I Made Bayu told his trial on Thursday that de Malmanche was not questioned in the presence of a lawyer and was not offered one. A fellow officer acted as a translator. "Because I can't speak English, I asked my friend Ngurah Wirya to be the interpreter," he said. The officer believed there was no need to fingerprint the drugs after de Malmanche said the backpack was his. "The defendant had admitted that the bag was his," he said. Outside court, de Malmanche's lawyer, Chris Harno, slammed the investigators' actions. "If the fingerprinting was done, I believe you would find (the drugs) didn't belong to Antony," he said. The trial continues next week. (source: stuff.co.nz) *************** Every Mary Jane----Mary Jane is alive, but that fact pales against the bruised dignity of a public shaken out of its imagined narrative. The heroine is a harridan. The victim is a shrew. Off with their heads. We know this story. She was born 30 years ago in a village called Caudillo to a contractual laborer and his wife. She dropped out of high school after her 1st year, was married at 17, had 2 children, was estranged from her husband, and left for Dubai to work as a domestic helper, only to return 10 months later because "someone want to rape me." We know that she began looking for work overseas a year later, had gone back and forth from Manila to Nueva Ecija to meet with a placement agency. We know she was unsuccessful, until she was offered a job in Malaysia by a neighbor named Cristina. We know all about Maria Cristina Sergio, the woman "all the village knew," the one who flew to Malaysia every week and came home with her luggage full of shampoo and lotion and perfume. We are told that the young mother of 2 was 25 when she left Cabanatuan, that she thought "it was a blessing" when she packed her 2 shirts and 2 pairs of pants. We know she flew to Malaysia with Cristina and was told that promised employment was no longer available. She was taken on a shopping spree instead, was given a new suitcase when her clothes didn't fit into her backpack, and was told that a domestic position had opened in Indonesia. The particulars of what happened in the Indonesian airport one Sunday in 2010 are now part of our collective memory - the questioning in the terminal, the request for inspection, the emptied suitcase passing through the machine, twice, thrice, the blade cutting through the lining, the discovery of the black plastic bag with the brown powder wrapped in aluminum foil. We know how it ended. The sentence was death, and of the 9 who were meant to die at Indonesia's Execution Island in the early hours of April 29, she was 3rd in line. The battle for Mary Jane It took 5 years on death row before saving Mary Jane Veloso became a national moral imperative. The interviews went viral. The government took action. The hashtag trended. The pressure surged. Public involvement pushed political will. Join the rally, sign the petition, write the letter, spread the word, demand answers, move, pray, fax, protest, send, tweet, hurry, now, today. Have mercy, wrote the boxer in Las Vegas. Please, said the actress in Manila. Save the young mother, said the nation. Save the poor, uneducated, innocent daughter of a weeping mother. For Neal Cruz she was the girl with the "innocent face" that "will break your heart." Her behavior, said Francisco Tatad, "was nothing less than a complete surrender to the "Divine Will." She was "a victim many times over," said Beth Angsioco, and there is "no reason to not believe this poor, unschooled, desperate mother who only wanted to do good for her sons." The refrain played over the airwaves and across thousands of miles. In the month before Mary Jane Veloso was sentenced to stand before a firing squad, the world listened as Filipinos rallied behind the single cause of her survival. Progressive party Bayan Muna condemned the national government's alleged inaction, and asked the Indonesian government for time. "Everything," they said, "should be done to prove her innocence first, because it would be terribly wrong to execute an innocent person." Of saints and heroines We know their story. She is a 43-year-old mother of 4. She is a 14-year-old teenager who claimed to be 28. The death sentence might be a noose around a neck, or a firing squad in a desert, for crimes that may or may not have been murder or double murder. The particulars of Flor Contemplacion and Sarah Balabagan's stories are uncertain. Both were sentenced to death for murder, Contemplacion was hanged, Balabagan was reprieved. Their lives were reenacted in cinema, and while television episodes and newspaper articles continue to revisit their stories, the stories have evolved and some facts remain in dispute. What is true is that their stories fired the national imagination, building into massive campaigns and drawing support from the international community. In the last 2 decades, their names have evolved into metaphors for victimization, the extremity of their suffering illuminating the dangers of migrant work and the desperate condition of the very poor. To tell their stories is to tell Mary Jane's, in an arc that is beginning to prove effective. She is poor. She is female. She was forced, by virtue of birth and education and a failure of governance, to find work far away from the safety of country and family, and was sentenced to death for a crime she did not commit. Suppose we tell Mary Jane's story another way. Suppose she were brassy-haired and sharp-tongued, with fading red lipstick and chipped stiletto heels. Suppose she had abandoned her brood of children. Suppose there were rumors of whoring and thieving. Suppose she didn't pray. Suppose she knew about the 2.6 kilograms of heroin in the suitcase she rolled down Indonesian immigration. Suppose it is Cristina who is the victim and whose narrative proves true. Suppose Mary Jane was willing to risk her freedom for the few thousand dollars she was promised. Suppose, just suppose, that Mary Jane Veloso is guilty. The 'drug mules' In 2008, Ramon Credo, 42 and Sally Villanueva, 33 and Elizabeth Batain, 38, were sentenced to death for smuggling heroin into China. The execution date came 3 years later. There seemed, at the time, to be a public consensus that the 3 may have been guilty of smuggling. A 2011 blog entry by veteran journalist Ellen Tordesillas described a man-on-the-street survey shot by television show TV Patrol, where interviewees were asked whether the 3 deserved execution. Eighty percent answered in the affirmative. Filipino diplomats were said to have described the 3 convicts as drug mules who were "recruited by transnational drug syndicates to act as couriers." CNN quoted the unnamed diplomats as saying the couriers were promised fees ranging from a few hundred to several thousand dollars. "There is a stark difference between the cases of Contemplacion and Balabagan vis-a-vis the drug mules in China," wrote then law professor and University of the Philippines College of Law dean Raul Pangalangan in an Inquirer column. "For Contemplacion, accused of murder, we argued that she made her first confession without the benefit of counsel. For Sarah, a rape victim, we argued self-defense. In none of our pleas to China do we even plead the innocence of the convicted Filipinos." There were protests, but the campaign did not carry the same weight as the crusade to save Mary Jane, a movement that cut across age, class and political ideology. Ramon Credo, Sally Ordinario-Villanueva, and Elizabeth Batain were executed through lethal injection on March 30, 2011. "3 Filipino drug mules executed in China," read the Philippine Daily Inquirer headline. "3 Filipino drug couriers executed in China," read ABS-CBN News. There is a double standard in place here, and it is a dangerous one. Headlines for Mary Jane's case do not refer to her as a drug mule or a smuggler. She is called by her name, or as the "Pinay on death row" or "OFW on death row." There is yet to be a local headline that reads, "Drug mule execution delayed." Certainly no local headline read "Filipino murderer executed" after Flor Contemplacion was hanged. Let her hang For a moment - a short moment - Filipinos stood for Mary Jane, along with Indonesian human rights groups and world leaders and an international community aware that any country with the death penalty threatens all humanity. On May 1, Celia Veloso, Mary Jane's mother publicly accused the President and his government of failing to protect her daughter. The response was immediate. The administration defended its contributions. The left listed gaps in assistance. The Internet surged with the enraged, demanding blood over the family's ingratitude. We should have let her die, they said. She should have been allowed to hang, they said. Her mother should hang with her, they said. Our identity is marked by many things: peaceful revolution, free speech, gender equality, even our apparent and notorious sensitivity to disparaging jokes made on Desperate Housewives. Yet given the many and varied ways we have chosen to define ourselves as a country, this is one of the most important: this nation will not kill. The death penalty is no longer in force in the Philippines. We have, as a nation, decided that the execution of any citizen is an act so cruel and so unusual that it can never be justified against even the most guilty. We call the premeditated killing of any man murder, regardless of whether that man is a pedophile, a mass murderer, or a political enemy. We are aware of the risk of innocent deaths and corrupted judiciaries. We know that the fear of capital punishment has never been an effective deterrent for crime. In the end, our opposition to capital punishment is not so much about who the criminals are, but who we are. It took only minutes for the crusade for Mary Jane to turn into a public lynching. Mary Jane is alive, but that fact pales against the bruised dignity of a public shaken out of its imagined narrative. The heroine is a harridan. The victim is a shrew. Off with their heads. We know this story too. Call in the cavalry Even as we demand better from the government, the continuing saga of Mary Jane Veloso demonstrates just how conditional our own convictions are. We wax eloquent over the people we believe innocent, the inmates we consider victims, the narratives that appeal to our emotions, forgetting, perhaps, that the fact of being sentenced to death is a victimization in itself. It should be that all that it takes for us to launch a cavalry is the prospect of a woman forced to stand before a medieval firing squad, waiting for a bullet to stop her heart. There are 92 Filipinos around the world on death row today. Some of them may be guilty, and some of them might be ungrateful, but the fact they are outside the country under laws that are not our own does not excuse us from the obligation of protest. We've seen what public sentiment can do. The campaign is not just to free our own people, it is to make sure capital punishment is never made into law again, and to work for an end to the death penalty elsewhere. If we continue to choose who to defend, which cases to pursue, whose families to pity, and for which deaths we need to hold the government accountable, people will die, and they will die on our watch. We may still fail, as Australia and Brazil and Ghana failed on April 29, but there may be one more dead man who will live because we tried. We know this story. (source: rappler.com) ************************* Sir Richard Branson responds to smuggler on death row Sir Richard Branson has responded to an appeal by a British drugs smuggler on death row in Indonesia. Lindsay Sandiford, 58, from Cheltenham, who is facing death by firing squad, wrote to Sir Richard after he spoke out against recent executions. She asked him to "help promote the fundraising effort my supporters have begun to pay for a final appeal against the death penalty". Sir Richard said he was following Ms Sandiford's case closely. "I strongly believe that the death penalty is a cruel and inhumane punishment, and every execution is one execution too many," the Virgin Group founder said. "We are following Lindsay Sandiford's and other cases closely and fully support efforts that are currently underway to aid her appeal." 'Executed at any time' Ms Sandiford has been in jail since 2012 after arriving in Bali from Thailand carrying drugs with a street value of 1.6m pounds. Last week, she paid tribute on her Facebook account to Myuran Sukumaran and her "good friend" Andrew Chan, 2 of the 8 prisoners who were shot dead last month. Ms Sandiford, who is originally from Redcar in Teesside, said she could be "executed at any time" as she did not have "any proper legal representation" during her trial. She appealed to Sir Richard to use his "influence and position to speak out" on behalf of people on death row. Another appeal against Ms Sandiford's conviction due to be put before the Indonesian Supreme Court was being prepared, her lawyer has said. A campaign to raise funds for her appeal has raised just over 16,200 New Zealand dollars (7,975 pounds). (source: BBC news) *************************** Protest During U.N. High-Level Meeting to Condemn Executions in Indonesia For Drug Offenses----NY Action Outside U.N. To Protest Death Penalty in the Recent Executions in Indonesia For Drug Offenses On May 7, the United Nations (U.N.) will hold a High-Level Meeting to discuss international drug policy, in preparation for a United Nations General Assembly Special Session on drugs in 2016. The Special Session will be the largest international drug policy event in decades, the 1st of its kind since 1998. On May 7, U.N. ambassadors, Ministers, and high level delegates from around the world will meet at the U.N. in NY to discuss achievements and challenges in international drug policy. In recent years, a growing number of countries are pushing for an open debate to discuss alternatives beyond punitive approaches. This movement was first lead by former Heads of State, such as Ruth Dreifuss of Switzerland, who will be speaking at Thursday's event, and is now being continued by current Presidents, especially in Latin America. "The veneer of consensus that for so long sustained the failed global drug war and insulated it from critical examination is now broken," said Ethan Nadelmann, executive director of the Drug Policy Alliance. "The stage is being set for a new global drug control paradigm for the 21st century better grounded in science, health and human rights." On the same day, groups will gather outside the U.N. to protest Indonesia's execution last week of 8 people for drug offenses. Despite repeated pleas for mercy from family members, citizens, human rights organizations, the U.N., and governments around the world, Indonesia proceeded with the executions. U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki Moon has said that the U.N. opposes the use of the death penalty for drug related crimes, however, over 30 countries around the world continue to use capital punishment for drug offenses, executing thousands of people a year. "The recent executions in Indonesia of people charged with non-violent drug crimes are abhorrent," said Mike Selick, Policy and Participant Action Coordinator at New York Harm Reduction Educators. "As the United Nations holds a High-Level Thematic Debate on drugs, we stand united with organizations around the world to demand action to end the use of the death penalty for non-violent drug offenses." The groups, including VOCAL-NY, NYHRE, Drug Policy Alliance and others are gathering to protest the use of the death penalty for drug offenses and will gather at the U.N. entrance on the corner of 1st Avenue and 47th Street at 1:30 pm on Thursday, May 7. Earlier this week, a broad coalition of over 100 human rights and drug policy organizations released an open letter calling for a new approach to drug policy that emphasizes human rights over punitive policies and criminalization. It also calls for flexibility for countries to pursue new policies, including legalization, as well as eventual revision of the U.N. drug control treaties. The signatories include the American Civil Liberties Union, Human Rights Watch, Global Exchange, Drug Policy Alliance and the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights, as well as a number of organizations dedicated to health policy and AIDS services. "Existing US and global drug control policies that heavily emphasize criminalization of drug use, possession, production and distribution are inconsistent with international human rights standards and have contributed to serious human rights violations," the statement reads. The groups "call for a significant shift in global drug policy in line with international human rights standards, and that prioritizes health, including access to medicines, security, and development." (source: drugpolicy.org) BANGLADESH: Youth to hang for abduction, murder of 7-year-old boy A Dhaka court has sent 27-year-old Md Jahirul Islam to the gallows for the abduction and murder of a 7-year-old Sifat Ali Tonmoy in Mirpur 3 years ago. Dhaka's Women and Children Repression Prevention Tribunal Judge Tanjina Islam gave the order on Thursday with the convict on the dock. Along with the death penalty, Islam was also fined Tk 100,000. According to case details, Tonmoy was kidnapped on Mar 26, 2012 when playing at the field of Darus Salam Government Primary School in Mirpur. His father Hazrat Ali filed an abduction case with Mirpur police later in the day. Later, Tk 800,000 was demanded as ransom over phone. Detective Police traced the call and arrested Islam, a second-floor tenant of Ali on the next day. Islam admitted that he had strangled Tonmoy since he was not paid the ransom. Based on his confession, the body was recovered wrapped in a bag from inside the house. The judge heard 17 testimonies before giving the verdict. (source: bdnews24.com) AUSTRALIA: Bali 9: Most Australians oppose recall of ambassador to Indonesia over executions Most Australians oppose the recall of the nation's ambassador to Indonesia in response to the executions of Myuran Sukumaran and Andrew Chan, a new poll has found. But 1/3 of those surveyed would support a longer suspension of normal diplomatic relations with Indonesia. A poll of 1200 people conducted for the Lowy Institute for International Policy suggest Australians would prefer a restrained response to the executions, and are concerned about damaging Australia's relationship with its northern neighbour. "Despite strong opposition to the death penalty for drug trafficking, it seems that Australians are cautious about taking strong actions against Indonesia in response to the executions," Lowy Institute executive director Michael Fullilove said. In the poll taken between May 1 and May 3, only 42 % of respondents said Australia should recall its ambassador. Prime Minister Tony Abbott announced the withdrawal of the ambassador on April 29. Only 28 % of respondents supported suspending Australian aid projects, while 27 % supported suspending military and law enforcement cooperation and only 24 % approved of applying trade sanctions. The option which attracted the most support was making private diplomatic protests, which was supported by 59 % of respondents. When presented with a range of possible time periods and asked for how long Australia should suspend normal diplomatic relations with Indonesia, the shortest option, of 1 to 4 months received the most support, at 51 % while 34 % of respondents supported a longer suspension. The poll suggests the executions will have little impact on Australians' travel plans or buying habits. When asked whether the executions would make them more or less likely to travel to Indonesia or buy Indonesian products, 63 % and 71 % respectively said it would make no difference. When asked on the weekend after the executions whether the death penalty should be used as a penalty for drug trafficking, 71 % said it should not. A slight majority (51 %) said Australia should play an active role in pushing for the global abolition of the death penalty, while 45 % said Australia should not play such a role. (source: Sydney Morning Herald) ******************** Executed Australian's mother writes emotional letter to Indonesian leader----'Think for a second, one of your children is tied to post, and men are lined up in front of them and the fear he would have felt, and then your child is shot through the heart' The mother of an Australian executed in Indonesia has written a heartrending open letter to the country's president, accusing him of "humiliating" the drug trafficker's family and ignoring repeated pleas for mercy. Myuran Sukumaran, 34, was executed by firing squad with another Australian, Andrew Chan, and 5 other foreign drug convicts last week, sparking a storm of international condemnation. Australia withdrew its ambassador to Jakarta in protest at what it called the "cruel and unnecessary" executions of the pair, who were ringleaders in a plot to smuggle heroin out of Indonesia. Despite the global outrage, President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo has stayed firm in his support for the death penalty, insisting that Indonesia is facing an emergency due to rising narcotics use. In an open letter addressed to "Dr Mr President, Leader of Indonesia and father of three children", Sukumaran's mother Raji described her son as "reformed" and "full of life, love and passion", adding he had helped many other prisoners in their rehabilitation. "I just asked you not to order his death but instead you ignored me and many others," she wrote. "I asked to meet you, to speak to you but once again you could not even have the courage to face our requests to communicate with you." She said that in recent months she had watched Jokowi "openly discussing the way in which he would die, parading and humiliating our family". "I want to ask you to put your family in my situation," she continued. "Think for a second, one of your children is tied to post, and men are lined up in front of them and the fear he would have felt, and then your child is shot through the heart," she added. Raji Sukumaran finished the letter saying she would pray "for the many other men and women whose lives are in your hands, especially those on death row. "I pray that you will have the courage to look beyond the politics for they too have families who love them despite their mistakes." The bodies of Sukumaran and Chan were sent home to Australia at the weekend, and are expected to be buried soon. While the executions have cast a shadow over the often tense relationship between Jakarta and Canberra, Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott has said he is confident ties will be restored. (source: rappler.com) From rhalperi at smu.edu Fri May 8 09:03:43 2015 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Fri, 8 May 2015 09:03:43 -0500 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, DEL., LA. KY., ARIZ., CALIF., USA Message-ID: May 8 TEXAS: The Lake Murders: Women's misgivings compelled by sisterhood Women who are involved as victims of the brutal torture slayings of 3 teenagers at a lakeside park say men will never understand. Come back when you are sister, mother, daughter, grand daughter, or neice, they say. It's a woman to woman thing. The fact that per capita more Texans are locked up on any given day than any other nation in the world, and with more than 500 executions since 1980 leads the list of places that execute capital criminals for their ill deeds, fails to impress them. You see, if all that led to their safety and security, they would be satisfied. The truth is, they seriously believe that 3 of the real killers of Jill Montgomery, Raylene Rice, and Kenneth Franks are still living free in neighborhoods both in and near this central Texas city. 2 happenings occurred in rapid succession last week in this complex case that has raised doubts for more than 30 years. Both are signs that the public - including cops and prosecutors - never really bought in to the theories about who did it and why that were sold by the prosecutors and bought by juries in trials held in multiple changed venues. The only living person convicted for the torture slayings of 2 young women and a boy, all in their teens, is demanding that his appeals attorney take a more aggressive stance in proving that he was never guilty of the crime for which he entered a plea for the simple reason that his trial attorneys and prosecutors promised him he would receive a short sentence and serve his time at a federal prison. If he did not, he and the attorney handling his appeals maintain, he would have surely died with an executioner's needle in his arm. Both his lawyers, and the cops and prosecutors said so. He believed them. The Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles notified Walter Reaves and the Innocence Project of Texas that their staff will conduct an investigation of his allegations of innocence laid in a clemency petition he wrote in order to make a recommendation to Governor Greg Abbott. And after 16 years of waiting, Anthony Melendez finally acknowledged to his lawyer that in essence he realizes DNA evidence that could exonerate him is held hostage by a testing firm that refuses to turn specimen over to another firm because it is "work product," and the simple fact that a New York journalist who has written a book under contract with Simon & Schuster and paid for the testing is acting as a legal assistant to Reaves, subject to attorney-client privilege. Former "New Yorker" staff writer and best-selling author Frederic Dannen ("Hit Men," Random House) is living in Mexico and claims he has not released his book-length work on the Lake Murders case to Simon & Schuster because of his involvement with the legal case. Furthermore, abundant evidence exists that Anthony Melendez was not present at the scene of the crime on the day it occurred. His boss told lead investigator Truman Simons and the District Attorney, Vic Feazell, that he and Melendez were painting apartments a hundred miles distant in the city of Bryan on the Tuesday in August, 1982, when the killings took place. He furnished payroll records to corroborate his statement, records which clearly showed Melendez worked from Monday until Friday and lived in a motel there before returning to Waco for the weekend. The lawyer whose voice is captured on the tapes talking about an "air tight" alibi, says so. Melendez wrote Reaves demanding that 1) he give statements to the media; 2) that he be allowed to talk to media; 3) that he be informed of the whereabouts of DNA samples to be tested; 4) that he be informed if the DNA testing has been funded. Most of all, he wants to know why the samples that could exonerate him have not been tested after a decade and a half. In a letter to State Senator Rodney Ellis, he says after serving time for three decades, and after being promised he would do less than 10 years in a federal facility, "I have felt so lost and helpless; I have a group of supporters, however, my attorney once again refuses to answer their questions or do anything to help me." In a recent letter, Reaves wrote Melendez to say if he can find another attorney he thinks can do a better job, to go ahead and hire him. In an interview held long ago in 1992 in a judge's chambers on the eve of a retrial of Mohammed Muneer Deeb, who was convicted of the murder for hire of Jill Montgomery, a teenaged girl whom Simons believed was actually mistaken for another young woman Deeb allegedly wanted dead, Lt. Truman Simons protested that other Waco cops would doubt his veracity, no matter what he said. Deeb was acquitted after the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals held that testimony offered to that effect was hearsay of a jailhouse snitch who quoted yet another jailhouse snitch not present in the courtroom. Simons worked for Vic Feazell as a special investigator after he quit his job as a Sergeant on the Waco police force and promised the Sheriff he could clear the crimes in less than a week if he was hired as an entry level jailer. It was not a happy day for him as the lawyers hammered out where the retrial would take place. What with suppression of the hearsay testimony, the verdict of acquittal was a foregone conclusion, the upcoming trial a mere formality. Feazell faced federal prosecution under the RICO statutes for accepting bribes to trade with members of the defense bar to share in their legal fees in exchange for dropping cases or pleading offenses down to misdemeanors. After his acquittal, he won a judgment against a Dallas television station for $40 million in punitive damages and $18 million in actual damages, later settled out of court for a reportedly much smaller amount. In a bizarre twist, the U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Texas offered famed Dallas criminal defense lawyer Billy Ravkind a chance to see his client Dick Kettler plead guilty to a lesser charge carrying a maximum sentence of 3 years and a $5,000 fine in a tax dispute in exchange for his testimony against Feazell and his wife Bernadette about fee sharing and bribery "to influence the disposition of criminal cases in McLennan County, Texas, any crimes arising out of that conspiracy and any tax violation except as agreed above for the years 1981 through 1984." In an audiofile obtained from a confidential source of a taped meeting between the DA, Melendez' trial lawyer Jim Barlow, Truman Simons, and Melendez, the quid pro quo worked out for a guilty plea to capital murder is clearly to be heard. In exchange for a sentence of 10 years or less to be served in a federal correctional facility, Melendez is to testify against David Wayne Spence, who was later executed for 2 of the killings. He allegedly completely severed Ms. Montgomery's nipple from her breast with his teeth. Critics say there is clear-cut and abundant evidence that someone else committed the murders, but witnesses who saw the youngsters leave with other actors are afraid to come forward, and exculpatory evidence has been mishandled, destroyed, or withheld, according to the clemency petition. The new Michael Morton law that took effect on January 1, 2014, has a statue of limitations that tolls on the 25th anniversary of the convictions. There is no statute of limitations on the crime of murder. (source: radiolegendary.com) DELAWARE: Delaware Governor Supports Repeal of Death Penalty Democratic Gov. Jack Markell has come out in support of an effort to repeal Delaware's death penalty. Markell said Thursday that if a bill to abolish capital punishment reaches his desk, he would sign it. In recent years, Markell has refused to say where he stands on the issue. But Markell said the recent acknowledgment by the FBI that examiners in its microscopic hair comparison unit gave flawed testimony in more than 250 criminal cases, including death penalty cases, before 2000, helped him reach a decision. Legislation to abolish the state's death penalty cleared the state Senate last month on an 11-9 vote last month but faces an uphill battle in the House, where it will be heard in committee next week. Delaware currently has 15 inmates on death row. (source: Associated Press) LOUISIANA: Mother of convicted murderer pleads for son's life during death penalty sentencing The mother of convicted murderer Lee Turner Jr. cried as she asked jurors to spare her son's life in the penalty phase of his double murder trial. The same jury convicted Turner, 25 of double murder in the deaths of Edward Gurtner, 43, and Randy Chaney, 54, at the CarQuest Auto Parts on Airline Highway in 2011. "I'm a mother that's helpless," said Melissa Moss, Turner's mother. "All I can do is get him a bible and tell him to read it." Turner's defense attorneys have said this case was never about guilt or innocence, but rather saving their client from the death penalty. On the stand Turner's mother answered a number of questions pertaining to her parenting and whether that might have had any affect on Turner as he developed. "You want to put my life on trial," she told defense attorney Margaret Lagatutta during questioning. "Putting me on trial is not going to help my son, but if that is what you want to do, then we can do this." Moss sobbed loudly during most of her testimony, and at one point the judge handling the case asked for a brief recess so she could collect herself. Moss apologized to the victim's family from the witness stand and testified that she loves her son and wants to see his life saved. "I love my kids. I will fight for every last kid, and I will fight for them until the day I die," Moss testified. "I cannot let them kill my baby. I'm here because I am begging that they don't kill my child." Defense attorneys also called other family members including Turner's grandmother who also apologized for her grandson's actions and told him that she loved him. Late Thursday the defense called on an expert witness to testify to Turner's mental state and how his upbringing could have influenced things. The prosecution team plans to call its own expert witness to testify to Turner's mental state. Wednesday's testimony was also from several of Turner's family members, all describing him as someone they would never imagine in this situation. Turner's half brother, Demarcus Moss, told jurors after the shooting, his family actually thought he had committed the crime, not Turner. Kedron Powell, Turner's uncle, testified he missed a call from his nephew a few days before the murders, and now looking back, he says he feels maybe Turner was reaching out for help. "If I had answered, none of us would be here. I think it's my fault," said Powell to the jurors. Emphasis was placed on how Turner grew up - at times going hungry and growing up in different homes with different men his mother was dating. Both sides hope to have a verdict by the end of this week. District Court Judge Richard Anderson is presiding over the case. Once all of the witnesses are heard the judge will turn the penalty phase over to the jury and they will decide if Lee Turner should get a life sentence or the death penalty. A death sentence must be unanimous. (source: WAFB news) KENTUCKY: Top prosecutor balks at judge's decision to drop death penalty for 2 charged in Lexington slaying Co-defendants in an upcoming robbery-murder trial will not face the possibility of execution after Fayette Circuit Judge Pamela Goodwine granted a defense motion to remove the death penalty from the jury's sentencing options. Trustin B. Jones and Robert Guernsey, scheduled to go on trial June 1, had faced the possibility of execution if convicted in the 2013 shooting death of Derek Pelphrey, 23. On Tuesday, Goodwine, who has expressed opposition to the death penalty in court, granted a defense request to exclude death from consideration for Jones, 21, and Guernsey, 34. The ruling was sought by Kim Green, an assistant public advocate who represents Jones. Guernsey's attorneys joined Green to seek the exclusion for their clients. Fayette County Commonwealth's Attorney Ray Larson said Wednesday that he disagreed with Goodwine's decision "because I think she has put herself, a judge, in the position of a jury. Juries are supposed to be the bodies that determine the appropriate punishment for an aggravated murder." Larson said his assistant prosecutors were investigating legal options in response to the judge's order. Last year, Goodwine rejected another defense motion that the death penalty was unconstitutional. Earlier this year, Goodwine rejected the argument that Guernsey should not face the death penalty because he wasn't the shooter. When execution is excluded, a jury that convicts on a murder charge would have sentencing options of 20 to 50 years in prison, life in prison, or life without the possibility of parole for 25 years. During a hearing last week, Goodwine said she had taken execution off the table - as state law allows - in only one other case "because I just did not believe the facts of the case would even get to the point where the jury would even consider" the death penalty. The jury in that case acquitted the defendant, Goodwine said. In January, Goodwine said in open court, "I think the death penalty should not be a penalty, ever." "If I had my druthers, there would be no death penalty in Kentucky," she said, but "I will do what the law requires me to do." Pelphrey, a student at Bluegrass Community and Technical College, apparently was targeted because he had been in communication with Guernsey, who thought Pelphrey carried a large amount of money. Pelphrey was shot to death as he sat in his car on Ridgepoint Road near Spangler Drive, not far from Tates Creek and Wilson Downing roads. Jones admitted to police that he was the shooter and that his "sole purpose in going there that night was to rob" Pelphrey, whom he didn't know and hadn't met, Assistant Commonwealth's Attorney Andrea Williams said during last week's hearing. Jones "got all his information from Robert Guernsey and sat outside of BCTC and waited for Derek Pelphrey to come out of class. He got the information about the car that Derek Pelphrey drove from Robert Guernsey and followed that car." Guernsey wanted Jones to rob Pelphrey because Guernsey needed money for a car payment, Williams said. A 3rd co-defendant, Desmond Jones, 24, a cousin of Trustin Jones, pleaded guilty in April to criminal facilitation to 1st-degree robbery. A murder charge against him was dismissed. His recommended sentence was 5 years in prison. Before he is sentenced June 26, Desmond Jones must testify at the trial of Guernsey and Trustin Jones. Fayette County juries aren't prone to recommending the death penalty, Goodwine said last week. "I've obviously tried heinous, heinous crimes with totally innocent victims - rapes, murders, sodomies - and they don't see fit even in those cases to impose the death penalty," Goodwine said. The most recent example was April in the trial of Joel Searcy, who was charged with murder in the 2013 death of Donald "Leroy" Cook, 82, of Lexington. Police said Searcy assaulted Cook, who later died, and tried to steal Cook's truck. Had he been convicted of murder, Searcy might have faced the death penalty. But after a 3-week trial before Fayette Circuit Judge Thomas Clark, the jury found Searcy guilty of 2nd-degree manslaughter and 1st-degree robbery. The jury recommended a 10-year sentence for manslaughter and 15 years for robbery, with the sentences to be served consecutively, for a total of 25 years. In her order to exclude execution, Goodwine wrote that she had presided over more death-penalty cases than any other judge in Kentucky, according to information she received from a judicial program. Goodwine wrote: "The death penalty is the ultimate punishment and should be reserved and sought in cases involving only the most egregious set of facts one could possibly imagine." In a footnote, Goodwine wrote that the last time the death penalty was imposed and upheld in Fayette County was in 2000, in the murder and robbery of Lonetta White, 73. She was bludgeoned to death, placed in the trunk of her car, driven to a field and set on fire. Virginia Caudill and Johnathan Goforth are awaiting execution in that case. There are 33 people under a death sentence in Kentucky. The state has carried out 3executions since the reinstatement of the death penalty in 1976. The last time an inmate was put to death was in 2008. Goodwine said during the hearing last week that even when juries recommend execution, the cases continue for years because of numerous appeals. "There's something to be said for closure. There's something to be said for finality, which doesn't happen when a death-penalty conviction is handed down," she said. "And for the victim's families ... there is no closure because their cases are still going, they're still arguing, they're still challenging ... death convictions that have been handed down." (source: kentucky.com) ARIZONA: Superior Court To Hear Arguments On Constitutionality Of Arizona Death Penalty A Maricopa county Superior Court judge will hear arguments Friday challenging Arizona's death penalty. Attorneys argue the law is unconstitutionally arbitrary. Under state statutes, there are 14 aggravating factors listed for applying capital punishment. The prosecution can seek the death penalty if it can allege at least 1 of those factors in the case. Opponents say the law is too broad and allows prosecutors to apply capital punishment to every 1st-degree case. Attorneys for 41-year-old Macario Lopez will argue the constitutionality of the law. Lopez was charged with killing his girlfriend in 2009. The prosecutor filed to seek the death penalty motion. More than 25 other defendants have joined the challenge to have the death penalty option removed from their cases as well. (source: KJZZ news) CALIFORNIA: Livermore Man Charged in Double Murder, Could Face Death Penalty----The suspect has been charged with special circumstances in the commission of the murders. A Livermore man has been charged with 2 counts of murder with special circumstances for the shooting deaths in March of 2 men that resulted from an illegal gun sale, police and prosecutors said today. James Wear, 28, was arrested on a probation violation at about 9 p.m. on March 1, roughly 4 1/2 hours after 2 men were shot on Altamont Creek Drive near Winding Stream Drive in Livermore. Livermore resident Ryan Rossknecht, 22, was pronounced dead at the scene and Brandon Lowell, a 29-year-old Manteca resident who formerly lived in Livermore, died a short time later at a hospital. Wear, a food server who has a prior conviction for grand theft, was held on the probation violation until Tuesday, when prosecutors filed the murder charges against him after what Livermore police described as "a thorough and complete investigation." He's being held without bail and was arraigned this morning in Alameda County Superior Court in Pleasanton. In addition to 2 counts of murder and the special circumstance of committing multiple murders, the Alameda County District Attorney's Office charged Wear with being a felon in possession of a gun and possession of heroin for sale, as police said he was in possession of more than 2 ounces of tar heroin when he was arrested. He could face life in prison without the possibility of parole or the death sentence if he's convicted. At the time of the shooting, Livermore police said Rossknecht and Lowell were killed in an apparent dispute over contraband. Detective Glen Robbins wrote in a probable cause statement that Wear told police Lowell wanted to buy a gun from Rossknecht but during the transaction the 2 men got into an argument and he saw Rossknecht shoot Lowell before Lowell managed to wrestle the gun away and shoot Rossknecht. But Robbins said Wear's statement "was not consistent" with information police got from his father, Gregory Wear, and evidence that was located at the scene. Wear sped away from the shooting scene when witnesses confronted him and showed up a short time later at his father???s house in Stockton with bloody shoes, according to Robbins. Wear told his father that he had shot a man in Livermore after the man had shot his friend, Robbins said. Wear then left his father's house and officers who "pinged" his cellphone found him in the area of Bluebell Drive and Sunflower Court in Livermore, according to Robbins. Wear resisted arrest but was apprehended by 4 officers after a police dog bit him, the detective said. Robbins said he believes Wear is responsible for the deaths of Rossknecht and Lowell based on his investigation, Wear's actions, witness statements, forensic analysis, ballistic evidence, digital evidence, video surveillance and evidence at the scene. (source: Patch.com) USA: Bernie Sanders on the death penalty: The state shouldn???t be in the business of killing people Not since 1988 has a presidential candidate for a major political party declared themselves opposed to the death penalty. In announcing his run for the presidency, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) has thrown down his gauntlet. During an appearance on "The Thom Hartmann Show" on May 1, a caller asked Sanders if he would end executions of the mentally ill. Sanders replied that he opposes all executions, offering a moral explanation for his position. CALLER: Execution of the mentally ill, I think [...] I'd be more inclined to vote for you if you were to sign an executive order to stop or make a stay on executions of the mentally ill. I think the right wing is actually using that subliminally so that we be afraid of them. [...] SANDERS: Let me just give you an answer that I suspect not everybody will agree with. I am against capital punishment in general. I understand, and certainly for people who are mentally incapacitated who don't know what they're doing or what's happening to them - I think people have been executed who were not even aware of what was going on, and that's not something that a civilized nation should be engaged in. But in general, this is what I think. Look, there are people who commit horrendous, horrendous, horrendous crimes: we all know that. And we are furious at them, we can't understand their barbarity. But I think, as with so much violence in this world today, 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. So when you have people who have done terrible, terrible things they're gonna spend the rest of their lives in jail, and that's a pretty harsh punishment. But I'm against capital punishment. Recall that former Secretary Clinton is a lifelong advocate of capital punishment. (source: rawstory.com) ********************* What Justices Alito and Scalia overlooked on the death penalty Last week, the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments in a death penalty case, Glossip v. Gross, challenging the use of midazolam - a drug intended to induce an anesthetic and unresponsive state - in executions. The court must consider whether midazolam's use violates the Eighth Amendment's ban on cruel and unusual punishment, and specifically whether there is an intolerable risk that the drug, which has been tied to at least 3 botched executions, will cause gratuitous suffering. Doctors have referred to the use of midazolam as "a failed experiment." Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) labeled a botched execution in Arizona "torture." And Justice Elena Kagan observed during oral arguments that regaining consciousness during an execution by lethal injection is "like being burned alive." Instead of focusing narrowly on the risk of gratuitous suffering, however, Justices Antonin Scalia and Samuel A. Alito Jr. turned their attention to why Oklahoma employs midazolam. In much the same way that the American Medical Association and the American College of Physicians counsel doctors to refuse to participate in executions, pharmaceutical companies have ceased supplying states with lethal-injection drugs. Midazolam became the drug du jour when it proved to be the only one that states such as Oklahoma could get their hands on. Scalia placed the blame for this shortage on the death penalty "abolitionist movement. Alito was more specific, stating that if the court was to prohibit the use of midazolam in lethal injection, the court's decision could be interpreted as rewarding or condoning the methods used by death penalty abolitionists: "Is it appropriate for the judiciary to countenance what amounts to a guerrilla war against the death penalty, which consists of efforts to make it impossible for the states to obtain drugs that could be used to carry out capital punishment with little, if any, pain?" Justice Anthony M. Kennedy jumped into the fray, as well: "What bearing, if any, should we put on the fact that there is a method but that it's not available because of opposition to the death penalty? What relevance does that have?" To answer the question: The fact that some pharmaceutical companies do not want to sell execution drugs to state corrections departments tells us nothing about whether midazolam presents an intolerable risk that petitioner Richard Glossip will endure gratuitous suffering if the drug is used to render him unconscious. It almost sounded as though Scalia and Alito want to apply the doctrine known as "forfeiture by wrongdoing," which prohibits a defendant from benefiting when he creates the circumstances that deprive him of a constitutional right. (For example, a defendant who kills a witness who was set to testify against him cannot complain that the absence of the witness at trial violates his Sixth Amendment right to confrontation.) But that doctrine makes no sense in this context because it requires intentional wrongdoing. It is laughably simplistic to conclude that some loosely defined group of "death penalty abolitionists" coerced billion-dollar, multinational pharmaceutical corporations into doing anything not in their self-interest. A much more likely scenario is that some companies believed that enough of the people who buy drugs from them would be so offended by their facilitation of executions that they would be lost as customers. That's not wrongdoing; it's free-market economics. Or perhaps some companies were convinced by the moral argument that their drugs should be used to extend, not end, life. Much as when corporations were persuaded to divest from South Africa during apartheid, it would be a tribute to the integrity of our democracy if a relatively powerless and moneyless group of citizens could use the moral force of an argument to obtain a specific outcome. But even if you accept the premise that "death penalty abolitionists" convinced Big Pharma to stop selling lethal-injection drugs, it doesn't change the fact that Glossip is not an activist member of the death penalty "abolitionist movement," nor did he directly or indirectly lobby pharmaceutical companies to stop selling lethal-injection drugs. As a condemned prisoner, he lives in nearly complete isolation on Oklahoma's death row. He did not waive, and the court should not ignore, his right to be free from gratuitous suffering based on the activities of some unnamed political activists whom he presumably doesn't even know. Thus, while the political circumstances prompting Oklahoma's use of midazolam may personally trouble Alito and Scalia, in the end they have no bearing on the only question before the court: Will the justices tolerate the risk of pain and suffering that experimenting with midazolam presents? Last year, in Oklahoma, Clayton Lockett regained consciousness during the execution despite being injected with midazolam. He struggled, moaned and gasped for air and died 43 minutes after receiving the injection. In Ohio, Dennis McGuire struggled to free himself from restraints as he coughed and choked for roughly 10 minutes. In Arizona, Joseph Wood gasped for air 600 times in the nearly 2 hours before he died. On the question of acceptable risk, the gruesome details of the3 most recent botched executions speak for themselves. (source: Opinion; Robert J. Smith and Charles J. Ogletree Jr. are professors at the University of North Carolina and Harvard law schools, respectively----Washington Post) ************************ The death penalty is a gamble that we are not willing to take The following piece, written by the editorial editors, reflects the majority opinion of the editorial board. On January 16, 2014, using the 2-drug cocktail of midazolam and hydromorphone, Ohio executed Dennis McGuire, who appeared to writhe in pain for 26 minutes during what should have been a 10-minute sedated execution - the longest in Ohio's history. Nearly 7 months later, on July 23, it took Arizona inmate Joseph Wood nearly 2 hours to die. Officials had to pump Wood with the same 2-drug combination 15 times before he finally expired. The recent spell of botched executions is just one of the many facets to the controversial issue of capital punishment in the United States that stems from human error. On November 1, 2014, inmates Riley Jackson and Wiley Bridgeman were officially exonerated of their crimes and released after Eddie Vernon, the key witness in their jury trial, recanted his damning testimony. Each spent 39 years behind bars - many of which were on death row - on a wrongful conviction. In response to the botched lethal injections and wrongful convictions, Ohioans to Stop Executions (OTSE) has enacted a Fix It or End It campaign and Ohio Senator Bill Seitz (R-Cincinnati) is leading a charge to turn 56 recommendations to improve the fairness of Ohio's death penalty system into law. This is laudable, but not enough. If the issues were completely fixed, if there were no human error and there existed an omniscient power that could tell right from wrong, the death penalty would still be inhumane. It has long been harkened that the only criminals put to death should be the worst of the worst, but how can you tell who the worst of the worst are without blanket covering an entire crime? There are too many shades of grey - too many "what ifs?" What if someone is innocent? This is not a gamble that states should be willing to take. Death is too finite. It is better to release an inmate after 39 years in prison than it is to kill a guiltless man. Opponents of the death penalty sometimes ignore or look over the fact that the majority of death row inmates have committed heinous crimes, but the depravity of the act a criminal is facing punishment for is irrelevant. This begs the question: if the death penalty were not the highest form of punishment available, would the jury feel more inclined to dish out life without parole? Because of their innate humanness, inmates have a right to live. The act of killing a person for having killed another is counterintuitive, a vicious cycle - it only serves to continue the crime that they started. The United States perceives itself across the board as the moral authority and the policeman of the world; however, after China, Iran, Saudi Arabia and Iraq, we are the 5th leading country in the world for number of executions - far ahead of Sudan, Yemen, Egypt and Somalia. The worst punishment by far should be life in prison without the opportunity of parole; however, what about the prisons that aren't so bad - the white collar prisons with tennis courts and flat screen TVs? Is life in prison in the United States truly a form of punishment? The point of a prison is not to make a person suffer, no matter how much they may deserve it. The point of a prison is to remove a dangerous person from society, and if states have the means of doing so in a humane way, then they should. The surrest and simplest way to make sure that the human error invovled in every component of the death penalty process is avoided is simply to end it. (source: Editorial Board, The Miami Student) ************************************ An execution warrant for the death penalty April 29, exactly 1 year after Oklahoma's infamously botched execution of Clayton Lockett, the Supreme Court heard Glossip v. Gross, involving three Oklahomans on death row whose counsel argued the constitutionality of the drug cocktail used in lethal injections. 7 years ago, in Baze v. Rees, the Court held the 3-drug combination did not constitute cruel or unusual punishment. However, as pharmaceuticals have become scarce, states' experimentation with drug combinations and apparent failure of the initial sedative to induce coma while the 2nd and tertiary drugs stop the heart, have led to botched executions in several states, including Ohio. While the Court decides whether this specific method is cruel or unusual by the Eighth Amendment, there is no discussion of the constitutionality of capital punishment itself. This quagmire highlights, once again, that there is no right way to do a wrong thing. The Eighth Amendment reads, "Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted." There is no more excessive fine than death. Even if unrepentantly evil, life is the absolute most a capital offender can give. Further, the death penalty is undeniably cruel. It is the only irreversible punishment handed down by our government. In 1958, the Supreme Court forbade punishment by revoking a natural-born citizen's citizenship. So, even convicted capital offenders are U.S. citizens and, as such, should have a right to the possibility of exoneration until their natural death. Surely, the fundamental right to a fair trial implies the right to a possible retrial, whenever it may (or may not) come. Frequent death row exonerations validate the importance of this right. Because this right is inalienable, a person, no matter how reprehensible, should not be executed for a capital crime because it arbitrarily occurred in a certain state (or, as is often the case, a specific county within that state). The 14th Amendment, guaranteeing equal protection under the law and the backbone of Brown v. Board of Education and Roe v. Wade, surely applies to such criminals. As it seems unlikely Washington D.C. and the other 18 states that have abolished the death penalty will anytime soon resume executing prisoners, equal protection demands capital punishment's abolishment in the remaining 32 states. Public opposition is growing. Indeed, a month ago, The Boston Globe called on the federal government to spare Dzhokhar Tsarnaev the death penalty - the man who, with his brother, brought that city to its knees. True, the framers of the U.S. Constitution did not intend the language of the Eighth Amendment to forbid capital punishment. In fact, the 5th Amendment intimates the validity of capital punishment if by due process of the law. But, the framers also included no language forbidding slavery (enter, the 14th Amendment). In 1958, former Justice Earl Warren said, "The [8th] Amendment must draw its meaning from the evolving standards of decency that mark the progress of a maturing society." 14 years later, responding to the Court's ordering a national overhaul of the death penalty, then-Justice Thurgood Marshall opined, "In recognizing the humanity of our fellow beings, we pay ourselves the highest tribute. We achieve 'a major milestone in the long road up from barbarism' and join the approximately 70 other jurisdictions in the world which celebrate their regard for civilization and humanity by shunning capital punishment." Between 2007 and 2012, China, Iran, North Korea, the U.S. and Yemen executed the most prisoners. The United States is the only G7 country that uses the death penalty. Only 18 % of all nations retain the death penalty in law and practice. Belarus is the only European nation that does so. April 29, Hungary called upon the European Union to debate reintroduction of the death penalty, the abolishment of which is necessary for EU membership. According to the BBC, "The Council of Europe said the return of the death penalty would be 'contrary to the values that Europe stands for.'" Also on the 29th, Australia, which abolished the death penalty in 1967, expressed outrage and removed its ambassador from Jakarta after Indonesia executed 2 Australians convicted of drug smuggling. Excluding Saint Kitts and Nevis (population: 56,000), the U.S. is the only country in the Americas that carries out capital punishment. Society is maturing, but it is not being led by the U.S. So often, the arrogance of isolation and abundance makes U.S. citizens believe beyond the shadow of a doubt the U.S. leads the world in every conceivable dimension. This blind egoism allows our culture to "rot," as diagnosed but not understood by Justice Antonin Scalia, who uses the rot-versus-mature argument to justify his originalist stance (specifically, to reject interpretation of the word "unusual" in the 8th Amendment). However, if we consider the sinister company we keep as one of the few global executioners and the tide of death penalty abolishment sweeping the globe, we must realize society has matured and left us behind, our hands bloodied with botched executions and a system that, by design, makes mistakes. And, conservative friends, sometimes wont to call for an eye for an eye, let us remember what Jesus Christ said immediately after sparing a capital criminal her death sentence: "Let whoever is without sin cast the 1st stone." Chris Curme (source: Opinion; The Miami Student) From rhalperi at smu.edu Fri May 8 09:05:40 2015 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Fri, 8 May 2015 09:05:40 -0500 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide Message-ID: May 8 SAUDI ARABIA: Beheading of 5 foreigners in Saudi Arabia triggers outcry from human rights campaigners Human rights groups have condemned Saudi Arabia after the beheading of 5 foreigners this week. Experts warn 2015 will mark a dramatic increase in public executions, as 80 people have already been killed, compared to 88 in the whole of 2014. Despite mounting international criticism from foreign governments and human rights campaigners, Saudi Arabia has shown no willingness to end public executions. On Monday, a group of 5 men, sentenced to death for murder and theft, were publicly beheaded. The killings come about a month after Amnesty International decried what it labeled as a "macabre spike" in state-sponsored executions. Adam Coogle, a Middle East analyst for Human Rights Watch, said: "From January to the end of July 2014 there were 15 executions, but they finished 2014 with 88, which shows clearly that the spike began last year and has continued," Coogle told the Independent. Peggy Hicks, Global Advocacy Director at Human Rights Watch, called the jump in beheadings "shocking." Amnesty International said the wave of state-sponsored killings proves that the change of leadership in the kingdom does not mean a change in how it views capital punishment, which is carried out for a series of offenses, including blasphemy, treason, murder and drug trafficking. Indeed, since King Salman bin Abdul Aziz Al Saud ascended to the throne in Saudi Arabia earlier this year, the outlook for human rights remains grim, said Amnesty International. "Any hopes that the arrival of King Salman bin Abdul Aziz Al Saud might herald an improvement in human rights in Saudi Arabia have been crushed," said Philip Luther, Amnesty International's Director of Middle East and North Africa programs. Luther said the new king is overseeing an "ongoing crackdown on government critics and peaceful activists, who continue to be intimidated, arbitrarily detained and treated as criminals." "The first months of his reign have also been marked by an unprecedented wave of executions in a clear signal that the use of the death penalty is thriving in the Kingdom." Coogle, however, was hesitant to blame the jump in executions to King Salman's accession in Saudi Arabia. "Personally, I would hesitate to relate the spike to the change of leadership," he said. "He certainly hasn't done anything to stop it but the high rate really began last August. It could be an issue with a backlog of prisoners or it could just be that they are sentencing more people to death." Excluding China, where statistics are not released, at least state 607 executions were known to have been performed globally in 2014, Amnesty International said in a report released in March, compared to 778 in 2013, a decrease of more than 20 %. The report showed a dramatic jump in the number of death sentences handed down in 2014 compared to the previous year - at least 2,466 compared to 1,925 - an increase of more than 25 %. The watchdog said the change was mostly due to the situation in Nigeria and Egypt, where hundreds of people were condemned to death. (source: rt.com) EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT: European liberals: Hungary has crossed the line over death penalty and migration issues The Alliance of Liberals and Democrats (ALDE) in the European Parliament has condemned talk in Hungary of restoring the death penalty and "the xenophobic and leading wording" of the government's national consultation on migration. The ALDE statement was released ahead of a debate in the European Parliament's Civil Liberties Committee on the situation of fundamental rights in the EU. "The ALDE Group in the European Parliament firmly condemns both the call for the re-introduction of the death penalty in Hungary and the xenophobic and leading wording of its Government's public consultation on migration," the statement said. Responding to a recent question in Parliament by a lawmaker of the far-right Jobbik party concerning capital punishment, Prime Minister Viktor Orban said the issue deserved a public debate. "Hungary has crossed a line," the ALDE statement said, calling on the European Commission to "act now". (source: politics.hu) SINGAPORE: Death penalty will make Singapore an "outlier nation": Human Rights Watch Singapore's execution of Mohammad bin Kadar on April 17, 2015, should be the last use of capital punishment in the country, Human Rights Watch said today. Singapore has about 25 people on death row. At least two, recently sentenced, could face execution in the coming months. In place of these and other potential executions, Singapore should join the 117 United Nations member countries that in 2014 voted for a global moratorium on the death penalty and move ultimately to abolish it. "Singapore should realize that its use of the death penalty makes it an increasing outlier among nations," said Phil Robertson, deputy Asia director at Human Rights Watch. "It's a barbaric practice that has no place in a modern state." Singapore authorities hanged 39-year-old Mohammad bin Kadar after he spent 8 years on death row for the 2005 murder of his neighbor, a 69-year-old woman. The court determined that Mohammad bin Kadar, who had a borderline IQ of 76 and was in a drug-induced state, knew what he was doing when he stabbed the victim repeatedly, establishing he had an "intention to kill," which under Singapore law made the death penalty mandatory. Philip Alston, the UN special rapporteur on extra-judicial executions at the time said in reference to a 2005 drug case in Singapore that having a mandatory death penalty violates international legal standards. Making such a penalty mandatory, thus eliminating the discretion of the court "makes it impossible to take into account mitigating or extenuating circumstances and eliminates any individual determination of an appropriate sentence in a particular case. ... The adoption of such a black-and-white approach is entirely inappropriate where the life of the accused is at stake." In November 2012, Singapore's parliament revised the law to restrict the kinds of drug and murder convictions for which the death penalty is mandatory. In murder cases, death sentences are not mandatory if the convicted murderer had "no outright intention to kill." Mohammad bin Kadar appealed his death sentence on the grounds that the law had been amended, but his appeal was rejected. According to Amnesty International, since the laws were amended, courts have reviewed and eventually commuted death sentences to life imprisonment and caning in at least 9 cases. However, the law still provides for mandatory death sentences, in contravention of international standards. At least 2 of those on death row in Singapore, Kho Jabing and Michael Galing, received mandatory death sentences after being convicted in separate murder cases. Human Rights Watch opposes the death penalty in all cases because of its inherent cruelty and irreversibility and urges the government to commute the sentences of all those held on death row. In July 2012, Deputy Prime Minister Teo Chee Hean reiterated the Singaporean government's longstanding position on the death penalty, saying that "the death penalty has been an effective deterrent and an appropriate punishment for very serious offences, and [Singaporeans] largely support it. As part of our penal framework, it has contributed to keeping crime and the drug situation under control." In its December 18, 2007 resolution calling for a worldwide moratorium on the death penalty, the UN General Assembly stated that "there is no conclusive evidence of the death penalty's deterrent value and that any miscarriage or failure of justice in the death penalty's implementation is irreversible and irreparable." "How many people will Singapore execute before they understand that the death penalty is not an effective deterrent to crime?" Robertson said. "Singapore should join with the UN secretary-general in recognizing that the "death penalty has no place in the 21st century.'" (source: Human Rights Watch) From rhalperi at smu.edu Fri May 8 16:11:20 2015 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Fri, 8 May 2015 16:11:20 -0500 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, N.C., FLA., MISS., LA., CALIF., USA Message-ID: May 8 TEXAS: Even in tough-on-crime Texas, death penalty convictions decline -- Have Texans lost their taste for capital punishment? Polls still show strong support, but what's happening in Texas courthouses tells a different story. I was struck by recent news accounts of a local murder trial. I remembered the crime well. Jacob Galen Everett, 22, was convicted of entering a Red Wing shoe store in Arlington, directing clerk Randy Pacheco to the back room and shooting him once between the eyes. Robbery was the motive, and the evidence showed that Everett got away with $200. A few years ago, that would have been a certain death penalty case -- a cold-blooded murder committed in the course of a robbery. Instead, prosecutors sought life without parole and jurors went along. I'm sure Texas still prides itself as a law-and-order state, but our hang-'em-high reputation may be in jeopardy. "There is no doubt about it. We're seeing a reduction in the use of the death penalty in Texas," said Kathryn Kase, executive director of Texas Defender Service. That's a nonprofit that assists in death penalty defenses and advocates for fair trial policies. "We have a reduction in death penalty cases going to trial, and we have a reduction in death verdicts," she said. In 1999, Texas courts sent 39 people to death row. Last year, it was 11. And so far this year, none. "Here it is May, and we have had only 2 death penalty cases in Texas," Kase said. "And in both, the jury chose life without parole instead. That strikes me as really significant." A decline is also evident in the number of executions being carried out. Yes, Texas still led the nation in executions last year, but it was with an asterisk. For the 1st time in decades, Texas shared that distinction. We tied with Missouri. Both states executed 10 people. Florida was close behind with 8. And those numbers reflected a downward trend in executions -- both in Texas and the other 31 states with the death penalty. Executions in Texas peaked at 40 in the year 2000. Have we gone soft? Not likely. It's a combination of several things. On a most basic level, it's simply cost. Many counties just can't afford the expense of a death penalty case and its appeals, which can easily exceed $1 million. More important, Kase said, is eroding public confidence that our court system always gets it right. "The innocence cases made possible through DNA testing have caused both jurors and prosecutors to think twice before sentencing someone to death," she said. About the same time those doubts were growing, the Texas Legislature gave prosecutors and jurors a new tool -- the punishment option of life without parole. "For jurors and prosecutors, life without parole works very well. If we discover later that a mistake was made, we can go back and get them. You can't dig them up after an execution," Kase said. Other factors also come into play. Slowly, Texas has improved the legal representation for death penalty defendants. No more appointed defense lawyers dozing through trials. Difficulty obtaining lethal-injection drugs has delayed some executions. And the back-up plans states are developing -- asphyxiation in Oklahoma, firing squad in Utah, electric chair in Tennessee -- don't win new friends for capital punishment. The fact that we've also enjoyed a sustained period of falling crime rates also takes pressure off politicians to campaign on get-tough policies. Harris County alone used to send more people to death row than any other whole state except Texas. That number has fallen off dramatically in recent years -- behind Dallas County, in fact, under former Dallas County District Attorney Craig Watkins. Politically, I'd say don't look for Texas to abolish the death penalty. Practically, it's already happening. (source: Dallas Morning News) NORTH CAROLINA: North Carolina bill pushes to execute inmates without doctors; In an effort to revive the death penalty, lawmakers want to allow nurses, physician assistants and other healthcare workers to oversee lethal injections Marc Katz could perform an execution. The North Carolina physician assistant, who has practiced medicine since 1979, currently works with patients at an ear, nose and throat practice. He says many people in his profession, not just doctors, have the ability to administer lethal injection drugs to death row inmates. Whether they would choose to do so is a different question. "It's not anything real technical," says Katz. "It's just finding a vein and just putting medicine in it." North Carolina currently has 149 people on death row, but carried out its last execution in August 2006. Since then, North Carolina doctors have refused to work with the state's corrections department to carry out executions even though the death penalty remains legal. Under a proposed law, conservative state lawmakers are hoping to break through that stalemate by letting physician assistants, nurses, emergency medical technicians, and other healthcare workers oversee executions. But those elected officials face another set of challenges including opposition from the professional organizations representing the workers impacted in the bill. In an effort to revive the death penalty, Republican state representative N Leo Daughtry has pushed a measure that would no longer require doctors to be present during executions. Instead of a doctor, nurses, physician assistants, or emergency medical technicians could oversee the death penalty. The bill would also keep secret the identities of medical professionals assisting in executions. The North Carolina House of Representatives on 29 April voted 84-33 in favor of the legislation. Daughtry, who did not respond to the Guardian's request for comment, said the measure would allow North Carolina to move past the current impediments getting in the way of the death penalty. "The fact that doctors are not willing to be there for the execution has caused a real stumbling block for us," Daughtry told WRAL-TV. Democratic state representative Graig Meyer, who voted against the bill, says the measure provides an unnecessary workaround to a "de facto moratorium" caused by the state's flawed policy. He says doctors have refused to participate in executions due to their professional ethical codes that require them to preserve life when possible. Meyer, who unsuccessfully added an amendment to the bill to repeal the death penalty, says executions violate the constitutional rights of the inmates currently spending their days on North Carolina's death row. Given the current US supreme court case looking at lethal injections, he says state lawmakers should not be moving forward to bring back the death penalty. "The timing is interesting," Meyer says. "We debated this bill on the same day the US supreme court had their arguments. I question why the majority would want to take such a controversial issue when it's being played out at a much higher level on a much bigger stage nationally." In other states were lethal injection remains legal, nurses and physician assistants face similar restrictions from their fields' ethical codes and the professional organizations enforcing those guidelines. To avoid that scrutiny, states such as Arizona and Georgia have enacted laws to conceal the identities of people assisting executioners with the death penalty. Hiding the medical team's experience levels has its costs: a paramedic who participated in the botched execution of Oklahoma inmate Clayton Lockett helped turned what's supposed to be a painless procedure into a slow, harrowing death described by 1 witness as "torture". In 2006, the North Carolina medical board revised its policies to take disciplinary actions against licensed doctors conducting executions. One year later, a state judge overruled the board in determining it could not sanction doctors for helping to carry out the death penalty. Though free from sanctions, physicians have continued to not work with the state's corrections department. Katz, president of the North Carolina Academy of Physician Assistants, says turning to other medical professionals for executions might lead to similar results. Physician assistants also receive licenses from the North Carolina medical board. To obtain a license, he says physician assistants must outline their "scope of practice" defining their roles alongside their respective doctors, including the basics such as physical exams and more specialized procedures. Participation in an execution would ultimately require the approval of a doctor agreeing to share responsibility. Katz says that's a probable nonstarter given doctors' opposition to executions over the past decade. "If a physician isn't going to want to do it himself, why would he have you do that since he's overseeing you in your actions?" Katz says. Although the NCMB couldn't issue a sanction, he says physician assistants helping out with executions could still lose NCAPA certification, which would hurt their future job prospects in the state. In a prepared statement, the North Carolina Nurses Association's board of directors says the organization stands behind the American Nurses Association's policies in opposition to the death penalty. According to ANA guidelines, nurse participation in any part of the execution process runs contrary to the "fundamental goals and ethical traditions" of the profession. "NCNA continues to believe that participation in executions should not be a required component of any nurse's job description and he/she should be able to object for ethical reasons without retribution or loss of employment," the board of director says. The legislation still requires approval from the North Carolina Senate followed by Governor Pat McCrory's signature. Representatives for both NCAPA and NCNA said their groups intend to lobby state lawmakers about the proposal in hopes of stopping its passage. Even if it becomes law, David Weiss, a staff attorney with the Center for Death Penalty Litigation, doesn't think the policy will bring back executions across the state due to multiple lawsuits seeking to protect inmates' constitutional rights. He also says recent exonerations - including Joseph Sledge in January - and additional evidence of racial injustices on death row have further strengthened calls to end the death penalty. But the hardest part might not be passing the law. It could be convincing people like Katz to put down his otoscope to place a needle into an inmate's arm prior to his death. Partaking in that process, Katz says, runs contrary to the work he's performed for the past 36 years. He's not alone in that regard. (source: The Guardian) FLORIDA: Supreme Court hears concerns about lawyers in Jacksonville woman's death row case When Tiffany Cole was on trial for the murders of Carol and Reggie Sumner, her lawyers argued she was an intelligent and good person who fell in with some bad men who were really responsible for the Sumners' death. That argument didn't work, and Cole, 33, is now on death row. It is now up to the Florida Supreme Court to determine whether Cole's trial lawyers were unprepared or incompetent in how they defended her or whether they engaged in a sound trial strategy that just didn't work. Her appellate lawyer, Wayne Henderson, argued Thursday that attorneys Quentin Till and Gregory Messore were unprepared for Cole's trial during oral arguments in Tallahassee. Till, who watched the oral arguments online from Jacksonville, told the Times-Union that his defense strategy was sound. "I was prepared," Till said. "If I hadn't been prepared, I would have asked for a continuance." Cole was 1 of 4 people who kidnapped Carol and Reggie Sumner, both 61, from their Jacksonville home in 2005 and drove them to Charlton County, Ga., where they were buried alive. Cole was convicted of 2 counts of 1st-degree murder, armed robbery and kidnapping. A jury recommended death by a 9-3 vote and Circuit Judge Michael Weatherby concurred. Michael James Jackson, 27, the mastermind of the murder plot, and Cole's boyfriend, Alan Lyndell Wade, 27, also are on death row. A 4th participant, 27-year-old Bruce Nixon, testified against the others and was sentenced to 45 years in prison for 2nd-degree murder. Henderson is asking the Supreme Court to throw out Cole's conviction and grant her a new trial, or at least throw out her death penalty even if the conviction is upheld. He said Till expected to reach a plea deal and wasn't prepared when Cole rejected the state's offer. The trial lawyers also made a mistake by arguing that Cole was an intelligent person who was manipulated by the other defendants when in reality she had below-average intellect, a serious drug addiction and had both sold drugs and been a prostitute. Had jurors known about her issues, they might have been reluctant to recommend Cole be sentenced to death, Henderson said. The Supreme Court already denied 1 appeal for Cole. In the 1st appeal, usually called a direct appeal, lawyers could only raise issues where there was an objection during the original criminal trial. They can expand into things the trial lawyers failed to do. Justice Barbara Pariente said she was surprised to learn about Cole's issues because she thought from the 1st appeal that Cole was a well-adjusted person. "The impression we got from the direct appeal is that this is a woman who comes from a good background," Pariente said. "I'm very concerned that this defendant's attorney put forth a picture of this woman that wasn't really true." Assistant Deputy Attorney General Carolyn Snurkowski agreed that defense attorneys sanitized Cole's life, but argued that was a sound legal strategy. "They talked about how she took care of her father," Snurkowski said. "They didn't talk about her drug use and prostitution." But Till has handled about 75 capital murder cases and knew what he was doing, she said. Till, who was a private lawyer at the time of the case but is now an assistant public defender in Jacksonville, said he stands by his strategy. Talking about Cole's drug use and prostitution would not have helped her in front of a jury, and it might have made the jury dislike her more, Till said. Till confirmed that he tried to get Cole to take a plea similar to the one that Nixon got, but she was unwilling to do so. Cole didn't believe she was guilty of 1st-degree murder because she didn't personally kill the Sumners. But under Florida law someone who participates in a crime can be found equally culpable for a murder even if they didn't pull the trigger or directly cause the death. Messore could not be reached for comment. Cole was the only 1 of the 4 who knew the Sumners. At one point the couple were friends and neighbors with Cole's father in South Carolina, and they had sold a car to Cole and told her she was welcome at their house if she was ever in Jacksonville. The plan to rob and murder the Sumners evolved from knowledge Cole had about the couple. It is unclear how long it will take the Supreme Court to rule, but death-penalty appeals usually take months to decide after oral arguments. (source: jacksonville.com) MISSISSIPPI: Man Sentenced To Death The Mississippi Supreme Court has upheld the death penalty for a man convicted of capital murder by a Harrison County Jury. Timothy Ronk was found guilty of capital murder and sentenced to death back in 2010. The jury also found Ronk guilty of armed robbery. In August of 2008, Ronk killed Michelle Craite, a 37 year old Biloxi woman and set her house on fire. The autopsy of Craite's body revealed multiple stab wounds and severe burns. Ronk and Craite had been in a relationship at the time of the murder. Today, The Mississippi Supreme Court affirmed Ronk's conviction and death sentence by lethal injection. (source: WXXV news) LOUISIANA----new death sentence Jury recommends death penalty for Lee Turner Jr. A jury has recommended the death penalty for Lee Turner Jr. after being convicted of killing 2 auto parts store workers during a robbery. Attorneys gave their closing arguments Friday morning in the penalty phase of the Lee Turner Jr. death penalty trial. The same jury deciding his fate convicted the 25-year-old of 2 counts of 1st-degree murder in the deaths of Edward Gurtner, 43, and Randy Chaney, 54, at the CarQuest Auto Parts on Airline Highway in 2011. The prosecutor told the jury 2 people were killed that day, but "a murder was born" and a "murder" never dies. The family has to live with that every day. The jurors had to reach a unanimous decision for Turner to get the death penalty. (source: WAFB news) CALIFORNIA: Sentenced to death | 'Living the dream'; Ernesto Salgado Martinez is one of the most dangerous prisoners in Riverside County. And he doesn't have to be here. 20 years ago, 40 police officers surrounded a trailer in Indio with their guns drawn. They had chased a cop killer for 300 miles, and now - after tracking his bloody trail through 2 states - they finally had him cornered. "I'm not coming out," shouted Ernesto Salgado Martinez. He was only 19, but already a hardened criminal, prepared to die. "You will have to come in and shoot me." It was Aug. 16, 1995. Over the prior 48 hours, Martinez had gunned down a policeman in Arizona and killed a storekeeper in Blythe, police said. Martinez had then fled to Indio, where an officer chased him into a mobile home with a barred door and barricaded windows. Police swarmed the scene, rushing in from beyond the state line to help end the manhunt. 4 hours crept by. The summer sun set, blanketing the standoff in darkness. Eventually, police decided it was time to break the stalemate. Officers prepared to launch tear gas into the house, then storm through the doors and windows. A negotiator blasted a bullhorn, offering one last chance for surrender. At that last moment, Martinez gave up. He crawled out of a window, shirtless, with his hands in the air. Police surrounded him in a tight circle, demanding that he lie on his stomach. Martinez dropped to the dirt, scowling as policemen forced him into handcuffs and hauled him off to jail. Today, nearly 20 years later, Martinez is one of the most dangerous prisoners in Riverside County. He is a convicted killer with known ties to an Arizona prison gang. He has a long history of jailhouse attacks that date back to age 15, when he put a juvenile hall employee in the hospital. Martinez is also doomed to die. He was sentenced to death in Arizona, where he has awaited execution for the past 17 years. In fact, the only reason Martinez is in Riverside County - draining county funds and endangering prison guards - is because local prosecutors want to sentence him to death a 2nd time, in California. "I'm housed here in Riverside," Martinez told a judge on April 17, during his most recent court hearing. "All is well. Living the dream." Martinez, now 39, has spent more than 1/2 of his life behind bars, most of those years in isolation. He is vicious, reckless and impulsive -- easily mistaken for just another caged gang banger. But that would be wrong. Martinez scored 120 on an IQ test, a score higher than 90 percent of the population, according to court documents. In another psychological test, Martinez was shown to have elite "non-verbal, problem-solving skills" which make him craftier than almost everyone. In recent years, Martinez has effectively served as his own lawyer, meticulously planning his defense. He is as formidable with a fountain pen as he is with a prison shank. "He is incredibly dangerous because he is so bright," Riverside County District Attorney Mike Hestrin said. "I would like to get him out of our system and out of our jail. And one of the ways to do that is to get this case to trial as quickly as possible." 2 decades have passed since Martinez was arrested in Indio, but he has not yet gone to trial in the shooting of Randip Singh, the Blythe storekeeper. For any normal inmate, it would be an injustice to sit in jail this long without a trial, but Martinez is far from normal. Martinez has no motivation to go to trial in Riverside County because - regardless of whether he is convicted or acquitted in California - when the trial is over, he will be sent back to death row in Arizona. Martinez was sentenced to death in Arizona in 1998 for the murder of Bob Martin, a veteran officer of the highway patrol. 12 years later, in 2010, local prosecutors extradited Martinez back to Riverside County, pulling him off death row so he could be tried for the shooting in Blythe. At the time, desert prosecutors underestimated Martinez, expecting that he would be quickly convicted in the local courts, then sent back to Arizona for execution. Instead, Martinez fired his public defender and became his own attorney. He has mounted a thorough defense, challenging prosecutors at every turn, despite having no formal legal training. Today - 4 1/2 years after Martinez was extradited - the inmate is still prepping his courtroom arguments. No trial date has been set. Riverside County has spent more than $230,000 to jail Martinez since he was extradited in 2010. In addition, Martinez's court case has demanded countless hours from prosecutors. In 2011, more county money was needlessly diverted to the case when Martinez tricked an Indio judge into appointing his mistress as his government-funded paralegal. Extradition also brought Martinez's violence back to Riverside County. In 2011, about a year after Martinez returned to California, the notoriously dangerous inmate attacked his cellmate, stabbing him 50 times with a shiv, according to court documents. A similar attack would not have happened in Arizona, where death row inmates have no contact with each other. Since the stabbing, Martinez is confined to an isolated cell. Martinez has pleaded not guilty to the stabbing and is awaiting trial on these charges, too. The decision to extradite Martinez has had at least 1 other unforeseeable consequence. As Martinez has prepared to defend himself in California, he has used his jailhouse legal resources to bolster his appeal in Arizona. Martinez was able to successfully argue his case to a federal court last year, ultimately lengthening his appeal process and delaying his death for at least several more years. (source: Desert Sun) USA: Is Capital Punishment Near a 'Tipping Point'?----Robert Dunham, new head of the Death Penalty Information Center, takes over as execution debate intensifies. Robert Dunham became executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center in March at a time of escalating debate among policy makers and the public over capital punishment. The frequent exoneration of death row inmates based on DNA evidence, as well as the botched lethal injection executions of the last year, has raised new questions about the death penalty. On April 29, the U.S. Supreme Court heard contentious arguments in Glossip v. Gross over Oklahoma's lethal-injection protocol. "We may be at a tipping point in the history of the death penalty in the United States," said Dunham, formerly an assistant federal defender in the capital habeas unit in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. "There is no better time to be here." Founded in 1990, the Death Penalty Information Center tracks executions and death penalty trends and provides analysis that is critical of the administration of capital punishment. The interview that follows was edited for length and clarity. NLJ: What did you make of the Glossip arguments? Dunham: Glossip presented a very narrow legal question - whether Oklahoma's use of a particular chemical (midazolam) as part of a particular 3-drug execution procedure constituted cruel and unusual punishment. It didn't present a watershed issue about the death penalty or even about the constitutionality of lethal injection itself. And yet, some justices clearly regarded the case as an assault on the death penalty itself, with Justice [Samuel] Alito describing it as part of a "guerilla war" against the death penalty. The justices' perceptions that the death penalty is in crisis may be correct, but that crisis is not the product of any "guerilla war." The First Amendment permits people who support or oppose the death penalty to advocate for their positions on this issue. Lawyers who represent death row inmates have an obligation to fight for their clients and raise issues that are present in their cases. Drug companies have a right to say that participation in executions is against their corporate missions and is bad business. Medical professional societies have the right to say that participating in executions is unethical and to urge their members not to participate. And, as much as some people may not like it, Europe has a right to declare the death penalty a human rights violation and to adopt export regulations prohibiting sales of products to prisons that will be used for executing inmates. What drew you to this new job? Well, first of all, I wasn't looking to change jobs. I enjoyed litigating capital cases and felt that I was making a difference, both for my clients and in terms of bringing attention to important issues in their cases. And I could have very happily continued to represent my death-row clients in Pennsylvania and continued to teach my death penalty class at Villanova law school. But jobs like executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center don't come along very often. As a capital litigator, you address issues as they occur in the context of a particular trial and based upon the facts of a given case. The cases may present issues of systemic concern, but your focus is always on the client first and the policy implications are secondary. You are making a difference, enforcing the Constitution. But you are making a difference one case at a time. DPIC, on the other hand, has a national and international audience and its focus is all about policy. [Former executive director] Dick Dieter has done a tremendous job in building the organization and establishing DPIC's reputation as a trustworthy provider of accurate and up-to-date information about the death penalty. If you???ve got a question about the death penalty, where do you go? To our website. What do you see as the state of capital punishment nationally? The innocence revolution and developments in DNA and the forensic sciences have exposed more and more fundamental flaws in the administration of the death penalty and further undermined public confidence in the accuracy of death verdicts. Recent exonerations underscore persistent problems with race bias, shoddy legal representation and police or prosecutorial misconduct. Many more death-row inmates have their convictions or sentences reversed than are executed. The death penalty isn't fair, doesn't work, doesn't deter crime, costs much more than other alternatives, and diverts resources from programs that might make a difference. The botched lethal injections and the extreme responses by some states - to reintroduce the firing squad or the electric chair, to experiment with the gas chamber, or to???make the execution process more secretive - makes the death penalty look more and more like just another example of a program that you can't trust the government to get right. And at the same time, the lethal-injection failures and the gruesome responses by the states have destroyed the myth that there is such as a thing as a peaceful, humane execution. What do you think is the Supreme Court's mood toward the death penalty? Has it changed, and is it close to a watershed moment? For the most part, I don't think the court chooses watershed moments. I think they find their way to the court. But the times feel as though we are approaching that kind of moment. Could it be throwing out execution methods? It could be. Could it be a case like California's systemic inability to provide judicial review? Maybe. It could also be a new study showing race discrimination that asks the court to reconsider its???McCleskey [v. Kemp] decision or a new challenge to the arbitrariness of a particular state's death penalty based upon the cumulative effect of unfairnesses in that state's administration of the penalty. But it is just as likely - and maybe even more likely - to be an as of yet unknown case that presents very compelling individual facts or presents outrageous conduct by state officials that becomes simply too much for the court to ignore. My sense is that this court isn't looking to take "the big step." Historically, it has decided only the issue in front of it on as limited grounds as possible. There is a solid bloc of the court -the moderate wing -that is consistently concerned about unfairness in the administration of the death penalty. There is another solid bloc - the conservative wing - that is consistently committed to deferring to the judgments of state authorities. That leaves many of the most critical decisions the court faces in the hands of Justice [Anthony] Kennedy, who seems more comfortable with much smaller steps. So the moment may find the court, but I don't think the court is looking for it. That could change if the composition of the court changes - and it could change in either direction. Relatedly, the public's view of the death penalty has clearly been affected by the spate of exonerations in recent years. Do you think the trend has also influenced the Supreme Court's thinking? I think the court can't help but be affected. In their intellectual disability and juvenile death penalty decisions, they listed the risk of wrongful conviction and execution from false confessions as one of the reasons why the death penalty should be prohibited. The court has also taken some steps to try to reduce the likelihood that an innocent person will be executed because of a procedural technicality. A federal court doesn't get to look at the facts of a case and correct errors, even if they are obvious and severe errors that may have made the difference between life and death. As a result, many, many death-row inmates have been executed without federal review of critical issues in their case. In response, the court has held that actual innocence overcomes a variety of procedural barriers to judicial review that the habeas corpus statute would have imposed in other cases. The definition of "innocence" is very limited, but it is there, and it reflects the justices' concern about convicting and executing innocent men and women. I also think that most of the justices are concerned by the possibility that the defendant in an individual case might in fact be innocent. They are surely aware that after Justice [Antonin] Scalia singled out the [Henry] McCollum case in North Carolina as the type of offense for which the death penalty surely should be imposed, new evidence showed that McCollum didn't do it. He and his brother were exonerated by the North Carolina Innocence Commission and he was taken off death row and released last year. Are you optimistic that the Supreme Court will abolish the death penalty anytime soon? I think the history of the death penalty in the Supreme Court is a history of buyer's remorse. Justices who have voted in favor of the death penalty at critical moments in the history of the death penalty have later concluded that they had been wrong to do so. So, take for example, McCleskey v. Kemp, a 5-4 opinion that will go down in history with Dred Scott and Plessy v. Ferguson as the worst racial-justice decisions of all time. McCleskey denies capital defendants the ability to prove race discrimination in their case with the same type of statistical evidence that is used to prove discrimination in housing or employment or education cases. Justice [Lewis] Powell casts the deciding vote in McCleskey and writes the opinion for the court. Then, after he retires, he says that this is the one decision in his career as a justice that he most regrets. Justice [Harry] Blackmun votes with the majority in Gregg v. Georgia and Jurek v. Texas bringing back the death penalty in the United States. Then, over time, as he sees the intractable problems with capital cases, his views evolve, and he famously says he will no longer tinker with the machinery of death. The same type of process occurred with Justice [John Paul] Stevens, who voted to reinstate the death penalty in the United States, and voted to uphold any number of death sentences, and then, in the course of time, his views changed. After he left the court, he announced that he now opposes the death penalty. I also think that justices don't want to be accused of legislating from the bench - which they are every time they take any action against the death penalty. Because of this, they are reluctant to make the "big decision." (source: National Law Journal) From rhalperi at smu.edu Fri May 8 16:12:49 2015 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Fri, 8 May 2015 16:12:49 -0500 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news---worldwide Message-ID: May 8 HUNGARY: Hungary's Orban: death penalty should be up to each country Hungary's prime minister says that each member country of the European Union should be allowed to decide for itself about the use of the death penalty. Prime Minister Viktor Orban, whose statement last week that the issue of capital punishment should be "kept on the agenda" was strongly rejected by EU officials, said Friday that the EU should follow the example of the United States, where states decide individually about the issue. Orban said "there is no reason" for countries in Europe with different crimes rates and threat levels to think the same about the death penalty. Orban said on state radio that he was "on the side of life," but that the death penalty was needed if it was the only way to protect "law-abiding, innocent people." (source: Associated Press) INDONESIA: Mary Jane's case draws sympathy from Indonesian NGOs The legal case involving Filipino migrant worker Mary Jane Fiesta Veloso has drawn significant attention, particularly from Indonesian NGOs and legal experts, as it helped put the countrys legal enforcement process in the spotlight. The execution of Mary Jane on April 29, 2015, was delayed following a new development in her case in the Philippines that now requires her testimony. The last-minute reprieve came after Mary Janes recruiters Maria Kristina Sergio and Julius Lacanilo reportedly surrendered to law enforcement authorities in the Philippines, admitting they had tricked Mary Jane into being an unwitting drug mule, resulting in her death penalty. Moreover, Mary Jane is suspected to be a mere victim of human trafficking in the Philippines. The migrant worker claimed to have met Sergio in Petaling Jaya in Malaysia and was promised a job in the country. She had been informed to wait in Yogyakarta, Indonesia, before she was assigned work and was given a bag to carry her clothing. When she arrived at Yogyakartas Adisutjipto Airport, Mary Jane was caught by customs officers who found 2.6 kilograms of heroin worth Rp5.5 billion concealed in her leather bag. Although the illegal drug did not belong to her, Mary Jane was tried and sentenced to death in 2010. Mary Jane later applied for a judicial review after her clemency plea was declined by the president. In a judicial review court in March 2015, her plea was also rejected. Indonesian Attorney General HM Prasetyo on April 29, the day of execution, stated that Mary Janes status is still that of a convict as her execution was not cancelled but merely postponed. If the new case in her home country, the Philippines, could reveal new evidence, she would be able to apply for a judicial review based on the Constitutional Courts ruling, stating that the application for a judicial review could be carried out more than once. "Although she would indeed be proven as a victim of human trafficking, the fact remains that she has brought heroin into Indonesia. The fact will not abolish her responsibility for the crime that Mary has committed," he emphasized. The attorney general remarked that the Attorney General's Office will wait for the results of the investigation process into the human trafficking case by the Philippine government. He noted that if the Philippine government requires Mary Jane's testimony, they must come to Indonesia. "So, till the time she is needed by the Philippine government to unveil the human trafficking case, Mary Jane will remain in Indonesia," he pointed out. Minister of Justice of the Philippines Leila de Lima noted that the case will be investigated on May 8-14. Former head of Indonesias Agency for Placement and Protection of Indonesian Migrant Workers (BNP2TKI) Moh. Jumhur Hidayat suspects that Mary Jane is a victim of human trafficking. "She could be a victim of human trafficking, trapped in an international drug syndicate," Hidayat recently informed ANTARA News in a short text message. He lauded President Joko Widodo's move to postpone her execution. Hidayat claimed that he had sent a letter to the Indonesian president, seeking cancellation of Mary Jane's execution. In the letter, he convinced the Indonesian head of state that sparing the Filipino national from execution would not undermine his authority. "On the contrary, the president would receive a lot of support as he would be viewed as a firm and wise figure," he remarked. "It is similar to when Indonesia had tried to defend its migrant workers overseas. I appeal, sir, that you use your power to spare Mary Jane from this execution," he requested in his letter. As many as 279 Indonesia migrant workers overseas face the possibility of execution, 36 of whom are in Saudi Arabia and mostly being convicted of murders. Meanwhile, Executive Director of Migrant Care Anis Hidayah is of the viewpoint that Mary Jane should not be executed if proven to be a victim of human trafficking. "The International Convention for Human Trafficking Crimes, or Palermo Protocol, has clearly said that a victim who is a witness should not be executed because she has to give a testimony," Hidayah stated in Jakarta recently. If she is indeed a human trafficking victim, it could become a new norm to apply for a judicial review in the Supreme Court (MA) over her capital punishment. Migrant Cares activist will go to the Philippines to follow the legal proceedings of Maria Kristina Sergios case who had recruited Mary Jane. Based on the findings from the Philippines, the NGO, in coordination with the National Commission for Women and Mary Janes lawyer, will file a judicial review in the MA. "We must follow the legal process in the Philippines to see whether Mary Jane is indeed a victim of human trafficking" he said. There are also several Indonesians trapped as illicit drug couriers in the Philippines, China, and Malaysia, he remarked. According to the Jakarta Legal Aid Institute (LBH), the execution of several death row convicts and the conviction of Mary Jane are counterproductive to the governments attempts to save Indonesians abroad. "Mary Jane is a migrant worker, a house maid, similar to 264 Indonesians facing death sentence in several other countries," LBH public lawyer Eny Rofiatul noted in a statement. Eny emphasized that Mary Jane cannot be charged for the crime if it was proved that she was a victim of human trafficking, which is not rare befalling migrant workers. It is regulated in Chapter 18 of Law Number 21 of 2007 on human trafficking criminal act, she pointed out. "Regardless of the country of origin, migrant workers are always surrounded by structural conditions of poverty," she added. The LBH has urged the government to seriously address the case of Mary Jane. "As an institution upholding human rights and principles, the Jakarta LBH views that any individuals right to live cannot be violated by anyone, including the state," its director Febi Yonesta affirmed. The institution has, therefore, strongly urged President Joko Widodo to ensure that Mary Jane is given the necessary legal aid to prove that she is not guilty. "The fact at court sessions showed that she had always been consistent in saying that she was ordered by someone and was not aware that there were drugs in her bag," Febi remarked. He said the LBH regretted the fact that the police had failed to provide sufficient legal aid to Mary Jane during her interrogations, and she was not given a Tagalog interpreter, including during the court sessions. Legal aid and interpreter are regulated in the countrys criminal law book, he pointed out. The injustice faced by Mary Jane was that she could not defend herself appropriately, which resulted in her death sentence that almost cost her life if the real criminal had not surrendered herself in the Philippines. The decision to delay the migrant workers execution was also hailed by activists of the Indonesian Migrant Workers Network (JBMI). "My colleagues and I are very pleased with the temporary decision. Our hard work of visiting churches, mass organizations, and state institutions and lobbying to push the government to stop Mary Janes execution did not go in vain," JBMI activist Iweng Karsiwen noted in Cilacap, Central Java. "If Kristina and Julius are found guilty of owning those illicit drugs, the Indonesian government should release her," he stressed. In the meantime, Coordinator of the Commission for Missing Persons and Victims of Violence (Kontras) Haris Azhar stated that Mary Janes case should be expedited to improve the performance of law enforcement agencies in Indonesia. "Law enforcement officials should be smarter. When you see Mary Janes profile, you know that she is not a drug dealer," Azhar stated recently. He pointed out that the initial proceedings related to the Filipino nationals case were not conducted properly. There was no translator accompanying her. This indicates that the legal proceedings in Mary Jan's case were not carried out properly. In addition, the investigators also never attempted to locate the people mentioned in her legal proceedings. In fact, she had even identified a person who had sent her and who had been targeted. "If they did not find sufficient evidence through investigations, they should have gone to the Philippines to probe the case properly," he added. (source: ANTARA news) IRAN: 15 Executions on Tuesday and Wednesday of This Week in Iran 3 prisoners were executed in the prison of Sari (Northern Iran) on Tuesday morning May 6, reported the official website of the Iranian Judiciary in Mazandaran Province. The prisoners who were sentenced to death for drug related charges, and none of them were identified by name. The Iranian State media also reported on another execution in the Central prison of Qazvin on Tuesday. The prisoner who was not identified by name was convicted of murder, said the report. According to the sources Iran Human Rights (IHR) has been in contact with, 11 prisoners were executed in the prison of Ghezelhesar (Karaj, west of Tehran) on Wednesday morning May 7. All the prisoners were convicted of drug related charges. IHR is investigating about the identities of the prisoners. (source: Iran Human Rights) ************************ UN rights experts call on Iran to end death penalty 2 United Nations human rights experts have condemned the sharp increase in executions across Iran in recent weeks, urging the Government in Tehran to heed the Organization's appeal for an immediate halt on the use of the death penalty. "When the Iranian government refuses to even acknowledge the full extent of executions which have occurred, it shows a callous disregard for both human dignity and international human rights law," Ahmed Shaheed, the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Iran, stressed in a press release issued earlier today. According to a UN human rights report released last year, the new Islamic Penal Code that entered into force in 2013 now omits references to apostasy, witchcraft and heresy, but continues to allow for juvenile executions and retains the death penalty for activities that do not constitute most serious crimes in line with the safeguards guaranteeing protection of the rights of those facing the death penalty such as adultery, repeated alcohol use, and drug possession and trafficking. Iran has witnessed a surge in executions over the past 2 years. At least 852 individuals were executed between July 2013 and June 2014 - the last reporting period for which data is available - representing an "alarming" increase in the number of executions in relation to the already-high rates of previous years, according to UN estimates. In addition, more than 340 persons, including at least 6 political prisoners and seven women, were reportedly executed since January 2015. "We are alarmed by the recent surge in the number of executions, which has occurred despite serious questions about fair trial standards," added Christof Heyns, the UN Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial executions. "Many of the prisoners executed during this period were charged with drug-related offences, which do not involve intentional killing and hence do not meet the threshold of the 'most serious crimes'." Both experts drew particular attention to continued reports of public executions, noting that 15 such executions were known to have already occurred in 2015. Public executions, they said, had "a dehumanising effect on both the victim and those who witness the execution" and ultimately reinforced the "already cruel, inhuman and degrading nature of the death penalty." Mr. Shaheed and Mr. Heyns urged the Iranian Government to establish an immediate moratorium on the death penalty throughout Iran with a view to abolishing the practice altogether. (source: UN News Centre) From rhalperi at smu.edu Sat May 9 12:56:40 2015 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Sat, 9 May 2015 12:56:40 -0500 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----DEL., ALA., TENN., ARIZ., USA Message-ID: May 9 DELAWARE: Delaware announces support of legislation to abolish state's death penalty Democratic Gov. Jack Markell has come out in support of an effort to repeal Delaware's death penalty. Markell said Thursday that if a bill to abolish capital punishment reaches his desk, he would sign it. In recent years, Markell has refused to say where he stands on the issue. But Markell said the recent acknowledgment by the FBI that examiners in its microscopic hair comparison unit gave flawed testimony in more than 250 criminal cases, including death penalty cases, before 2000, helped him reach a decision. Legislation to abolish the state's death penalty cleared the state Senate last month on an 11-9 vote last month but faces an uphill battle in the House, where it will be heard in committee next week. Delaware currently has 15 inmates on death row. (source: Associated Press) ALABAMA: Judge vs. Jury: Overriding life in prison for death row 2 murders in 2 different counties, committed nearly 2 decades apart, which caused 2 families to be torn apart. "To this day it's the most heartbreaking thing I've ever lived through," said Lori Holsomback, victim's sister. "You're away from everything you love and know, it's kind of like being on a different planet," said Randal Padgett, who was sent to death row. In 1990 in Arab, Alabama, Randal Padgett's estranged wife was stabbed to death. He was arrested and convicted of her murder. "Well, the Judge sentenced me to death in Alabama's electric chair on my birthday. Which I couldn't believe because I couldn't do this thing," said Padgett. Padgett said he was innocent through the entire trial, and stuck to his story for the 3 years that followed while on death row. "It's not a good feeling, you think when is mine, when is my time coming? I didn't believe that God would let me die for something I didn't do, and God didn't," said Padgett. Padgett's attorneys got him a new trial because of errors made in the blood and DNA tests that supposedly connected him to the crime. During a 2nd trial with a new attorney, Padgett still swore he was not guilty and this time, the jury agreed. "All this time it seems like you're underwater and you're drowning, and if you don't get air soon you're gonna be gone," said Padgett. "Then, when that not guilty verdict, it's like you can finally surface and you can breathe." Fast forward to 2006 in Montgomery, Alabama. Jefferson County native and Montgomery Police Officer Keith Houts is shot and killed in the line of the duty. "It's just someone that you think you're going to grow old with he's my older brother, he's 17 months older," said Lori Holsomback, victim's sister. "Then, in just 1 phone call, it was taken from me." Mario Woodward was arrested for his murder and convicted, but a jury decided 8 to 4 to give him life in prison. "That was just devastating, that's what it said to me that his life is more valuable than your brothers," said Holsomback. Now we get to the 1 thing these 2 cases have in common: a judge overrode the jury in Mario Woodward's case and gave him death. So did the judge who sentenced Randal Padgett. According to the law, these 2 men would have never gone to death row in any other state. "Only place he could end up on death row from an override is Alabama," said defense attorney Richard Jaffe. In the United States in a capital murder case, when a jury comes back with a verdict, that verdict is the last word in all but 3 states. Delaware, Florida and Alabama have laws on the books that allow judges to make the final call, but it is really only happening in the state of Alabama. "The main difference between us and Florida and Delaware, the other 2 states that have this system, is they have standards the judge has to follow. In this state, we don't have any standards, so the judge is free to do whatever they want to do," said retired federal judge, Judge John Carrol. The way the law is in Alabama in a capital murder trial, a jury basically only recommends a sentence. The judge considers it and then issues the actual sentence. There are only 2 choices: life in prison and death. No matter what the jury chooses, judges in Alabama have the authority to override it and make a different call. "It's almost used to change a sentence of life to death, and that happens in no other state in the country," said Carrol. According to a report made by the Equal Justice Initiative in 2013, judges changing life in prison sentences to death happened 101 times. Switching a death sentence to prison has only happened 10 times. So why would a judge go against a jury? "I think most trial judges take very seriously the recommendation of the jury but again, sometimes we have information and I think the law takes this into account that the jury does not have in the final sentencing of the defendant," said Judge Clyde Jones of Jefferson County. Information like a defendant's criminal history. That is what happened in the case of Mario Woodward. In a copy of the judges' decision in the case, he wrote: "This court has access to information which the jury did not hear." Like the fact Woodward "had an extensive criminal record involving firearms and the possession of a large quantity of marijuana." In the case of Christie Scott, a woman from Russellville convicted of starting a fire that killed her son, when the jury recommended life in prison the judge basically wrote the jury got it wrong, saying "the court is a great believer in the jury system and following the jury when at all possible. Killing your own child for money by burning him alive is too much to overcome." Because Alabama is the only place in the nation this is happening, it's getting a lot of national attention from the Supreme Court and news sources, saying Alabama judges "play god" and "appear to have succumbed to electoral pressures." Even locally some say judges are using the death penalty as a political tool. "More overrides occur in smaller areas where the judge has got to be tough on crime and make a statement and one of the ways to do that is to override a jury and say I'm for the death penalty, I'm tough on crime, I need to be elected to keep you safe," said Jafe. "I can tell you right now I'm up for reelection in the next election and I just decided on Wednesday to give a guy life without parole so I think that shows you that judges are more about following the law than just an election you know judges are just like regular people we have to go to sleep at night and when you go to sleep at night you have to know you did the right thing," said Judge Clyde Jones of Jefferson County. There's a lot of different opinions on whether judge overrides are right or wrong, unconstitutional or a necessity for justice. In the case of these 2 families, Lori Holsomback said the judge overriding her brother's murderer's life sentence was an answer to her prayers. "It was like someone stood up for my family, and someone stood up for my family and my brother and the Montgomery Police Department and the state of Alabama, and said this isn't right, this isn't fair, he's killed more than 1 person, he's going to death row," said Holsomback. For Randall Padgett, now exonerated of his wife's murder, a judge override almost killed him. "I used to think in the United States of America if you were innocent and had to go to court you had nothing to worry about. If you were innocent and told the truth and everything will be fine but it doesn't work that way," said Padgett. No matter where you stand on the issue, for or against, in Alabama it's the law. And if your life is on the line in a courtroom, the judge, not a jury, will decide your fate. (source: WIAT news) TENNESSEE: Legal force backs inmates in electric chair challenge Lawyers at some of Nashville's most prominent law firms are urging the state Supreme Court to allow inmates to move forward with a claim the electric chair is an unconstitutional method of execution. 22 attorneys, most of whom are from Nashville, filed a brief with the Tennessee Supreme Court last week citing "a common calling to promote justice and public good.] "These attorneys recognize a responsibility to maintain and improve our system of justice," said Robert Goodrich, an attorney with Burr & Forman in Nashville who helped put the brief together. "The imposition of the death penalty is a significant challenge, if not the most significant challenge, to our justice system." The state Supreme Court heard a case Wednesday and is considering whether 34 death-row inmates can challenge the electric chair, the state's backup method of execution, as unconstitutional, even though none is currently facing electrocution. The attorneys cite concerns that court justices also raised: There is no time frame for when the Department of Correction must notify inmates they'll be electrocuted instead of killed by lethal injection, the state's primary method. They say that creates a risk of inmates not having enough time to file lawsuits or seek last-minute stays, as is common before executions. "Dismissal of the electrocution claims would result in tremendous uncertainty and insecurity in the administration of capital punishment in Tennessee," the filing reads. They also cite 2 other states - Georgia and Nebraska - where courts have ruled electrocution is unconstitutional and say that ruling is still a possibility in this case in Tennessee. "This issue needs to be fully briefed and evaluated and carefully considered," Goodrich said. The way to allow that, they say, is to let the challenge move forward now when there is no deadline of an imminent execution. Attorneys The following attorneys said, via court papers, that inmates should be allowed to challenge electrocution protocols now, even though none is facing that method of death. Knoxville area David Eldridge, Eldridge & Blakney Stephen Ross Johnson, Ritchie, Dillard, Davies & Johnson Bradley MacLean Cynthia MacLean Nashville area Robert Goodrich Jr., Burr & Forman J. Patrick Warfield, Burr & Forman L. Webb Campbell, Sherrard & Roe C. Dewey Branstetter Jr., Sherrard & Roe Matthew Sweeney, Baker Donelson Donald Capparella, Dodson Parker Behm & Capparella Jason Gichner, Dodson Parker Behm & Capparella Gregory Smith, Stites & Harbison William Leader, Leader, Bulso & Nolan Edgar Rothschild, Rothschild & Ausbrooks Christopher Slobogin, Vanderbilt University Law School James Thomas, Neal & Harwell Daniel Horwitz, private practice H.E. Miller Jr (Brentwood) John Oliva, private practice Memphis area Edward Bearman, private practice Claiborne Ferguson, The Claiborne Ferguson Law Firm William Howell (source: WBIR news) ARIZONA: AZ death penalty statute upheld, for now Arizona's death penalty statute was on trial in a Maricopa County Superior courtroom Friday afternoon. Prosecutors and defense lawyers were arguing the constitutionality of the law. The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that if a state is going to have a death penalty, the law must have a system in place to narrow down when prosecutors can seek the death penalty. A group of defense attorneys have banned together on behalf of nearly 30 defendants who could face the death penalty to fight the constitutionality of Arizona's statute. They have filed a motion to take the death penalty off the table in each case. They believe the law, as written, does not sufficiently narrow the circumstances of when the state can seek the death penalty. Under Arizona's law there are 14 aggravating factors the state can consider in deciding whether to apply the death penalty. Only one of those factors needs to be present for a capital case. That being the case, defense lawyers contend that nearly every defendant charged with 1st-degree murder is death penalty eligible. Lawyers arguing on behalf of the state pointed out that the Arizona Supreme Court has upheld the constitutionality of the state's death penalty law in the past. The prosecution believes the statute does have narrowing factors. Judge Joseph Kreamer sided with prosecutors and denied the defense motion to throw out the death penalty. But Kreamer did make it clear that he believes it might be time for the state supreme court to review this issue again. "When I look at the argument, the overall argument, let me first say I am troubled by what I believe to be a lack of narrowing in the statute. The aggravating circumstances have evolved," Kreamer said. After the ruling lead defense attorney, Gary Bevilacqua said the judge's ruling, even though it was against him, was the most vindicated he's ever felt on a loss. This now allows Bevilacqua and the other defense attorney's the opportunity to file a special action with the court of appeals. Their hope is that the issue will once again be heard by the Arizona Supreme Court. (source: KPHO news) USA: Law Profs: SCOTUS Should Focus on Risky Execution Drug, Not Activists ---- Regardless of how execution drugs became unavailable, it's clear the drug in question doesn't work Last week, the U.S. Supreme Court heard a lethal injection case from Oklahoma, Glossip v. Gross, which focused on a challenge to a specific drug, midazolam. The case centers on whether midazolam, a drug which has been used in multiple botched executions, can protect prisoners from cruel and unusual suffering during executions, given its inherent limitations as a drug. At oral argument, however, some Justices pursued a line of questioning that went beyond the fact that midazolam has no pain-relieving effects and isn't FDA-approved for use as a stand-alone anesthetic. Justices Scalia, Alito and Kennedy wondered aloud if their ruling inGlossip should consider midazolam's use against the alleged backdrop of anti-death penalty activists preventing "better" drugs from being available. A new opinion-editorial in today's Washington Post powerfully argues that it should not. In "What Justices Alito and Scalia Overlooked on the Death Penalty," Harvard Law professor Charles Ogletree and University of North Carolina Law professor Robert Smith argue that the issues raised about death penalty activists and drug shortages have no bearing on the core issue in the case: "The fact that some pharmaceutical companies do not want to sell execution drugs to state corrections departments tells us nothing about whether Midazolam presents an intolerable risk that Richard Glossip will endure gratuitous suffering if the drug is used to render him unconscious." The piece goes on to argue that even in the unlikely event that "some loosely defined group of 'death penalty abolitionists' coerced billion-dollar, multinational pharmaceutical corporations into doing anything not in their self-interest," it's crucial to remember that the Petitioners in the case had no hand in those hypothetical events: "But even if you accept the premise that "death penalty abolitionists" convinced Big Pharma to stop selling lethal injection drugs, it doesn't change the fact that Glossip is not an activist member of the death penalty "abolitionist movement," nor did he directly or indirectly lobby pharmaceutical companies to stop selling lethal injection drugs. As a condemned prisoner, he lives in nearly complete isolation on Oklahoma's death row. He did not waive, and the Court should not ignore, his right to be free from gratuitous suffering based on the activities of some unnamed political activists whom he presumably doesn't even know." As "What Justices Alito and Scalia Overlooked on the Death Penalty" argues, Glossip v. Gross presents an important question of whether midazolam will cause pain and suffering in lethal injection executions which would violate the Eighth Amendment's prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment. Other considerations about perceived factors influencing the lethal injection drug supply simply aren't relevant. (source: the-newshub.com) ******************************** Mistaken Identity 5 Contested Death Penalty Cases Despite controversy, capital punishment still enjoys widespread support in the United States. According to a 2009 Gallup poll, 65 % of Americans support the use of the death penalty. Of course, every death penalty case comes wrapped in some degree of debate, given deep disagreement over whether the death penalty is ever moral. Here is a by-no-means-exhaustive list of some of the most controversial cases of the 20th and 21st centuries: Davis' case received national and international attention because of concerns about witness testimony. Seven of nine eyewitnesses who implicated Davis in the shooting later recanted their testimony, and others say that the man who originally implicated Davis was actually the killer. Public figures as diverse as death penalty opponent former President Jimmy Carter and conservative U.S. representative Bob Barr of Georgia called for reconsideration of Davis' sentence, but on Sept. 20, the Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles declined to grant him clemency. The next day, a last-minute appeal to the Supreme Court failed. Davis case triggered public ire in part because his sister has been fighting for his innocence for years, said UC Boulder's Radelet. Having a strong advocate can make the difference between an inmate who dies without much fanfare and one who goes out amidst widespread support. But public mood has shifted on the death penalty too, Radelet said. "What's happened in the last 10 years in the United States is that there has been a dramatic increase in opposition to the death penalty," said Radelet. "I think that's part of why Troy Davis is getting attention." The Davis case also grabbed headlines because Davis had "a strong case for innocence," Radelet said on the day of the execution. "I have to admit, this one really stumps me," Radelet said. "It really surprises me. I'm just astonished that they're going to let this execution go forward." In a rare move on Sept. 15, 2011, the Supreme Court halted the execution of Texas death row inmate Duane Buck. The stay was a surprise, because the Supreme Court rarely jumps in on death penalty cases unless there is doubt about the defendant's innocence; in this case, it wasn't Buck's guilt that led the Supreme Court to step in, but the testimony of a psychologist at his sentencing who said that black criminals were more likely to commit violence in the future than criminals of other races. (Buck was convicted of killing his ex-girlfriend and her friend in 1995.) The psychologist's comment has led to cries of racial bias, and in 2000, then-Texas Attorney General John Cornyn (now a U.S. senator) recommended that 6 cases in which the psychologist gave the racially tainted testimony be reopened. All the cases but Buck's were, and all 5 of those defendants were re-sentenced to death. The Supreme Court will now decide whether to hear Buck's case. If it doesn't, Buck will have to again appeal to Texas' Board of Pardon and Paroles, which has once before refused to commute his sentence to life in prison. If the board again turns down Buck's request, only Texas Gov. Rick Perry could halt Buck's execution. Death penalty controversy is not a new phenomenon. Italian immigrants Ferdinando Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti were executed in 1927 after a highly contested series of trials over the shooting death of 2 men during a 1920 armed robbery. Sacco and Vanzetti were followers of Italian anarchist Luigi Galleani, and anti-Italian sentiment almost certainly played a role in their execution, said Michael Radelet, a death penalty expert at the University of Colorado, Boulder. The accused men waged a then-unprecedented 6-year legal battle that went all the way to the Supreme Court twice, and public figures (Albert Einstein among them) called for new trials. But even a confession to the murders by another man, ex-convict Celestino Madeiros, could not save Sacco and Vanzetti's lives. They died in the electric chair on Aug. 23, 1927. Later, several anarchist leaders spoke out to say that Sacco was guilty but Venzetti was not, though historians still debate whether either man really pulled the trigger. The controversy around Humberto Leal's death was not focused on his guilt, but on his legal rights. Leal, a Mexican citizen, was convicted of the 1994 rape, kidnapping and murder of 16-year-old Adria Sauceda, whose body was found bludgeoned on a dirt road in San Antonio, Texas. But police had not informed Leal of his right to call the Mexican consulate upon his arrest, putting the case on shaky grounds. In 2004, the International Court of Justice in The Hague ruled that Leal and other Mexican nationals on death row had been denied their right to contact their consulate under the Vienna Convention. The Supreme Court in 2008 held that the International Court's judgment was binding, but Congress would have to pass a law to ensure individual states would comply. That never happened. Citing fears that Leal's execution would harm America's standing in the world, the Obama administration entreated the Supreme Court to stay the execution until Congress could pass the binding law. The Supreme Court concluded that Congress had plenty of time to do so, and denied the appeal. Leal died by lethal injection on July 7, 2011 on death row in Huntsville, Tex.. Of the 235 people put to death during the tenure of Texas Gov. Rick Perry, the case of Cameron Todd Willingham might be the most controversial. Willingham was convicted and executed for the deaths of his 3 young daughters, who died in a fire at the family's home. Prosecutors alleged that Willingham set the fire and killed the girls to cover up abuse; Willingham's wife, who was not home at the time of the blaze, denied at the time that he abused his children. The crux of Willingham's case, however, revolved around whether the fire was set on purpose at all. Central to Willingham's conviction was an analysis by deputy fire marshal Manuel Vasquez concluding that lighter fluid or some other accelerant had been spread throughout the hallways of the home. But in 2004, a 2nd fire investigator, Gerald Hurst, looked into Willingham's case. Hurst found multiple scientific errors in Vasquez's report and concluded that there was no evidence of arson. A 2009 report by the Texas Forensic Science Commission would later come to the same conclusion. Despite Hurst's criticisms, both the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles and Perry declined to halt Willingham's execution. He was put to death in 2004. But that wasn't the end of the Willingham case: In 2009, the case became intertwined with politics after Perry replaced 3 members of the Texas Forensic Science Commission 2 days before a meeting on the report, leading critics to accuse the governor of trying to hush up talk of Willingham's potential innocence. When the commission released its report in April 2011, it took no stance on Willingham's guilt or innocence. With Perry running for president, the Willingham case may again enter the public consciousness. But an admission of fault is unlikely, UC Boulder???s Radelet said. There have only been a handful of post-mortem pardons in the U.S., one in 1891 in Illinois and one in January 2011, when then-Colorado Gov. Bill Ritter pardoned a disabled man executed in 1939, Radelet said. With Presdential politics at play, he said, there is even less motive to look deeply at the Willingham case. "If Rick Perry ever admitted that Willingham was innocent, his political life would be threatened," Radelet said. (source: nation.lk) ************************ End the use of jailhouse informants At the Intercept, Jordan Smith reports on a bill from Texas that would end the use of jailhouse informants in death penalty cases. The Northwestern Law School's Center on Wrongful Convictions found in 2005 that false snitch testimony is the leading cause of wrongful convictions in capital cases in the modern era of the death penalty, implicated in nearly 1/2 of the 111 death row exonerations at that time. (As of May 4, there have been 153 death row exonerations.) "It's astounding, it really is," says Alexandra Natapoff, a professor at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles and the nation's leading expert on the use of informants. "Criminal snitching is an enormous problem for our justice system, in part because it's an enormous source of error." ... But a bill pending before the Texas Legislature would address the problem by banning all incentivized informant testimony in death penalty cases. Its chances are slim, but if passed, the law would make Texas the 1st state in the nation to eliminate the use of all compensated testimony in capital cases. The bill would, theoretically, still allow certain informant testimony, from jailhouse snitches, but only if the defendant's statements to the snitch are recorded - a measure that is akin to a model policy proposal supported by Northwestern's Center on Wrongful Convictions and the Innocence Project. If the bill passes, I predict you'll see the use of informants in these cases dwindle to almost never. The reason: Most jailhouse snitches are lying. Informant testimony has become such a critical tool for prosecutors precisely because it allows them to put on testimony that is a) damning, b) easy to manufacture and c) allows b) to happen while giving them plausible deniability. This isn't to say that all prosecutors manufacture evidence by using jailhouse informants. It is to say that the way informants are treated by the courts makes it very easy to do so. The whole concept of jailhouse informants defies credulity. The very idea that people regularly confess to crimes that could put them in prison for decades or possibly even get them executed to someone they just met in a jail cell and have known for all of a few hours is and has always been preposterous. Not to mention the fact that these are people whose word prosecutors wouldn???t trust under just about any other circumstance. When informants have later recanted testimony or claimed that police or prosecutors browbeat them into lying, a DA's office will quickly point to the informants' criminal records and lack of trustworthiness. But when they're helping to win a conviction, their word is gold. Many prosecutors also feel that they're under no obligation to investigate the veracity of an informant's testimony. Here are a couple of examples of how that can play out at trial: In one case I reported on several years ago, a parade of jailhouse informants all claimed to have sold drugs to a family. The totality of the testimony was implausible. If all the informants were telling the truth, this family that lived in a modest home in a small central Louisiana town would have been the biggest kingpins in the South. Yet the U.S. attorney stated at trial that it didn???t matter if he personally believed the informants. It only mattered what the jury believed. After the family was convicted, it was revealed that the informants had lied. Yet the U.S. attorney went on to use some of the same informants in other trials. In another trial in Chesapeake, Va., a few years ago, Ryan Frederick stood accused of murder for shooting and killing a police officer during a drug raid on his home. Frederick claimed he thought the police were criminal intruders. There were 2 abuses of informants in that case. First, the police had probable cause for the raid only after 1 of their informants broke into Frederick's home to see the pot plants he was growing. The police claimed they had no knowledge of this, although there was some evidence that this had happened before. More troubling, during Frederick's trial, Commonwealth's Attorney Paul Ebert put on a jailhouse informant named Jamaal Skeeter, who claimed Frederick admitted he knew the raiding cops were police, boasted about killing the officer and mocked the officer's widow. Ebert was named special prosecutor in the case and brought in from Northern Virginia. Frederick apparently made these statements immediately after meeting Skeeter, during their one hour per day of recreation at the jail. That in itself seemed improbable. But it seemed especially unlikely given the police station videos of Frederick sobbing with regret and vomiting upon learning that the officer he shot had died. Then, something extraordinary happened. In mid-trial, another prosecutor in Virginia stepped forward to inform Frederick's attorney that Skeeter had a long history of lying and that no local prosecutor trusted him. This would seem like a pretty easy thing for Ebert to have discovered on his own. But again, while prosecutors are in theory ethically obligated to only put on evidence they believe is true, there's no way to enforce that obligation. In fact, there's some incentive for them not to investigate their informants' claims. Doing so could arguably put them in the role of investigators, or police. So long as they're performing prosecutor duties, prosecutors are protected from civil liability by absolute immunity. But once they take on duties normally conferred to cops, they're protected only by the qualified immunity given to police. (Qualified immunity is still tough to get past, but it's also a step down from absolute immunity.) And of course, all of this is before we even get to the problem of prosecutors giving informants time off their own sentences in exchange for their testimony. This Texas bill is a good 1st step. It's a pretty significant 1st step. But if we can admit that the use of jailhouse informants is fraught enough with problems that we want to keep the practice out of death penalty cases, I'm not sure why we'd be okay with allowing it in cases that could result in decades-long prison sentences. (source: Radley Balko, Washington Post) *************** Witness describes gas-soaked rug in Holmes' apartment A bomb expert who stepped into Aurora theater shooter James Holmes booby-trapped apartment testified Friday that the carpet "sloshed" with gasoline as he walked across it. Sgt. Shane Heiter of the Adams County Sheriff's Office said he helped dismantle the explosives and incendiary devices arrayed on the apartment's floor in the hours after the July 20, 2012, shooting at the movie theater that killed 12 and injured 70. Prosecutors say Holmes rigged his apartment to explode and catch fire to draw first-responders away from the theater when he attacked it. Also testifying Friday was Kaitlyn Marie Fonzi, who lived in Holmes' building and was awakened by loud music coming from his apartment the night of the attack. Fonzi said she knocked on the door, noticed it was unlocked, got a bad feeling about the situation, and instead decided to instead go home and call police. Investigators say the door was booby-trapped to set off the explosives inside had someone opened the door and stepped inside. (source: USA Today) From rhalperi at smu.edu Sat May 9 12:57:24 2015 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Sat, 9 May 2015 12:57:24 -0500 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide Message-ID: May 9 HUNGARY: Hungarian PM Orban wants to bring back death penalty Hungary wants to reintroduce the death penalty. It may seem a surprising move for an EU member state but that's exactly what Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban wants to do even though capital punishment is not permitted under EU rules. Many politicians say any member state that wants capital punishment should leave the EU. The European Parliament's Committee of Civil Liberties says reintroducing the death penalty would be a clear violation of EU law. "Viktor Orban doesn't defend anything." said Louis Michel, MP of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe. "He is destroying everything. By launching a debate on the death penalty, he is turning Hungary against the flow of history. That is the truth. Death penalty never reaches its goal. It is not right for justice to commit a crime." Many people say Orban is trying to prevent his popularity from plummeting after support for radical nationalist Jobbik party soared. Euronews correspondent Attila Magyar reported: "Hungarian political analysts say Viktor Orban knows that it is impossible to reintroduce the death penalty, but by 'keeping this on the agenda' he can gain some support. The latest opinion polls show that almost 1/2 of the population agrees with the reintroduction of the death penalty. So the Hungarian PM can act like the protector of the Hungarian Sovereignty again." (source: euronews) INDIA: Supreme Court sentences cab driver, friend to death for murder and rape of Pune BPO employee A cab driver and his male friend were sentenced to death for "brutally" raping and murdering a BPO employee in Pune in 2007. Describing them as a "menace to the society," the Supreme Court on Friday sentenced to death a cab driver and his male friend for "brutally" raping and murdering an "innocent and helpless" BPO employee in Pune in 2007. The 22-year-old woman was traveling in her company's pick-up cab on November 1, 2007, when the driver Purushottam Borate and his friend Pradeep Kokate raped and killer her viciously. "They did not show any regret, sorrow or repentance at any point of time during the commission of the heinous offence, nor thereafter, rather did they act in a disturbingly normal manner after commission of crime," said a bench led by Chief Justice of India H L Dattu. Confirming the sentence awarded to the duo by the trial court and the Bombay High Court, the bench said that the offence was so meticulously and carefully planned and was executed with sheer brutality and apathy for humanity that in every probability they have the potency to commit similar offence in future. "It is clear that both the accused persons have been proved to be a menace to society which strongly negates the probability that they can be reformed or rehabilitated. The act shocks and repulses the collective conscience of the community and the court," said the bench while rejecting the defence counsel's plea to commute the death penalty to life term. The duo was heard by the top court only on the point of sentence. The Court drew a parallel with the case of Dhananjoy Chatterjee, who was executed for the murder following a rape of a teenage girl in 1990 at her apartment residence in Bhowanipur in West Bengal. It thus noted: "The gruesome act of raping a victim who had reposed her trust in the accused followed by a cold-blooded and brutal murder of the said victim coupled with the calculated and remorseless conduct of the accused persons after the commission of the offence, we cannot resist from concluding that the depravity of the appellants' offence would attract no lesser sentence than the death penalty." The Court further underscored that it had to take into account the impact of the crime on the community and particularly women working in the night shifts at Pune, considered as a hub of Information Technology Centre. Stating that criminal sentencing has become a matter of concern in view of the rise in violent crimes against women, the bench said that punishments must act as a deterrent. "There are a shockingly large number of cases where the sentence of punishment awarded to the accused is not in proportion to the gravity and magnitude of the offence thereby encouraging the criminal and in the ultimate making justice suffers, by weakening the system???s credibility. The object of sentencing policy should be to see that the crime does not go unpunished and the victim of crime as also the society has the satisfaction that justice has been done to it," it emphasised. The Court added: "The society today has been infected with a lawlessness that has gravely undermined social order. Protection of society and stamping out criminal proclivity must be the object of law which may be achieved by imposing appropriate sentence. Therefore, in this context, the vital function that this Court is required to discharge is to mould the sentencing system to meet this challenge." (source: Indian Express) PAKISTAN: Children in the noose On Tuesday this past week, the execution of Shafqat Hussain was halted again. This was the 2nd time it happened. According to reports, in March, Shafqat Hussain had once before been readied for death, dressed in the white clothes that those about to be executed are supposed to wear and write out his last will. The 1st stay came at the last minute. The Federal Investigation Agency would look into the disputed issue in the case: Shafqat's age at the time the crime was committed. Shafqat and his counsel have consistently held that he was 14 at the time of the offense and that he is hence ineligible for the death penalty. In granting this last stay, the judge noted that the Federal Investigation Agency was the wrong institution for carrying out the investigation into Shafqat's age. He ordered that a judicial agency should be asked to conduct the investigation instead so that it would truly be the "independent inquiry" that Shafqat's attorneys had asked for in the case. Shafqat is accused of having kidnapped and then having killed a 7-year-old boy from an apartment building in 2001. He has been tried under the Anti-Terrorism Act. Appeals to mercy are difficult ones to make in Pakistan's current gallows-happy period. Since the moratorium on the death penalty was lifted (in December, the day after the attack on schoolchildren at Army Public School), many in Pakistan have embraced the belief that a lot of executions will rid the country of terrorism. >From then until this April; less than 4 months, over 100 executions have been carried out. According to Amnesty International, the country is fast gaining the reputation of the leading executioner in the world. In a prescient irony, around the same time as Shafqat was held back from the gallows, another former child prisoner was finally freed on bail in faraway Canada. Omar Khadr, a Canadian Muslim, was captured by US forces after a firefight in 2002. He was 15 years old and severely injured. For the next 8 years, Khadr was held at Guantanamo Bay Prison Camp where he was tortured and interrogated for information on Al-Qaeda. In 2010, Khadr plead guilty to conspiring with Al-Qaeda to commit terrorist acts making roadside bombs to target US troops in Afghanistan spying on American military convoys and providing material support for terrorism. Omar Khadr thus became the 1st person to be tried before a war crimes tribunal and a military commission for a crime committed when he was a juvenile. Interviews with other prisoners who were incarcerated with Khadr revealed that he was treated worse than other prisoners; severely injured when he arrived at Bagram; he was also denied medication. In their appeal, Omar's lawyers argued that the Convention on the Rights of the Child and the Optional Protocol, an international treaty prohibited the conviction of a child by a war crimes tribunal. He was finally transferred from Guantanamo Bay to a Canadian prison after serving nearly 12 1/2 years. On May 7, 2015 a judge in a Canadian court decided that until adjudication of the charges (which hold that somehow he, a severely injured teenager, had thrown a grenade at a US soldier) should be freed on bail. Canadian politicians, for whom Khadr has served as a poster child of the lurking evils of terror, are livid. "Omar Ahmed Khadr is a convicted murderer," railed Conservative Ryal Leef, adding that "streets". Khadr does not face execution even if he is found guilty. It seems that Khadr, despite his many misfortunes is luckier than Shafqat Hussain. Even with the weight of Canadian public opinion hanging heavy on the eventual outcome of his trial in Canada (he was the last citizen of a NATO country to be sent back to his country of nationality), it seems that there is room for some possible fairness. Shafqat Hussain, on the other hand, seems doomed to never getting the independent investigation that his counsel have repeatedly asked for and which is required for a fair determination to his case. Before he issued the latest stay order, presiding Judge Minallah rightly remarked that haste in executing Shafqat Hussain would result if it was later found that he was executed and it was found that he was underage. In the meantime, Minister of the Interior, Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan said in a speech on the floor of the National Assembly that "an inquiry was underway" to determine Shafqat's actual age. I have written about Shafqat's case before. Each time, a barrage of questions comes my way insisting on his guilt and on the necessity of punishment. It is useful therefore, to end this appeal with noting that an argument against Shafqat???s execution is not the same as an argument for his innocence. When a man - in this case a likely child at the time of his crime - is put to death, there is no possibility of undoing the act. Since the state carries out the act; the culpability falls in its own lap. The Pakistani state, with its morass of parallel jurisdictions, weight of stalled cases and generally groaning wheels of justice is already beset with the burdens of too many mistakes. The imperative then is to recognise that with this much doubt and uncertainty regarding the age of a man to be put to death; the just solution may be to search for an alternative punishment, instead of one that can never be undone. If Pakistanis mourn and mutter at the injustice of Guantanamo, the mistreatment of men like Omar Khadr, so must they think critically, skeptically of their own pronouncements of guilt. (source: Dawn) SOUTH AFRICA: Why the death penalty won't solve SA's crime problem There is no escaping the attention and energy focussed on all issues related to crime in South Africa at this time. The rate of violent crime is, once again, in the spotlight as both the famous as well as ordinary members of South African communities continue to be the victims of vicious crime and suffer violent deaths. Widespread media coverage combines with rumour and anecdote to fuel the ever-growing fear of crime and perceptions of the increased vulnerability of citizens living in a dangerous, crime-ridden society. Contract crime, which includes murder, attempted murder, rape, assault with intent to do serious bodily harm, common and indecent assault, street muggings, car hijackings and house break-ins, tends to characterise public perception about crime in South Africa. It is also this category of crime that generates the greatest media interest and feeds into the fear and insecurity that defines South Africans' collective state of mind about crime. This, in turn, shapes public response and explains the public outcry over recent, highly publicised rapes and murders featured in the media, and the call for the death penalty to be reinstated. South Africa had one of the highest execution rates globally. Solomon Ngobeni was the last person to be officially executed in South Africa in November 1989. Then President De Klerk declared a moratorium in February 1990 and the death penalty was finally abolished in South Africa on 6 June 1995, as it was in direct conflict with the new South African constitution. Now, 20 years later some South Africans seem to think that this ruling might have been wrong; Nicro (National Institute for Crime Prevention and the Reintegration of Offenders) would like an opportunity to comment on the call to reinstate the death penalty and its stance on crime and punishment. When leading criminologists in America were asked in a study conducted at the University of Colorado if they thought that the death penalty was an effective way to deter crime, 88% said that it was not while only 5% said it was. The rest did not express an opinion. There are few accurate investigations and studies, largely as a result of the many variables such as the cultural and religious beliefs, past events and geographical position which affect crime. However, the USA provides some interesting statistics, especially as it is a single country but with certain states not allowing the death penalty. In the 2 decade period between 1991 and 2010, states with the death penalty had 32.45% more murders then those states that had abolished the death penalty. Renown criminologist Jeffrey Fagan, a professor of law at Columbia University, has publically stated that there is no credible scientific evidence that the death penalty deters criminal behaviour. Professor Fagan as well as several other experts in the field are firm in their belief that even when executions are frequent and well-publicised, there are no observable changes in crime. "Executions serve only to satisfy the urge for vengeance. Any retributive value is short-lived, lasting only until the next crime," says Fagan. In the words of Pierre De Vos, who teaches Constitutional Law at the University of Cape Town Law Faculty, where he serves as Deputy Dean: "Executing a prisoner is a brutal and violent act. Whether a man or woman is hanged, beheaded, injected with poison or shot, this violence and brutality will be perpetrated by the state in our name and on our behalf." "To endorse the death penalty is to endorse state violence and the brutality that necessarily forms part of premeditating killing. The death penalty thus brutalises the whole of society and implicates us all in the kind of violence that we wish perpetrators to be punished for". Incarceration and Retributive Justice Theoretically, the aim of imprisonment is to protect society by separating offenders who are a serious threat to the lives and personal security of members of the community. The other aim of imprisonment is to condemn behaviour that society considers to be highly unacceptable and which constitutes a serious violation of basic values. Prisons protect the society only to the extent that they temporally restrain offenders who are prone to commit acts of violence, but for other purposes, like deterrence and rehabilitation, they are at best ineffective and at worst, counterproductive. Whilst imprisonment should, in theory, bring about behavioural change as well as improved education and training, this does not occur on the scale required. On the contrary, persons often leave prison with no improvement to their behaviour, or with their ability and resolve to commit crime having been strengthened even further. Imprisonment often decreases an offender's future prospects: most persons leave prison ill-equipped to lead a constructive life in society, and are frequently at a disadvantage because they have been in prison. The result of imprisonment sometimes makes prisoners reluctant or even unable to obey the rules of a society which subjected them to inhuman conditions or harsh sentences. Stigmatisation and marginalisation leading to social exclusion often follows imprisonment, resulting in conditions that soon lead to re-offending. This results in what is referred to as the "revolving door effect". The use of prison needs to be reduced to a level where the population consists only of those from whom the public needs to be protected or who have committed serious, violent offenses. The community at large should also be involved in the process of re-socialising offenders. To reach such a position will clearly be a lengthy process and will need to be accompanied by a considerable amount of public education. Jailed Alternatives to Retributive Punishment Nicro has for many years vigorously promoted reconciliation and healing, and has dedicated its research and services to addressing the causes of crime and restoring the balance affected by crime. It is widely accepted, and Nicro agrees that there should be consequences for criminal wrongdoing, and that most convicted persons should have a sanction imposed on them. The nature of this sanction - imposed by society through the courts - is, however, a complex issue that needs careful consideration. It is generally accepted that sentencing has 4 objectives: 1.Punishment and retribution, 2.Reduction in crime through incapacitation and deterrence, 3.Protection of the public, and 4.Rehabilitation and reform. Punishment and retribution through the use of incarceration as a response to crime has escalated over recent years, more especially since the abolition of the death penalty. This is perceived as a response by policy makers to the increasingly punitive public attitude to South Africa's high crime rate and the violent nature of crime. Punishment, even under life imprisonment, should not be viewed as a form of revenge. Instead, the re-socialisation of offenders towards becoming law abiding citizens should be the primary goal. The prison institution also has the duty in the case of all prisoners to strive towards their re-socialisation and to preserve their ability to cope with life. They should also counteract the negative effects of incarceration and destructive personality changes which go with it. The effectiveness of imprisonment as a sanction has, however, always been the subject of debate. Its efficiency as a means to control crime has been exaggerated, and the damage that it does to what is, in effect, an already disadvantaged group in society, is underrated. Nevertheless, imprisonment plays an important role in certain targeted cases, such as for those regarded as dangerous to society, violent offenders, repeat offenders and offenders who commit serious crime. It is Nicro's contention that other offenders who do not fall into these categories should be considered for non-custodial sentences that are effective and in which society can have confidence. South African law provides for a wide range of non-custodial sentences and our courts should have no difficulty in determining appropriate sentences. Nicro strongly advocates a problem-solving rather than a punitive approach for certain categories of offenders, using non-custodial sentences to achieve the above objectives. Categories of offenders who could be considered should include persons suffering serious mental health problems; persons suffering chemical addictions; first offenders; offenders charged with less serious offences; and young offenders who traditionally show a high propensity for behaviour modification and reform. Examples of non-custodial sentences provided for under South African law include the use of fines, suspended sentences, postponed sentences, community service, probation and supervisions, as well as attendance of treatment and educational programmes. All of these can be imposed with conditions such as attendance of treatment, education and training programmes, conditions pertaining to reparation and restoration, and specific conditions related to the individual person and case. It is in the imposition of non-custodial sentences as this pertains to programme attendance that Nicro sees potential for growth and far greater opportunities to contribute to a reduction in crime. (source: businesstech.co.za) SUDAN: South Sudanese Church Leaders Jailed in Sudan Charged, Could Face Death Penalty----Pastor says he is trusting God will intervene on their behalf. Sudanese authorities have charged 2 South Sudanese pastors under laws that call for the death penalty, their attorney said. National Intelligence and Security Services (NISS) officials have charged the Rev. Yat Michael and the Rev. Peter Yein Reith (also transliterated as Peter Yen Reith) with undermining the constitutional system (Article 50 of the Sudan Penal Code) and spying (Article 53) - offenses punishable by death or life imprisonment - and waging war against the state (Article 51), which calls for the death sentence, said the pastors' attorney. They are also charged with inciting organized forces to complain and assaulting religious beliefs, which call for prison sentences, the attorney said. "The charges are serious," the attorney, a Muslim, told Morning Star News. "However, we are doing everything possible to ensure their release. We hope to hear good news about their release in coming days." NISS is manned by hard-line Islamists who are given broad powers to arrest Christians, black Africans, South Sudanese and other people lowly regarded in the country that President Omar al-Bashir has pledged will be fully Arabic and Islamic. The charges appear to be based solely on the 2 pastors' nationality, race and faith, sources said. Sudan fought a civil war with south Sudanese from 1983 to 2005, and since June 2011 has been fighting a rebel group in the Nuba Mountains that has its roots in South Sudan, which became a separate country in 2011. Michael was arrested on Dec. 21, 2014 after visiting a church service in Khartoum, and Reith was arrested on Jan. 11 after submitting a letter from leaders of their denomination, the South Sudan Presbyterian Evangelical Church (SSPEC), inquiring about the whereabouts of Michael. Their location was unknown for months, violating international human rights agreements, but on April 30 they were transferred from Khartoum's downtown police station to a NISS detention center on Street 51 in Khartoum, Michael's wife told Morning Star News. On Monday (May 4) they were transferred to Omdurman Prison, she said. Morning Star News managed to speak with Michael on Thursday (May 7). "God will intervene and protect us even in prison despite the serious charges brought against us," the pastor said. "Thank you all for your prayers and concerns for us over this long period of imprisonment." NISS officials have demanded $12,000 from the SSPEC secretary general, the Rev. Philip Akway Obang, for the release of the pastors, sources said. Local church leaders expressed their outrage at the attempt to buy the pastors' freedom, saying they fear NISS would arrest other Christians and make the same demand in exchange for dropping charges. A NISS officer who identified himself only as Jamal confirmed that the agency had demanded that the pastors pay $6,000 each for the charges to be dropped. The church that Michael had visited and encouraged in December, Khartoum Bahri Evangelical Church, was the subject of government harassment, arrests and demolition of part of its worship center as Muslim investors took it over. NISS officials appear to be determined to punish the pastors for their support of the embattled congregation, sources said. The 2 pastors began a hunger strike on April 28 to protest their incarceration. The attorney said the charges against them were quietly filed in March, and that they are awaiting a hearing on Thursday (May 14) in Khartoum North. The pastors' families have waited in agony, not knowing how they have been treated. "We are still worried about their detention," Michael's wife said. "Let us continue to pray for them so that God can help them to be released." Amnesty International has said holding the pastors incommunicado violates the Interim Constitution of Sudan, the African Charter on Human and People's Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, all of which legally bind the Sudanese Government and all its agents. "Holding the detainees incommunicado increases their risk of being subjected to torture or ill treatment and/or enforced disappearance," Amnesty reported in February. Other Christians in the Bahri congregation have also been arrested. Police in North Khartoum on Dec. 2 beat and arrested 38 Christians from the church that Michael encouraged and fined most of them. They were released later that night. On Oct. 5, 2013, Sudan's police and security forces broke through the church fence, beat and arrested Christians in the compound and asserted parts of the property belonged to a Muslim investor accompanying them. As Muslims nearby shouted, "Allahu Akbar [God is greater]," plainclothes police and personnel from NISS broke onto the property aboard a truck and 2 Land Cruisers. After beating several Christians who were in the compound, they arrested some of them; they were all released later that day. Harassment, arrests and persecution of Christians have intensified since the secession of South Sudan in July 2011, when Bashir vowed to adopt a stricter version of sharia (Islamic law) and recognize only Islamic culture and the Arabic language. The Sudanese Minister of Guidance and Endowments announced in April 2013 that no new licenses would be granted for building new churches in Sudan, citing a decrease in the South Sudanese population. Sudan since 2012 has expelled foreign Christians and bulldozed church buildings on the pretext that they belonged to South Sudanese. Besides raiding Christian bookstores and arresting Christians, authorities threatened to kill South Sudanese Christians who do not leave or cooperate with them in their effort to find other Christians (see Morning Star News). Due to its treatment of Christians and other human rights violations, Sudan has been designated a Country of Particular Concern by the U.S. State Department since 1999, and the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom recommended the country remain on the list in its 2015 report. Sudan ranked 6th on Christian support organization Open Doors' 2015 World Watch List of 50 countries where Christians face most persecution, moving up from 11th place the previous year. (source: Morning Star News) MALAYSIA: 2 Indonesians spared from death penalty in Malaysia 2 Indonesians spared recently from the death penalty by a Malaysian court are slated to return soon to Indonesia, the Foreign Ministry stated on Saturday. Maharani and Surya Darma Putra were freed after the judges of Putrajaya Federal Court, Malaysia, rejected the capital punishment sought by the prosecutor in a drug distribution case on Thursday. "With that verdict, the Indonesian Embassy in Kuala Lumpur is processing all the documents for Maharani and Surya Darma Putra to return to Indonesia," the embassy said in a statement as quoted by Antara news agency. Maharani and Surya were detained in an apartment in Ampang Hilir, Kuala Lumpur, in June 2009 for possession of drugs, namely 1,170.9 grams of heroin and 198.35 grams of morphine. A Pakistani named Naseem Haider and an Indian named Sunita were arrested along with the pair. In the 1st stage of the trial, the 4 were convicted of drug distribution and were sentenced to death. However, the Kuala Lumpur High Court rejected the prosecutor's demand due to a failure to show proof of the ownership of the drugs and the intentions of the 4 people. The prosecutor then proceeded to appeal at the Court of Appeal yet the court reached a similar decision to the Kuala Lumpur High Court. The Putrajaya Federal Court then strengthened the decision, to finally free the 2 Indonesian nationals. A total of 165 Indonesians are facing capital punishment for various crimes with 7 of them spared from the death penalty this year. Of the 165, 48 were already indicted with binding law. So far, a total of 217 Indonesians have been spared from the death penalty since 2009. (source: The Jakarta Post) INDONESIA: Filipino detained in Sandakan murder probe A 32 year old Filipino man was detained by police around 7pm on Thursday night to facilitate investigation into the murder of a man. According to police chief ACP Zabidi Mohd. Zain, the suspect was detained at the Letat Jaya Town squatters area. On Wednesday evening, a Filipino man was found murdered at a construction site in front of Bus Sida Workshop near Mile 3, Kampung Mangkalinau. The victim was found by the public lying face-down in a pool of blood, and police were informed at around 7.54pm. Based on the victim's friend's information, the victim is believed to be a Visaya in his 40's is, and had been identified as Lawrence Perig. Initial inspection on the victim's body found that the victim succumbed to serious injuries on left side of his head and both hands believed to have been slashed by a sharp object. The scene of the incident was a construction site where several workers lived in wooden houses built at the site. The victim's body was found some 30 meters from his house. The case is being investigated under Section 302 of the Penal Code which provides the death penalty upon conviction. (source: The Borneo Post) ******************************** Indonesian leader insists the death penalty is 'positive' for his country Indonesian President Joko Widodo insisted on Saturday that the death penalty was "positive" for his country after the execution of 7 foreign drug convicts by firing squad last month sparked international outrage. Jakarta put to death 2 Australians, a Brazilian, and 4 Nigerians on a prison island, along with one Indonesian, despite worldwide calls for them to be spared and heartrending pleas from their families. Canberra recalled its ambassador from Jakarta at what it called the "cruel and unnecessary" executions while the United Nations expressed deep regret. However Widodo, who took office last year, has been unswayed by the international appeals, insisting that Indonesia is facing an emergency due to rising narcotics use. In an interview on Saturday with journalists in Abepura, eastern Indonesia, he voiced no regret at the executions and insisted: "The death penalty is still our positive law." Asked about the anger in other countries, he said: "My duty as president of Indonesia is to carry out the law and I'm sure other countries will understand this." And he added: "Every day 50 young Indonesians die, in one year that is 18,000 dead. I hope they understand about that." Widodo was referring to figures that he has often used to back up his claims about Indonesia's drugs emergency, including claims that more than 4.5 million users are in need of rehabilitation. However, academics have questioned the accuracy of those figures and analysts believe Widodo is trying to present himself as a tough leader after his position was weakened by a series of political crises. There has been particular anger in Australia - a neighbour and key ally of Indonesia - at the execution of its citizens, Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran, the ringleaders of the so-called "Bali 9" heroin-trafficking gang. Canberra mounted a sustained diplomatic campaign to save the pair, in their 30s, saying they were reformed characters after a decade behind bars. Meanwhile the Brazilian among the group, Rodrigo Gularte, was delusional and oblivious to his fate until the final moments before he faced the firing squad, according to his priest and a lawyer. His family had said he was a paranoid schizophrenic and his lawyer Ricky Gunawan told reporters that he had a "delusional mind". A Filipina had been among the group due to be executed last month, but was given an 11th-hour reprieve. The single mother had claimed she was the victim of human traffickers, and just before she was due to face the firing squad her alleged recruiter surrendered to police in the Philippines. A Frenchman had also been due to be put to death but was removed from the list several days before the executions after Paris stepped up pressure on Jakarta. Indonesia had an unofficial moratorium on the death penalty between 2008 and 2012 but resumed executions in 2013. Widodo has accelerated the death penalty campaign - so far 14 drug convicts have been executed during his presidency, 12 of them foreigners. (source: South China Morning Post) SURINAME: Statement by the Spokesperson on the abolition of Death Penalty in Suriname "Suriname's recent ratification of a new penal code, which includes abolition of the death penalty, is an important step forward that sends a welcome signal to other countries in the region and beyond. The European Union has a strong and principled policy on the abolition of the death penalty as it cannot be justified under any circumstances. This stance is rooted in the belief in the inherent dignity of all human beings and the inviolability of the human person. Suriname's decision to join the ever-increasing number of de jure abolitionist countries in the world is an important positive step. This could be further consolidated by signing and ratifying the 2ndOptional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the Protocol to the American Convention on Human Rights, both instruments aiming at the global abolition of the death penalty." (source: eeas.europa.eu) TUNISIA: Tunisian Association Against Torture Calls for Abolishing Death Penalty President Beji Caid Essebsi, Friday, stressed the need to anchor liberties, human rights and independence of the judiciary. "Tunisia should break with practices that violate the principles of the Constitution," the Head of State also said at his meeting at the Palace of Carthage with a delegation of the Tunisian Association Against Torture. According to a Presidency press release, Caid Essebsi also pledged "to spare no effort to intervene in this area under the provisions of the Constitution," stressing the importance of "completing the stage of building democracy." Speaking after the meeting, President of the Tunisian Association Against Torture Radhia Nasraoui said focus was placed on the slowness of the judiciary in addressing torture cases. The association calls for the abolition of capital punishment and the possibility of making May 8 of each year a national day against torture. On May 8, 1987, leftist activist Nabil Barakati was tortured to death in a police station in Gaafour, Governorate of Siliana. (source: Tunis Afrique Presse) From rhalperi at smu.edu Sun May 10 12:32:29 2015 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Sun, 10 May 2015 12:32:29 -0500 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, CONN., PENN., DEL., VA., FLA., ALA. Message-ID: May 10 TEXAS----impending execution Appeals court refuses to stop execution set for next week A federal appeals court has refused to stop next week's scheduled execution of a Houston man condemned for the slayings of his girlfriend, her mother and grandfather 13 years ago. Derrick Dewayne Charles, 32, is set for lethal injection Tuesday. Charles' lawyers argued to the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that he is mentally incompetent for execution and they need more time and money from the courts to pursue their case. State attorneys argue there's no evidence Charles is incompetent and that the issue was addressed and rejected in earlier rounds of appeals. An appeal related to the competency claim already is at the U.S. Supreme Court, which has ruled inmates facing execution must be aware their punishment is about to take place and understand why. In its ruling late Friday, the 5th Circuit said even assuming Charles has some form of mental illness, no evidence in his appeal "shows that he does not know about his execution or that he does not rationally understand the reason for it." Charles was 19 and on parole in July 2002 when he was arrested a day after the bodies of 15-year-old Myiesha Bennett; her 44-year-old mother, Brenda; and 77-year-old grandfather, Obie, were discovered at their Houston home. Police found Charles at a Houston motel where Brenda Bennett's car was found. Relatives said she wasn't happy about her daughter's relationship with Charles, who had a lengthy juvenile record and was on parole from a 3-year prison sentence for burglary. He confessed to the slayings and at his May 2003 trial pleaded guilty to capital murder charges. A Harris County jury decided he should be put to death. According to court documents, Charles said he smoked marijuana soaked in embalming fluid before the slayings, then hallucinated while committing the killings. The execution would be the 7th this year in Texas, the nation's busiest death penalty state. (source: Associated Press) CONNECTICUT: 10 years after execution of Michael Ross, state's death penalty in limbo Shortly after 2 a.m. on May 13, 2005, serial killer Michael Ross was executed by lethal injection. Ross had spent 18 years on death row, convicted of killing 4 teenage girls in 1983 and 1984. About a year before his execution, he changed from fighting against it to fighting for it. The change in his position cut short what threatened to be endless appeals, and Ross became the 1st person executed in Connecticut in 45 years. In the decade since then, no one else on the state's death row has come close to sharing his fate, and, 3 years ago, the state abolished the death penalty for murders committed after April 25, 2012. That's the date on which Gov. Dannel P. Malloy signed a ban on capital punishment passed by the state Legislature. Griswold Selectman Steven Mikutel, a longtime former state legislator who retired in 2014, voted against the repeal. "The legislators gave the murderers life, and that wasn't justice," he said. "Life imprisonment without parole is not a moral substitute for the death penalty." When legislators repealed the death penalty, however, they left the men already on death row there. For many of them, that decision came mainly as a result of a horrific 2007 home invasion in Cheshire in which a mother and her 2 daughters were killed by a pair of paroled burglars, Steven Hayes and Joshua Komisarjevsky. The crime outraged the state, and both men were sentenced to death after 2 sensational trials. In fact, in 2011, then-state Sen. Edith Prague, D-Columbia, told CT News Junkie: "They should bypass the trial and take that 2nd animal (Komisarjevsky) and hang him by his penis from a tree out in the middle of Main Street." A year later, Prague voted in favor of the capital punishment repeal for new murderers. Now 11 convicted killers, including Hayes and Komisarjevsky, still face the possibility of sharing Ross' fate. "It's fundamentally unfair to prospectively abolish the death penalty," said David McGuire, legislative and policy director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Connecticut. "It's irrational and unfair to pick an arbitrary date." In other states, such as Maryland, that abolished the death penalty prospectively, governors commuted the death sentences of people on their death rows, McGuire said. But Connecticut is 1 of only 3 states in which the governor lacks that power. "That leaves us in a unique situation," McGuire said. A state Supreme Court case may offer clarity. Eduard Santiago of Torrington was convicted of the 2000 slaying of Joseph Niwinski. Santiago appealed his death sentence, and in June 2012, the state Supreme Court overturned it, saying the trial judge had not let in significant mitigating evidence. After a new trial, Santiago received a 45-year sentence instead. The high court also agreed to hear a 2nd argument in Santiago's case claiming that because of the Legislature's repeal, the death penalty should not apply to anyone. "By repealing the death penalty prospectively, the General Assembly has, in effect, sacrificed Santiago to end the death penalty for everyone," the ACLU of Connecticut said in a friend-of-the-court brief in the case. "The Constitution does not permit legislatures to make 'sacrificial lambs' of its citizenry." Oral arguments were made in April 2013. The Supreme Court has not issued an opinion in the 2 years since then. Judicial branch spokeswoman Rhonda Stearley-Hebert said last week she did not know when the court will issue its ruling. "We're waiting for Santiago," said Michael Courtney, chief of the capital defense unit at the Chief Public Defender's Office. "If that were decided in our favor, that would end the death penalty." All 11 men on death row are involved in some pending appeal, Courtney said. "There's never any end to it. It just goes on and on and on," said Michael Lawlor, state undersecretary for criminal justice planning and policy. Families of victims, he said, face years of anxiety while litigation continues. Lawlor said that as a practical matter unless one of the men on death row fights to be executed as Ross did, execution is "extremely unlikely." In fact, the state does not have the ability to execute anyone. The use of the three drugs that were administered to execute Ross has been challenged in court, and in 2011 the state put executions on hold until the challenges are settled. If the death penalty is ended, murderers would be sentenced instead to life in prison without the possibility of release. Courtney said that while inmates sentenced to life in prison can and do appeal their sentences, "It wouldn't be the same as someone sentenced to death. The appeals don't stop." "Connecticut legislators did not reform the statute and make it a workable law," Mikutel said. "They did their best to make it unworkable and allow cold-blooded killers to have endless appeals. ... In my opinion, they walked away from justice." McGuire and other death penalty opponents say minorities and poor people receive death sentences more often, death sentences don't deter future murders and innocent people can be wrongly convicted. Mikutel believes those arguments don't apply. "We never did execute people in Connecticut willy-nilly," he said. "There were so many safeguards in place that if there was any doubt at all, the death penalty wouldn't be applied." In any case, Ross fit none of the categories that death penalty foes use to raise doubts about whether someone deserves execution. He was an insurance salesman who worked in Norwich, lived in Jewett City and a graduate of prestigious Cornell University. There was no question of his guilt. He admitted kidnapping, strangling and, in most cases, raping eight women and girls between 1981 and 1984. His victims ranged in age from 14 to 25. "I do believe justice was served in the Michael Ross case," Mikutel said. "Michael Ross decided for himself that he deserved to be executed." "There are some cases in which the public rightfully expects the maximum penalty authorized by law to be imposed," Chief State's Attorney Kevin Kane, who prosecuted Ross, said. "This was certainly one of them." Ross' murders terrorized Eastern Connecticut for more than 2 years, Kane said. Mikutel, whose district was the site of 3 of Ross' murders and who spoke to a number of the family members of Ross' victims, said his execution did not bring them peace. "I still have memories of those victims," Mikutel said. "Those families have never had closure. ... Those families' lives were destroyed." "The best thing we can say is this chapter is closed, and the families can go on with their lives," Kane said at the time of Ross' execution. "They felt justice was served when Michael Ross was executed," Mikutel said. "I want that clearly stated." (source: Norwich Bulletin) ******************* More work ahead in New Britain serial killer investigation Watching detectives dig in the woods recently behind a Hartford Road plaza where the remains of 3 women were left by a presumed serial killer, Chief State's Attorney Kevin Kane admitted his mind was on the business at hand. "No matter what label you put on them, each case is a separate case that has to be investigated," Kane said. "They have to look at each case individually. The fact that there is more than one means each case will have to be prosecuted. They have to be ready to do that separately." Kane is no stranger to prosecuting serial killers. He was assigned the task of retrying Michael Ross, believed to be the state's most notorious and prolific serial killer, in the penalty phase of his convictions. Ross killed 6 women in the southeastern portion of the state at separate times, leaving a swath of bodies and fear during his reign in the early 1980s. He spent nearly 2 decades on death row before he requested that the state carry out his punishment. He was executed in 2005. As a regional task force investigating the New Britain serial murders prepares to announce soon the findings of its 2-week excavation, a suspect, if convicted, could face the death penalty for killing Joyvaline Martinez, Diane Cusack and Mary Jane Menard. The women are believed to have been murdered in 2003, so their killer, if found, could face the death penalty. The state in 2013 repealed the death penalty, but it was in force when the 3 women were murdered. The state Supreme Court is deliberating a case on the very issue of whether the change in the law only applies to the inmates currently on death row or if it can be used against anyone who committed a capital felony prior to the repeal. Kane was at the Hartford Road site to watch New Britain police, with help from the FBI, dig up several acres behind a strip shopping center. They have not yet said what they found. Kane said Connecticut has had more than its share of designated "serial killers," dating back to the 1950s. Besides Ross, for instance, there was Joseph "Mad Dog" Taborsky, who killed several people during a series of robberies in the 1950s in different towns, including New Britain, Kane said. And then there was Pedro Miranda, who was taken into custody at his New Britain home in December 2008, allegedly for killing 3 young women in the late 1980s, including 1 who was a relative by marriage. New Britain Police Chief James Wardwell said his department sought the help of the FBI in developing a behavioral profile for the suspect in the New Britain serial killer case after the remains of the three women were found in 2007. The FBI thought a young woman found dead in 1995 near a dumpster in the same plaza was not connected to the 3 women who all disappeared in the summer or fall of 2003. The agency turned out to be right. That woman's father was arrested last year and is not a suspect in the serial killings. Police have yet to say if they have a suspect. They're expected to release more details about the additional remains found at the site during the 2-week search in the next few days. They have not commented on whether the remains belong to the three women or someone else. Kane said ultimately, the task force and New Britain State's Attorney Brian Preleski will have to prove not only who buried the remains at the location, but if that person also killed the 3 women. "You can prove who buried those bodies, but you also have to prove what and who caused their deaths," Kane said. "This investigation still has a lot of work to do." (source: The Bristol Press) PENNSYLVANIA: Execution anniversary spotlights Wolf action 20 years ago this month, Pennsylvania marked the 1st state execution of a convicted murderer after a hiatus that had lasted 1/3 of a century. Keith Zettlemoyer, 39, of Snyder County, became the 1st person to die by lethal injection in Pennsylvania on May 2, 1995, and he became the 1st to be executed in this state since 1962. Zettlemoyer had been sentenced to death for shooting and killing Sunbury radio newsman Charles DeVetsco in 1980, a friend of his and prospective witness against him in a burglary trial. Pennsylvania had enacted a law reinstating the death penalty in 1978, followed by a law in 1990 changing the method of execution from the electric chair to lethal injection. Zettlemoyer had appealed his conviction for years. But after Gov. Tom Ridge signed a death warrant shortly after taking office that January, the death row inmate changed his mind. Zettlemoyer told a federal judge at a hearing in U.S. District Court in Scranton that he didn't want to fight the sentence anymore. "I'm in the position I wish to be," he said, according to a Harrisburg Patriot-News report about that hearing. "In a few days' time, I'll die a peaceful, quiet death that will be satisfying to me." Even so, his execution was delayed for several minutes on that final night due to the possibility of a last-minute stay from the U.S. Supreme Court. In his last statement, Zettlemoyer said, "I ask that the people of Pennsylvania and the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania please accept my 14 years of imprisonment and my execution now as all of my debts to society paid in full." On the night of Zettlemoyer's execution, death penalty protesters held vigils outside the State Correctional Institution at Rockview in Centre County and near the governor's residence in Harrisburg. Several of the official witnesses to the execution said they wondered why it took so long to execute Zettlemoyer. Ridge issued a statement shortly after the execution saying, "Nearly 15 years ago, Keith Zettlemoyer brutally murdered his friend Charles DeVetsco. May Keith Zettlemoyer's soul rest in peace. May the soul of Charles DeVetsco now rest in peace" Pennsylvania executed 2 more death row inmates after Zettlemoyer. In both cases, the condemned men had given up on their appeals. No executions have taken place in Pennsylvania since 1999. The memory of Zettlemoyer's crime and execution has faded as Pennsylvania once again debates capital punishment. Gov. Tom Wolf issued a moratorium on use of the death penalty shortly after he took office in January. He said he wants to hear the recommendations of a legislative panel studying capital punishment. District attorneys are challenging the legality of the moratorium in the state Supreme Court. (source: Citizens Voice) DELAWARE: House panel should allow vote on death penalty bill Growing up, I frequently heard how the defining feature of our democracy is the principle that each of us, or those who represent us, have a vote. Whether you were for or against, at the end of the day we all had our voices heard. On Wednesday, the state of Delaware has a committee meeting that will put this principle to the test. At 11 a.m., the House Judiciary Committee will hear testimony on Senate Bill 40, a bill to replace the death penalty with life in prison without the possibility of parole. The meeting will assuredly have vigorous debate on all sides. I do not hope to convince anyone of the need to support or oppose the bill, but rather to voice the necessity to uphold the principle each of us grew up with. We all deserve a vote, even if we disagree. The purpose of our General Assembly's committees is to decide which bills "merit" discussion among the full body. In effect, our committee members are the prime stewards of our democracy. They select which pieces of legislation deserve a vote and which ones do not. Judging by the articles and letters I have read in the news concerning SB 40, it is clear that this bill has generated significant discussion in every district across the state, and that it meets the criteria for legislation deserving a vote. Out of 41 Delaware Representatives, our House Judiciary Committee has 11 sitting members who, by serving on this committee, also represent all of us in Delaware. The 11 Representatives can choose to "favorably" or "unfavorably" vote a bill out of committee, showing their opinion on a bill while at the same time allowing the bill to receive a full debate on the House floor. Alternatively, the committee members can choose to leave the bill in committee and prevent a full vote. These Representatives have the challenging obligation to represent their values and constituents, while also acting as a committee member to the citizens of Delaware to decide which pieces of legislation are allowed to move on through the legislative process. I believe the diverse response, both for and against, over the last few years from people throughout every county and from leaders of our faith communities, demonstrates the clear need for all of Delaware to have their voices heard. Something as important as SB 40 should be discussed and reviewed by all those we chose to elect. In a time when our Congress appears to be reaching record-levels of dysfunction, Delaware has been a breath of fresh air. It seems we uphold a higher level of the democratic process, which is why some individuals on the House Judiciary Committee will have a tough decision. Those members of the committee who disagree with SB 40 will have to decide: In Delaware, do we let our own decisions override the process, or do we let a vote happen even if we disagree? I believe the time has come for members of the committee to allow this bill out, even unfavorably. When the day comes and the bill reaches the floor, all of Delaware will respect your decision to vote either way. On Wednesday, as Representatives for all of Delaware's citizens, it is time to allow this bill to be considered among the whole House of Representatives. (source: Commentnary; Drew Serres is the Organizer for Delaware Americans for Democratic Action (Delaware ADA)----The News Journal) ********************** No mistake about it, murderers should die Our political and judicial leaders have squandered $200,000 on a study of the obvious how to reduce the murder rate. Now they are pushing to end the death penalty. The Why? The War on Poverty threw the poor man out of the house. In the generations since poor men have not had to support their children and have rejected the education offered to them. High paying jobs for the functionally illiterate have gone to China and Mexico. Drug dealing gangs have replaced the father. Why Wilmington? Delaware politicians and the judiciary have flushed the 10,000 year old evolving concept that criminal law was to protect the innocent from the harmful. Protective law has been replaced by nonsense like Restorative Justice, patting a thug on the head and saying be a good boy. Magistrates let felons caught with guns and drugs out with little or no bail to return to crime within hours. Prosecutors drop gun charges for a meaningless pleas to minor crimes resulting in little time served. Judges give little time served to prevent overcrowded prisons. Several years ago a study showed 160 shooters or victims' in their early 20s averaged 20 convictions each but none were in prison. Does Delaware's judicial system work to protect the innocents? Our Chief Justice showed his bias in his Martin Luther King Day speech referring to ratios of race between population and in prison as if it meant something. Is there a single person in a Delaware jail due to race rather than their crime? Giving that kind of a speech he should drop his $1,500 robe and $70,000 office renewal to don white grease paint and a big cherry nose for the clown that he made himself. The How? Put felons away for long times or execution. The arguments against the death penalty have become ridicules. It is too expensive? The drugs cost less than $500. The expense is 25 years of legal games having nothing to do with guilt or innocence. The Public Defender whines about the cost of death defense and the chance of killing the innocent. No one wants to kill innocents. There are those for whom the guilt for horrid crimes is not in doubt. Execute the guilty this year and use their defense money for those where there is doubt. Execution is not a deterrent? Absolutely true. Lawyers making that argument are the ones causing the delays. The next person executed will have been convicted before the next person sentenced to die was born. It doesn't have to be this way. In the 1950s, Charles Starkweather was executed less than a year after conviction. The "In Cold Blood" murders in less than 6 years. In a speech several years ago the public defender showed himself remembering when he got a thug a reprieve from execution. The PD said he cursed the judge for the sentence and condemned the jury for their decision. He never expressed the slightest condemnation for the crime and no remorse for the victim or family. That speech showed he didn't give a damn how many innocent people are killed. They don't live in his neighborhood. He's just doing a job. Life without parole is a joke. A governor can commute any time he wants. Our governor commuted a death sentence for a supposed reformed thug. Later, we learn that the he was suing the State to get pornography. Some reform. In Florida and California overcrowded prison cases have released lifers. Prison provides tax paid 3 meals a day, free medical care, even sex change operations. If the thug is a gang banger, his gang will protect him and provide illegal drugs. In August 1969 a gang killed 7 people. Their death penalties were commuted. Advocates for Susan Atkins called for her release knowing she slaughtered Sharon Tate and unborn son while the actress pleaded for her baby. Tex Watson fathered 4 children while in prison even though he obliterated Abagail Folger's head so violently that it bent a pistol barrel. The illegals immigrants who killed the Del State students are living in New Jersey in far better conditions than if they had been extradited. There are people who are so violent and crimes so horrible that execution just and proper. There is one more very good reason for keeping the death penalty. What more can the law do to a lifer who kills a guard or escapes and kills innocents? (source: Opinion; Vaughn E. Whisker is a Wilmington resident----The News Journal) *************************** End the death penalty Put an end to the death penalty Many murders are the result of emotional outbursts ending in deadly force. And, for many, support for the death penalty is also an emotional outburst that demands equal restitution justified by a need for closure, or driven by false hopes of creating a safer world. Both actions feed the same parking meter. Whether the taking of life is deemed a criminal act or the execution of a trial verdict, emotionally charged responses devalue human life. A society that values the life of a loved one and devalues the life of a person who takes the life of a loved one is a society that loves situationally. If the taking of life is heinous when involving a loved one, why is it not also heinous when involving the life of the offender? Executing a person who took the life of another only perpetuates a slippery slope. It becomes easy to rationalize the taking of human life when an offender is cast as inhuman and demonized. In so doing, we become the same on some level and lose our own humanity. Who will end the cycle? Needed is the humanitarian view - persons who rise above the emotional undercurrent and say "Stop the taking of life." Persons who model grace and forgiveness. Persons who refuse to become what the offender has become - a taker of life. This does not mean the offender is free to go. It does not mean the debt to society is waived. It means the penalty for taking life will not be "take more life." I have experienced the tragic loss of a family member. His life was taken with undeniable cruelty. Yet, I support death penalty repeal. I choose to break free of the emotional undercurrent. I will not be swept further away from the shore of the humanitarian perspective. I will not feed the same parking meter. I affirm that "All life is sacred." Dennis L. Marshall Pastor of Chippey AUM Church Hockessin (source: Letter to the Editor, The News Journal) VIRGINIA: Virginia bishops on the death penalty: We're having the wrong debate As discussions surrounding a "more humane" death penalty in the United States continue, the 2 Catholic bishops of Virginia have released a statement asking the faithful to take a stance against the use of capital punishment in today's society. "By ending the use of the death penalty we would take 1 important step - among significant others we must take - to abandon the culture of death and embrace the culture of life," Bishops Paul S. Loverde of Arlington and Francis X. DiLorenzo of Richmond said in a May 6 statement released by the Virginia Catholic Conference. Their statement comes after the Supreme Court recently heard arguments in a case challenging Oklahoma's use of drugs for lethal injection as a violation of the Constitution's ban on cruel and unusual punishment. Several states have also been discussing means of execution for death row inmates. Last year, the Virginia General Assembly considered legislation that would have allowed pharmacies to create drugs used for lethal injections without disclosure to the public. Another measure proposed that if lethal drugs were not available, death row inmates would be executed by electrocution instead. To these issues, the bishops responded, "We should no longer debate which inmates we execute or how we execute them. Instead, we should debate this: If all human lives are sacred and if a civilized society such as ours can seek redress and protect itself by means other than taking a human life, why are we continuing to execute people?" They went on to reference Pope Francis' March letter to Federico Mayor, president of the International Commission against the Death Penalty, in which the Pope strongly spoke out against capital punishment, saying that ???there is no humane way of killing another person." "Let us not choose whether to use lethal drugs, electric chairs, gas chambers, or firing squads. Let us take the more courageous step and choose life instead, even when it seems 'unlovable,'" the bishops wrote in response to Pope Francis' comments. The belief "that the poor and vulnerable have the first claim on our consciences," the bishops said, is seen "in our opposition to abortion and euthanasia, and in our responsibility to welcome immigrants and refugees." "But our faith also challenges us to declare sacred even the least lovable among us, those convicted of committing brutal crimes which have brought them the ultimate penalty, the penalty of death." The Virginia bishops quoted a 2005 U.S. Bishops' statement on the matter saying that, "No matter how heinous the crime, if society can protect itself without ending a human life, it should do so." Bishops Loverde and DiLorenzo acknowledged that this teaching "challenges many people, including ourselves," especially in light of the violent crimes for which those on death row have been sentenced. However, they emphasized, "The death penalty does not provide true healing for those who mourn, nor does it embody the Gospel of Life, which each of us is called to affirm even in the most difficult circumstances." (source: Catholic News Agency) FLORIDA: Ruling Could Affect Fla. Death Row Sentencing Robert "Bam" McCloud has been on death row for nearly 3 years since a circuit judge ordered he should be executed for his part in a brutal, home-invasion robbery in which t2 witnesses were killed execution style. The death sentence came 6 months after a jury recommended by a vote of 8-4 that McCloud should receive the death penalty. The process of sentencing McCloud and other death penalty defendants in the state, which has the second-highest number of people on death row in the country, will be in question later this year when the U.S. Supreme Court considers whether the state's sentencing guidelines are constitutional. "It has the potential to have a major impact in Florida," said Rex Dimmig, public defender for the 10th Judicial Circuit of Florida. "If the Supreme Court determines it (sentencing guidelines) is unconstitutional then they will decide if it should be retroactive." The case before the court - Hurst, Timothy v. Florida - is about a man who was sentenced to death for killing a co-worker at a Popeye's restaurant in Pensacola in 1998. Hurst robbed the store and stabbed a woman numerous times with a box cutter. The jury voted 7-5 to recommend Hurst should be executed. That recommendation then went to a judge who sentenced Hurst to death. The Florida Supreme Court upheld the conviction in 2014. The U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear the case and now arguments are set for the fall. Final briefs on the case are expected to be submitted in July. A decision on the case should be made in spring 2016. The Florida Supreme Court has voiced support for a unanimous vote during the sentencing phase of the death penalty and urged lawmakers to change the law. Defense attorney Byron Hileman has tried about 30 death penalty cases in Polk County. Hileman echoed Dimmig's comments. "The entire structure of the death penalty in this state could be ruled unconstitutional," Hileman said. "We'd have to start all over again." ARIZONA CASE In a 2002 case, Ring v. Arizona, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that a jury must find any aggravating factors necessary to sentence a defendant, not a judge, said Bruce Jacob, a professor at Stetson University College of Law. In Florida, the jury is selected for a penalty phase to decide the question of whether a defendant should receive life imprisonment or the death penalty. Prosecutors argue specific statutory requirements, called aggravating circumstances, for a death sentence. The jury makes a recommendation to a judge, who is required to give the jury's recommendation "great weight," according to Florida law. The Supreme Court justices could retroactively open all previous non-unanimous cases since the Ring decision if they rule in favor of Hurst. Since 2002, when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled on the Ring case, seven Polk juries have recommended the death penalty. Tavares Wright waived a jury recommendation. The jury returned with unanimous verdicts in the cases of Harold Blake, Mark Poole and Leon Davis. In 2010, a jury recommended in an 8-4 vote that Gary Glisson should die. The State Attorney's Office agreed to waive the death penalty in the Glisson case to avoid a defense request for a new trial. Currently, 15 people from Polk County are on death row. State Attorney Jerry Hill said if the Supreme Court overturns the guidelines retroactive from 2002, he will seriously consider having new penalty phase trials for each case. "The fact that you have to prove aggravators, and you have to have a significant majority voting for death, there are a number of checks and balances in place," Hill said. "It's a shame to have a review." Hurst's lawyers have argued that juries in the state should be unanimous before an inmate is sentenced. "Because it is so utterly irreversible, the citizens should speak with a single clear voice that death is the only appropriate punishment for the crime this defendant has committed," Assistant Public Defender David Davis wrote in a 2013 petition to the state Supreme Court. "That clarity comes only with a unanimous vote, and not the 7-5 one in this case." FLORIDA LEGISLATURE Many of the 32 states that still use the death penalty changed sentencing guidelines to require a unanimous verdict after the Ring decision. Florida did not. For years since, Dimmig said, he's traveled to Tallahassee to lobby legislators to change the sentencing guidelines. He went to Tallahassee again this year, but a bill didn't make it out of any committees. Florida is the only state in the country that allows a jury to have seven votes for a recommendation of death. There are 394 death row inmates in Florida. (source: The Ledger) ******************* Defense lawyer seeks to move death penalty murder trial out of Jacksonville A Jacksonville man facing a potential death sentence is asking that his murder trial be moved out of Jacksonville because of the media attention the case generated. Lawyers for Randall Deviney say their client cannot get a fair trial in Jacksonville because of the attention the case generated from The Florida Times-Union and multiple television stations. Deviney, 25, is accused of slitting the throat of 65-year-old Delores Futrell. The case has been covered since 2008, when Deviney was arrested. Deviney was previously convicted of Futrell's murder and sentenced to death by Circuit Judge Mallory Cooper, but that conviction and death sentence were thrown out by the Florida Supreme Court. Justices ruled that police should have stopped questioning Deviney after he repeatedly told them he was done speaking. Police ignored those comments and kept questioning him, and Deviney eventually confessed to killing Futrell. That videotaped confession was shown to jurors at trial. In his motion for a change of venue, defense attorney Jim Hernandez argued that the new jury is not supposed to know about Deviney's previous murder conviction or the fact that he confessed to the crime. But the conviction and confession have been repeatedly reported by Jacksonville media. "Psychological data concerning the effects of pretrial publicity on juror verdicts strongly suggest that potential jurors exposed to negative pretrial publicity are significantly more likely to judge a defendant guilty compared to jurors exposed to less or no negative pretrial publicity," Hernandez said in his motion to move the trial. "Because of this, defendant fears that he cannot and will not receive a fair trial by state and federal constitutional standards based upon the massive adverse pre-trial publicity this case has, and continues to generate." Hernandez is also asking Cooper to sequester jurors during the case. If the judge grants that motion, the jury would likely stay in a hotel during the trial and would not be allowed to read any newspapers or watch any television that might expose them to related news reports. "Even if an untainted jury is able to be selected from Duval County, it would be highly unlikely, and almost impossible, that the jury selected would avoid prejudicial contact with other residents unfamiliar with this case," Hernandez said in his motion. Assistant State Attorney Bernie de la Rionda said his office will oppose moving the case out of Jacksonville and sequestering the jury. "We've had cases, with quite frankly more pretrial publicity, where we were able to select a jury in Jacksonville without sequestering them," de la Rionda said. The fact that jurors might have heard about the case doesn't automatically disqualify them, as long as they can keep an open mind and promise to base their decision only on what is introduced in court, he said. It has been 16 years since a trial was moved out of Jacksonville. The last one was in 1999, when the murder trial of Joshua Phillips was moved to Bartow in Polk County. Phillips was convicted of killing 8-year-old Maddie Clifton and sentenced to life in prison. Attorneys representing Michael Dunn, accused of murdering 17-year-old Jordan Davis, asked to move his trial out of Jacksonville last year. But Circuit Judge Russell Healey said he would try to pick a jury in Jacksonville first, that jury was seated and Dunn was eventually convicted and sentenced to life. Pretrial publicity could still be a factor in Dunn's appeal, which is now pending before the 1st District Court of Appeal in Tallahassee. Hernandez conceded that Dunn's case generated more attention than Deviney's has, but he said this case is different. "Dunn got a lot of publicity, but he hadn't been convicted of the crime already," Hernandez said. Deviney's trial is scheduled to begin in July, although that could change. Cooper will likely hold a hearing sometime in the next month to determine whether the trial will be moved or the jury will be sequestered. (source: Florida Times-Union) ALABAMA: Ala Grandma to Get Life or Death in Girl's Running Death A judge must decide whether to sentence an Alabama woman to life or execution by lethal injection for the killing of her 9-year-old granddaughter, who prosecutors say died after being forced to run for hours for telling a lie. Etowah County Circuit Judge Billy Ogletree scheduled a sentencing hearing for Monday afternoon for Joyce Hardin Garrard, 50. Jurors who convicted Garrard of capital murder in March recommended a sentence of life without parole in the February 2012 death of Savannah Hardin. Garrard was convicted of killing her granddaughter by making her run for hours as punishment for a lie about candy. Prosecutors sought the death penalty but said they were satisfied with the jury's suggestion of life after the trial. But the jury's recommendation came on a 7-5 vote, and Ogletree could still sentence the woman to death by lethal injection under Alabama law. A study by the Montgomery-based Equal Justice Initiative found that Alabama judges in capital cases have overridden jury recommendations more than 100 times since 1976, and 92 percent of those decisions overruled life recommendations to impose death. Neither prosecutors nor defense attorneys responded to interview requests before Garrard's sentencing. Deputy District Attorney Marcus Reid had asked jurors to recommend the death penalty following the conviction. "This case is the only case I know of where the perpetrator forced the victim to participate in her own death," he told jurors. "Joyce Garrard forced Savannah Hardin to help kill herself." But the defense and relatives pleaded for life, and Garrard told jurors she didn't mean to harm the girl. Garrard testified that she was actually helping Savannah, who wanted to do better in foot races at school. "(Savannah) asked me to coach her. Instead of coming in second in her running class at school she wanted to come in first," said Garrard. Testimony showed that the child collapsed and vomited outside her rural home following an afternoon of running and carrying sticks, and she died several days later in a hospital after doctors removed her from life support. (source: Associated Press) ********************* How Anthony Ray Hinton survived 30 years on death row Anthony Ray Hinton was 1 of 10, born to a hard-praying woman. Rich in mouths to feed, but not much more, Beulah Hinton didn't doubt that this boy among her many would find his way. She pointed him to the heavens, he said, instructing him to believe always. "God can do everything but fail," she'd say. And so, in the sterile, pent-up misery that is Alabama's death row, he'd believe. Mark 11:24 was his favorite: "Therefore I say unto you, what things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them." On April 3, Anthony Ray Hinton walked free, prosecutors dropping the charges - the U.S. Supreme Court had ordered a retrial - that he'd killed 2 men in a Birmingham area fast food managers in 1985. The bullets didn't match up beyond a doubt, the state said. Hinton, who'd awaited execution for 30 long years, was 58. The heavens being a long way off now, he expects to visit Beulah's grave today, Mothers Day. She died in 2002. He's bringing flowers. "I breathe fresh air now," he said. "I feel good about myself now." He is graying, but forgiving. 'Truth would come out' When he left Alabama death row, only 8 fellow inmates - of nearly 200 - remained who had been there longer than Hinton. "You have nothing to do but read your Bible," Hinton said. "I knew if I prayed that the truth would come out. If it didn't then it is my understanding of the Scripture it would make God a lie." His faith was so strong, he said, that he left his TV, deodorant, the book "Life of Pi", and a pair of tennis shoes to other death row inmates when he transferred to the Jefferson County jail to await his retrial. "I knew I wasn't coming back," he said. Hinton had been convicted of capital murder in the shooting deaths of Thomas Vason and John Davidson. But, in an turn of events that must have seemed providential, new lab testing couldn't pin the killing bullets to the gun found at the home that Hinson that shared with his mother. Hinton described his prosecution and incarceration as a state-sanctioned "kidnapping." He said that prosecutors could have known the truth with bullet testing back in the '90s. If prosecutors had retested the gun when they were first asked in the late 1990s, they would have saved taxpayers 16 years of expenses keeping him on death row, Hinton said. "I knew all along that it was going to come back in my favor because I never killed anyone. I never used a gun in my life." Ultimately, the order granting Hinton a new trial came down to the fact that the ballistics expert hired by his defense for his 1986 trial wasn't qualified and was blind in one eye. His attorney wasn't aware of new state rules at the time that would have allowed the hiring of a better expert. Still, he said, forgiveness is a "no-brainer." A higher court will decide what's right and just. "The same God that freed me will be the same God who will judge those that kidnapped me and had every intention of killing me," Hinton said. Hinton stands 6 foot, 2 inches tall. He weighs nearly 240 pounds. His home on Death Row at Holman prison was a small white concrete cell with a toilet. Guards' eyes were always close by. "Death row is the same everyday - breakfast at 3 a.m., lunch at 10 a.m., dinner at 3 p.m.," Hinton said. When they were lucky, death row inmates got an hour a day on the exercise yard, weather conditions or guard availability permitting. "You want to make every minute of that count," he said. For him and the other condemned, the yard brought a chance to talk without walls in the way. The other hours, Hinton said, he passed reading and watching TV. He's a fan of Auburn football, the Knicks, Yankees and the Oakland Raiders. Death row has no cable TV, he said, so he listened to Auburn's 2010 National Championship game on the radio. Sometimes the inmates would bet something like a soda, or require a certain number of pushups, on which team would win, Hinton said. There are more Alabama football fans than Auburn ones on death row, Hinton said. "Most people will jump on a winner," he said. He said he woke up each day trying to find something to laugh about. It would get up in your nostrils," Anthony Ray Hinton on the smell of burned flesh after a death row execution. "I don't believe that man was built to be put in a 5-by-7 for 30 years and have his sanity when he comes out if he doesn't find something to escape," Hinton said. But there are only 3 escapes from death row: loosed by the law, hauled out on a gurney, or traveling in the mind's eye. "I went to Paris, I went to France, I went to England, I went to Ireland. In my mind I can go wherever I wanted to go," Hinton said. He said, "I left death row every day." He said, "What the next man did, I couldn't tell you. It was harder for me because I was there for something I know I didn't do." Times of sadness In Hinton's time on death row, Alabama executed 53 inmates. "I had been next to guys for 10 or 15 years. It's like losing a member of your family," Hinton said. "They take a person that they done fed, clothed, provided just the basic medical care for and then they turn around and kill them. It's just like a slaughterhouse. "So what do you say to a person who is going to their death? Normally we would just say, 'Hang in there, keep your hope up', because there is hope until the very last second." Back before lethal injection, when the state did its killing at midnight in the electric chair, he'd see vans ferrying families and witnesses to the death chamber. He and the other inmates would clang on the bars, wishing for the doomed man to hear them when the final minutes arrived. "The next morning we could most definitely tell the execution took place because you could smell his flesh burned. .. It would get up in your nostrils," Hinton said. Hinton never was given an execution date, although he believes that it would be closing in now, perhaps in 2 or 3 years, had not the U.S. Supreme Court overturned his conviction. He said that he never thought about a last meal. His faith, he said wouldn't allow him to go in that direction. Hinton knows that there are inmates on death row deserving punishment. But not strapped, at the last, to a hot chair or poked with a pitiless needle. "They'll tell you they didn't actually do the killing - firing the gun - but they was there," Hinton said. Hinton was the 152nd U.S. death row inmate to be freed or exonerated since 1973, according to the Death Penalty Information Center. He gives credit to the Equal Justice Initiative, led by Bryan Stevenson. "If you don't have faith, somehow find faith in God and pray he send EJI to your rescue," Hinton said. "I know now the state plays a mean game, a dirty game. So you need someone who can stand up for those things." EJI is a private non-profit group that provides legal representation to poor defendants and prisoners who have been denied fair and just treatment in the legal system. The group was founded by its executive director Bryan Stevenson. On the outside One of the biggest adjustments that Hinton said he has had to make is "just being free" and being able to go outside at night. He's living now with a childhood friend, Lester Bailey. Last week, Hinton received a driver's license. He said he made a 93 on the test. "Now maybe somebody will let me drive their car," he said. All the new faces, and new freedoms, are difficult to process, he said, after decades of confinement. "You find yourself staring at people thinking that they may be staring at you," Hinton said. New technologies are also a shock. Still, he said, "Everybody who has recognized me has been very supportive or sympathetic. I've even had people apologize to me for what the system did to me." On his first grocery list were pork chops, collard greens, cornbread, macaroni and cheese, potato salad and red velvet cake. He said his legal team will decide the issue of pursing compensation from the state. His biggest disappointment, Hinton said, was that no judge or prosecutor turned up at his release to declare that he'd been wronged. Justice system leaders had swarmed the cameras when he was tried and convicted, he said. "What I would like people to know that I was innocent," he said. "I was innocent 30 years ago just as I was innocent 30 years later." Hinton said for now he wants to adapt into society and be independent. "I think I would make someone a great employee." (source: al.com) From rhalperi at smu.edu Sun May 10 12:34:21 2015 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Sun, 10 May 2015 12:34:21 -0500 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----OHIO, IND., KY. Message-ID: May 10 OHIO: Jury selection set to begin for 3rd time in Akron quadruple murder case Prosecutors and defense attorneys on Monday will begin selecting a jury for the 3rd time in a quadruple murder case delayed by accusations of judicial and prosecutorial misconduct. Deshanon Haywood's case is set to begin Monday in front of Summit County Common Pleas Judge Paul Gallagher. Haywood, 23, could face the death penalty if convicted of the aggravated murder of 4 people in a heroin-theft related case in 2013. The jury selection process is expected to take about 2 weeks. Testimony is expected to begin on May 26. Haywood's 1st trial began 10 months ago, when Summit County prosecutors accused Summit County Judge Mary Margaret Rowlands of being biased against the death penalty in the case. Rowlands presided over the trial of Haywood's co-defendant Derrick Brantley, who was convicted and sentenced to life in prison without parole eligibility. Prosecutors said Rowlands urged them to pursue a plea that would include a life sentence instead of pursuing the death penalty during Haywood's trial. Rowlands denied the allegations and eventually recused herself from the case, which was transferred to Gallagher. A 2-week jury trial ended Oct. 1 with Haywood's conviction on the aggravated murder charges. The case never reached the penalty phase, in which the jury determines whether to recommend execution or prison time. Defense attorneys Joe Gorman and Brian Pierce argued that prosecutors purposefully withheld information about deals they made with two men who testified against Haywood in exchange for being released from prison early. Prosecutors eventually agreed to re-try the case "in the interest of justice" but never said it had anything to do with prosecutorial misconduct. Gallagher vacated the convictions. Summit County prosecutors recused themselves from the case and Gallagher appointed Cuyahoga County prosecutors to handle the trial. Hawyood is accused of killing Ronald Roberts, 24, Kem Delaney, 23, Maria Nash, 19, and Kiana Welch, 19 on April 18, 2013 at the Kimlyn Circle apartment complex. (source: cleveland.com) INDIANA: Joseph Oberhansley Facing Murder, Cannibalism Charges and Now Rape Charges Joseph Oberhansley, a man from southern Indiana, was previously charged with killing his ex-girlfriend and eating part of her body in an act of cannibalism, and he is now being charged with raping her as well, according to a statement made on Tuesday by the defendant???s attorney. This charge, according to WTHR, is meant to help the prosecution???s case for the death penalty. Oberhansley, who is 34, was charged last September for allegedly breaking into the home of Tammy Jo Blanton, who was his ex-girlfriend. He was also charged with murdering her and cannibalizing parts of her corpse. Oberhansley pleaded not guilty to the charge. The article went on to say that Judge Vicki Carmichael approved the charge on Monday at the request of Jeremy Mull. who is the prosecutor of Clark County. The rape charged was supposedly added because the other charges were not sufficient enough to warrant the death penalty. Oberhansley's trial is scheduled for August 2016. The prosecution wants to ensure they have adequate time to prepare the case. WTHR stated that Oberhansley is currently in solitary confinement and his lawyer is worried about prolonged confinement. Court records revealed that the defendant initially confessed to murdering Blanton by stabbing her. He also said that he removed her organs and ate them. Following his initial confession, he went on to say that he was innocent and maintains that to this day, according to WLKY. After Blanton was killed, an autopsy was performed as well as an examination to determine if the victim had been raped. The rape test results just came back, so they were unable to charge Oberhansley with this charge until now. The evidence found on Blanton indicated that a sexual assault had occurred. Mull stated that the victim's family was not surprised by the rape charge and they are devastated by all that has happened. The prosecutors are pressing hard for the death penalty and have said that some of the factors in this case could earn the death penalty for Oberhansley. The 1st factor that could make the death penalty a possibility is the intentional murder and burglary. The 2nd factor that could pave the way for the death penalty is the fact that the body was dismembered. The 3rd factor involved is the rape of Blanton. It is also public record that Oberhansley was previously convicted of killing his 17-year-old ex-girlfriend in Utah. He also shot himself and his mother after killing his ex. In 2012, he was released from prison and moved to southern Indiana shortly after that. He had spent 14 years in prison for these crimes. Blanton even posted a $500 bond in July 2014 to help Oberhansley. In 2014, he was arrested on charges of criminal recklessness and resisting arrest. Apparently, Oberhansley attempted to run from the police and was arrested when they caught up with him. The Inquisitr reported that Oberhansley said that he was too attractive to be a rapist and also that this case is based on lies and deceit. The article also said that he became angry after hearing about the rape charge, and accused the court of falsifying documents to make him look guilty. The article also added that a motive behind the killing and subsequent cannibalism has not yet been determined. Oberhansley now faces up to 23 hours a day of confinement in a maximum security cell and this will continue until an official decision has been made regarding his fate. His lawyer requested that he be removed from solitary confinement, but the request was denied by Carmichael. (source: guardianlv.com) KENTUCKY: Judge right on death penalty case Congratulations to Circuit Judge Pamela Goodwine on striking a blow for common sense and conserving public resources. Her order last week excluding the death penalty as a sentencing option in a case before her has been hailed and condemned as a stand against the death penalty. While Goodwine, whose own mother was murdered, has stated she's opposed to the death penalty, that wasn't the basis for her order. She knows that's not her job, that eliminating the death penalty can only be done through legislation. It is her job, though, to decide whether it's appropriate to seek the death penalty. Her carefully written order noted that the facts of the case - a single murder related to a dispute over drugs and money - "are not unique." But, she writes, "not one time in this Commonwealth has a death sentence been recommended by a jury and upheld on appeal in a case involving actual or suspected drug trafficking." Goodwine has presided over more death penalty cases than any judge in Kentucky. Her experience and research tell her - and us - that juries in Fayette County, indeed in Kentucky, will only condemn someone to death who has committed the most egregious, horrific crimes. And often not then. To understand what's at stake, it's important to know that in trials where capital punishment is an option the jury must be what's called "death qualified." Only those who convince the judge and attorneys they are willing to impose the death penalty can serve. So, more prospective jurors must be called and examined more rigorously, eating up resources of the courts, prosecutors, defense attorneys and those in the jury pool. Why expend resources and inconvenience prospective jurors, their families and employers when it's obvious a death verdict will never be returned? Consider some recent trials where the lives lost were much greater. It took almost 2 months and 1,350 potential jurors to seat a jury in the trial of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev in the Boston Marathon bombing that resulted in three deaths and at least 250 injured. For James Holmes, accused of opening fire in a Colorado movie theater, killing 12 and wounding 70 in 2012, it took from Jan. 20 to April 14 this year to seat a jury, from a pool of 9,000, willing to consider the death penalty. Even after the jury is seated, a capital punishment case takes longer and costs more - calculations range as high as an added $1 million for the entire process - than prosecuting a murder where death isn't a penalty option. Prosecutors have the discretion to seek the death penalty, or not, depending upon the facts of a case. But, to avoid the appearance of bias or selective prosecution, Fayette County Commonwealth's Attorney Ray Larson seeks it in every case where it's an option, Goodwine wrote. Despite this, no one has been sentenced to death by a jury in Fayette County since 2000. That case involved not a drug deal gone bad but bludgeoning a 73-year-old woman to death then dumping her body in her car and setting it on fire. Goodwine deserves praise for her order saving the judicial system enormous expense by acknowledging what juries have made clear for decades. (source: Editorial, Lexington Herald-Leader) From rhalperi at smu.edu Sun May 10 12:35:07 2015 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Sun, 10 May 2015 12:35:07 -0500 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide Message-ID: May 10 GLOBAL: Death penalty is never OK ---- Imagine the horror experienced by the families of the 2 Australians, Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran, on learning their children had been so brutally executed by firing squad in Bali recently. Imagine the horror experienced by the families of the 2 Australians, Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran, on learning their children had been so brutally executed by firing squad in Bali recently. Make no mistake, these 2 committed extremely serious offences and forced others into being part of a scheme to take heroin into Australia. These were horrendous actions that were stopped by the Indonesian police taking preventative action to stop the planned heroin destroying so many Aussie lives. These men did not care for those they sought to use and abuse but surely a nation should be better than that. There is something so heartless in the death penalty. There is no recognition of the ability of people to redeem themselves. There is no recognition of a human's ability to become a functioning member of either society or even a prison population. I think what I find most repugnant about the death penalty is that it is done in cold blood. It treats as less than human, those who are human. By doing so, it lessens the ability of a nation to take a moral stand against criminals. Every now and then, an appalling criminal makes Kiwis wonder if a particular person might be an appropriate person to have the death penalty brought back. But we are better than that. A state must aspire to be better, to set a better example, than the violent criminals that unfortunately plague society. Preventative detention is much preferable to the death penalty. The costs to the tax payer in locking up for life rather than killing are actually very similar. Prisoners often languish on death row for many years anyway, the state has to pay for lengthy appeal processes, and the state misses out on any potential benefits of the prisoner rehabilitating. The cost is also heavy for the family and community of the 'dead man walking'. There also remains the risk that a wrongful conviction results in the death of an innocent person. This risk is lesser these days with advances in scientific and DNA evidence, but it remains. We only have to look as far as our own backyard for an example ??? our own Sir Peter Jackson was instrumental in freeing West of Memphis 'killer' Damien Echols after 18 years on death row. A strange and perverse outcome of the death penalty is that criminals can become martyrs - as is becoming the case with Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran. Let's not beat around the bush - these 2 were bad people involved in importing heroin with the sole aim of profiting from the misery of others. They bullied others into becoming drug mules; they created many victims and caused untold harm by their actions. It is disturbing that such people can become martyrs. No one would give them a second thought if they were simply imprisoned. No one outside their families would remember them. In another perverse outcome the Australian Federal Police (AFP) has had to defend itself for doing its job protecting Australians from the importation of harmful drugs that are destroying families and communities. The AFP had no choice but to do what they did by informing the Indonesian authorities and I support them in this. The AFP did not cause the traffickers' deaths. By their actions, the AFP most likely saved intended victims of Chan and Sukumaran. Where people will continue to travel to other jurisdictions with the intention to participate in serious crime, then it's possible this tragic situation will happen again. I certainly hope the executions serve as a warning to others contemplating such risks. Despite the executions, we know that the truly evil and the truly gullible will continue to take the same risks. Criminals must be held to account for their actions. But for most New Zealanders, state-sanctioned killing is just not our way. We are better than that. What's happened in Indonesia reminds us just why we removed the ultimate sanction from our law 2 generations ago. The death penalty has no place in a civilised society. I am opposed to it both as a matter of principle and because it causes injustices that can never be remedied. In the United States more than 300 inmates on death row have been exonerated after being found to have been wrongfully convicted. Many others have been executed for crimes they did not commit. The argument that the death penalty is a deterrent is disproved by research. In countries that allow appeal processes, the death penalty involves huge costs, with the penalty not carried out until years after the offence. In other countries, people are executed following corrupt and inadequate judicial process, frequently for things like adultery and blasphemy which are not even crimes in our country. There are now risks that the death penalty will be imposed on New Zealanders in China and Indonesia. People must be held to account for what they have done but the death penalty is not appropriate. (source: Opinion; Judith Collins, Stuff) INDONESIA: Indonesian leader defends death penalty after executions Indonesian President Joko Widodo insisted on Saturday that the death penalty was "positive" for his country after the execution of 7 foreign drug convicts by firing squad last month sparked international outrage. Jakarta put to death 2 Australians, a Brazilian, and 4 Nigerians on a prison island, along with 1 Indonesian, despite worldwide calls for them to be spared and heartrending pleas from their families. Canberra recalled its ambassador from Jakarta at what it called the "cruel and unnecessary" executions while the United Nations expressed deep regret. However Widodo, who took office last year, has been unswayed by the international appeals, insisting that Indonesia is facing an emergency due to rising narcotics use. In an interview with journalists in Abepura, eastern Indonesia, he voiced no regret at the executions and insisted: "The death penalty is still our positive law". Asked about the anger in other countries, he said: "My duty as president of Indonesia is to carry out the law and I'm sure other countries will understand this". And he added: "Every day 50 young Indonesians die, in 1 year that is 18,000 dead. I hope they understand about that". (source: Agence France-Presse) ENGLAND: Michael Gove - David Cameron's new Justice Secretary - called for the return of hanging in 1998 ---- Writing in The Times, he said Britain was wrong to abolish hanging in the 1960s The new Justice Secretary Michael Gove once called for hanging to be brought back. Writing in 1998 as a Times columnist, he said Britain was "wrong to abolish hanging" in the 1960s, when the death penalty was outlawed. David Cameron put Mr Gove in charge of the Department for Justice as he started to appoint his new Conservative Government. He claimed that banning the noose had "led to a corruption of our criminal justice system" and "the erosion of all our freedoms" rather than "a great liberal victory," as it was seen at the time. It had made punishing innocent people "more likely," Mr Gove wrote, and pointed to the rising swell of opinion in favour of re-introducing hanging to argue that it could repair the broken trust between voters and politicians. His support for bringing back hanging was out of "respect for democracy," he continued, but would also ensure justice was applied with "scrupulous fairness" by focussing the minds of lawmakers and prosecutors. Writing in The Times in July 1998, Mr Gove said: "Hanging may seem barbarous, but the greater barbarity lies in the slow abandonment of our common law traditions. "Were I ever alone in the dock I would not want to be arraigned before our flawed tribunals, knowing my freedom could be forfeit as a result of political pressures. I would prefer a fair trial, under the shadow of the noose." Mr Gove has not appeared to repeat any such backing for the death penalty since he made the remarks in 1998. Mr Gove returned to a front-line Cabinet position as Mr Cameron started to assemble his new Government. He was demoted from Education Secretary last year and replaced with Nicky Morgan in a bid to cool relations with teachers in the run up to the election. He is likely to become just as unpopular with judges, prison officers and prosecutors as was with teachers as he wields the axe over widespread cuts to the justice system, including a courts system that is the most expensive in Europe. Justice is one of the unprotected departments and with the promise of 5 years of tax cuts and a 8 billion pounds spending spree on the NHS, its budget is likely to be hit hard. (source: The Independent) PAKISTAN: Court Upheld Jhelum Execution Lahore High Court Rawalpindi bench headed by Justice Mahmood Maqbool Bajwa suspended the execution of death penalty orders of the 2 siblings Skindar and Jamshed temporarily. The reason behind the temporary moratorium is of the confirmation whether the 2 brothers are minors or not. Justice Mahmood Maqbool Bajwa directed the district and session judge Jhelum to constitute a medical board to identify the ages of the 2 accused brothers. District and session judge Jhelum was asked to find out whether the accused were juvenile or not by the time they committed the murder. Justice Mahmood Maqbool directed the district and session judge Jhelum that death penalty be converted into life imprisonment if the report declares the 2 siblings underage. The district court would review the case to determine the penalty with respect to the nature of crime in relation with the ages of the accused brothers. (source: The News Tribe) SAUDI ARABIA: Activists Slam Saudi Arabia's Record For Executions A global outcry against the beheading of five foreigners in Saudi Arabia has been raised by human rights groups. The concern is that this year will be marked by a surge in public executions, as 80 people have already been killed, compared to 88 last year, according to rt. Hence, in spite of mounting global criticism, Saudi Arabia went ahead with its execution of five foreign men allegedly for murder and theft. Just last month, Amnesty International had slammed the "macabre spike" in state-sponsored executions. Adam Coogle, a Middle East analyst for Human Rights Watch, said: "From January to the end of July 2014 there were 15 executions, but they finished 2014 with 88, which shows clearly that the spike began last year and has continued," Coogle told the Independent. It was "shocking", said Peggy Hicks, Global Advocacy Director at Human Rights Watch. Amnesty International said that Saudi Arabia was ranked the third country with the number of executions in the world. In 2014, it was behind Iran, while China is thought to rank the highest. Iraq ranked 4th, and the US stood in the 5th place, said sputniknews. Amnesty International explained that Saudi Arabia's new leader has not shown a cessation in the execution of capital punishment for a number of offenses, including "blasphemy, treason, murder and drug trafficking." Hence, the ascent of King Salman bin Abdul Aziz Al Saud to the Saudi Arabian throne has not improved human rights in any way. "Any hopes that the arrival of King Salman bin Abdul Aziz Al Saud might herald an improvement in human rights in Saudi Arabia have been crushed," said Philip Luther, Amnesty International's Director of Middle East and North Africa programs. He said that the new king is overseeing an "ongoing crackdown on government critics and peaceful activists, who continue to be intimidated, arbitrarily detained and treated as criminals." "The first months of his reign have also been marked by an unprecedented wave of executions in a clear signal that the use of the death penalty is thriving in the Kingdom." Coogle, however, did not feel that reaon for executions was due to the change in royalty. "Personally, I would hesitate to relate the spike to the change of leadership," he said. "He certainly hasn't done anything to stop it but the high rate really began last August. It could be an issue with a backlog of prisoners or it could just be that they are sentencing more people to death." Excluding China, where statistics were not released, at least 607 executions were known to have been performed globally in 2014, Amnesty International said in a report released in March, compared to 778 in 2013, which actually showed a decrease of more than 20 %. However, the report showed a rise in the number of death sentences handed down in 2014 compared to the previous year - at least 2,466 compared to 1,925 - an increase of more than 25 percent. The watchdog explained that the rise was due mainly to the unrest in Nigeria and Egypt, where hundreds of people were condemned to death. (source: newseveryday.com) From rhalperi at smu.edu Mon May 11 10:41:34 2015 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Mon, 11 May 2015 10:41:34 -0500 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, N.C., FLA., MISS., ARK. Message-ID: May 11 TEXAS----impending execution Houston triple-killer seeks to avoid execution by claiming insanity; Murderer of 3 attempts to avoid execution Derrick Dewayne Charles had been free on parole only 7 months when, in July 2002, he murdered his underage lover by dropping a television on her head and strangled the teen's mother and grandfather. The killings were the culmination of a life largely spent outside the law and, unless courts intervene, will be the cause of his execution Tuesday in the state's Huntsville death house. Just 19 at the time of the crimes, Charles, whose criminal career had brought him a three-year sentence for burglary and a stint in a Texas Youth Commission lockup, pleaded guilty to the murders. Dead at their northeast Houston residence were Myiesha Bennett, 15; Brenda Bennett, 44; and Obie Bennett, 77. Charles' appellate attorney, Paul Mansur, a Texas Defender Service lawyer based in West Texas, is attempting to save his client by establishing that he suffers from serious mental illness that would render him ineligible for execution. Under the U.S. Supreme Court's 1986 Ford vs Wainwright decision, a killer can be spared execution if his "mental illness prevents him from comprehending the reasons for the penalty or its implications." Rejected petitions The Houston-based U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas recently rejected Charles' petitions for a stay and for funds to hire a mental health expert and an investigator to develop a his insanity claim. In turning down the petitions, U.S. Judge Nancy Atlas noted, Charles' attorney waited four months after the state assigned an execution date before turning to the courts. In order to provide funds for a psychological review this close to the execution date, Atlas ruled, her court first must issue a stay. Charles' case, she determined, did not meet guidelines for that decision. Mansur has notified the 5th U.S. Court of Appeals in New Orleans that he will appeal. The Denver City lawyer has filed earlier briefs to the court as sealed documents, saying that they contain details about the health of his client and, possibly, his client's family, that legally should not be made public. Summations of the case in court filings, though, indicate that Charles received some psychiatric care as an adolescent and apparently suffered from attention deficit disorder, depression and a possible brain injury. Charles' mother, court documents asserted, suffered from schizophrenia. Triple murder "Nothing in the record, however, indicates that Charles suffers from symptoms of 'insanity' as described by Ford," Atlas ruled. "While none of the psychological experts during his prior legal challenges performed an incompetency-to-be-executed evaluation, the record contains no observations of pervasive and severely debilitating conditions, such as major delusional symptoms or psychotic episodes, that traditionally give rise to Ford claims." On the day of the killings, Charles told authorities, he was high from smoking marijuana laced with embalming fluid. Authorities contend that Charles was angry with Brenda Bennett because she reported him to police for having sex with her daughter. Hours before the killings, Charles had come to the Bennett residence, where, unbeknownst to adults, he again had sex with the girl. When Myiesha Bennett and her mother left to run an errand, Charles waited undetected in the teen's bedroom. Some time later, Obie Bennett entered the residence from a garage woodworking shop. Charles beat the man with his fists, a lamp and athletic trophies before strangling him with a lamp cord. When the mother and daughter returned, Charles bound them both. The 5-foot-9, 179-pound killer then attempted to strangle the girl. He completed the murder by beating her with stereo speakers and dropping a television on her head. No sympathy Charles forced Brenda Bennett into a water-filled bathtub, into which he tossed a plugged-in television. When the attempted electrocution failed, he sexually assaulted and strangled her. The victims were members of Grace Cathedral Church, where the pastor, the Rev. Charles Taylor, said he remembered the family well. "They were my friends and neighbors," he said. "I really enjoyed the older gentleman." Obie Bennett, Taylor said, once gave him a rocking chair crafted in his woodworking shop. He also was casually acquainted with Charles, who on one occasion attended his church. "I can have sympathy for the murder victims," Taylor said, "but I can't have sympathy for the killer." Charles declined a request for an interview. (source: Houston Chronicle) NORTH CAROLINA: North Carolina bill would make it legal for people besides doctors to administer the death penalty A bill currently in the North Carolina legislature would allow medical professionals who are not doctors to execute inmates on death row. The Guardian reports: North Carolina currently has 149 people on death row, but carried out its last execution in August 2006. Since then, North Carolina doctors have refused to work with the state's corrections department to carry out executions even though the death penalty remains legal. Under a proposed law, conservative state lawmakers are hoping to break through that stalemate by letting physician assistants, nurses, emergency medical technicians, and other healthcare workers oversee executions. But those elected officials face another set of challenges including opposition from the professional organizations representing the workers impacted in the bill. In an effort to revive the death penalty, Republican state representative N Leo Daughtry has pushed a measure that would no longer require doctors to be present during executions. Instead of a doctor, nurses, physician assistants, or emergency medical technicians could oversee the death penalty. The bill would also keep secret the identities of medical professionals assisting in executions. The North Carolina House of Representatives on 29 April voted 84-33 in favor of the legislation. Daughtry, who did not respond to the Guardian???s request for comment, said the measure would allow North Carolina to move past the current impediments getting in the way of the death penalty. "The fact that doctors are not willing to be there for the execution has caused a real stumbling block for us," Daughtry told WRAL-TV. An editorial in the Raleigh News & Observer called the bill "unjust": Since coming under Republican control in 2011, this legislature has made going backward its preferred direction on issues of taxation, voting rights, environmental regulation, education funding, gun laws and women's health. But its effort to restart executions is especially retrogressive with an added element of macabre. The death penalty is unnecessary, unjust and irreversible. Its use now is only an act of vengeance against a few prisoners who happened to be convicted in death penalty states and whose lawyers failed to negotiate the many legal options that could have spared them. Prosecutors say the death penalty is a useful tool for negotiating with suspects, but an absolute penalty cannot be both fairly applied and negotiable. (source: Charlotte Sun Times) FLORIDA: Ruling could affect death row Mascotte Police officer James Duckett, 29, was on patrol the night of May 11, 1987, when he stopped to talk to an 11-year-old girl who had gone to a convenience store to buy a pencil. Her body was found the next morning at a lake less than a mile away, and tests showed she had been sexually assaulted while alive, strangled and then drowned. Physical evidence linked Duckett to the crime and a jury recommended by an 8-4 vote he be put to death. The process of sentencing Duckett, now 57, and the 393 other death penalty defendants in the state - which has the 2nd-highest number of people on death row in the country - will be in question later this year when the U.S. Supreme Court considers whether the state's sentencing guidelines are constitutional. "It has the potential to have a major impact in Florida," said Rex Dimmig, public defender for the 10th Judicial Circuit of Florida. "If the Supreme Court determines it is unconstitutional then they will decide if it should be retroactive." The case before the court - Hurst, Timothy v. Florida - is about a man who was sentenced to death for killing a co-worker at a restaurant in Pensacola in 1998. Hurst robbed the store and stabbed a woman numerous times with a box cutter. The jury voted 7-5 to recommend Hurst should be executed. That recommendation then went to a judge who sentenced Hurst to death. At issue is whether a jury's death-sentence recommendation should be unanimous, which is something the Florida Supreme Court supports and has urged lawmakers to vote into law. Many of the 32 states that still use the death penalty have changed sentencing guidelines to require a unanimous verdict. Not Florida. Florida is the only state in the country that allows a jury to have 7 votes for a recommendation of death. There are 394 death row inmates in Florida, including 9 from Lake County and 1 from Sumter County. State Attorney Jerry Hill defended the death penalty process in Florida, saying that a judge can overide the jury's recommendation of death. "The fact that you have to prove aggravators, and you have to have a significant majority voting for death, there are a number of checks and balances in place," Hill said. "It's a shame to have a review." (source: Daily Commercial) MISSISSIPPI: 3 arrested in fatal shooting of 2 Miss. officers 2 police officers were shot and killed during a traffic stop, and 3 suspects were arrested hours later, authorities said Sunday. 2 of the suspects were charged Sunday with capital murder in the death of officers Benjamin Deen, 34, and Liquori Tate, 25. Warren Strain, a spokesman for the Mississippi Department of Public Safety, said Marvin Banks, 29, and Joanie Calloway, 22, were each charged with 2 counts of capital murder. Banks was also charged with 1 count of being a felon in possession of a firearm. He was also charged with grand theft for fleeing in the police cruiser after the shooting, Strain said. "He absconded with a Hattiesburg police cruiser. He didn't get very far, 3 or 4 blocks and then he ditched that vehicle," Strain said. Banks' brother, Curtis Banks, 26, was charged with 2 counts of accessory after the fact of capital murder. Lamar County authorities arrested Marvin Banks at a motel shortly before 1 a.m. Sunday. Curtis Banks was arrested around 3 a.m. at an apartment complex. "No sir, I didn't do it," Curtis Banks told reporters gathered at the State Police barracks when Banks was brought in. Strain said 1 officer stopped a 2000 Gold Cadillac Escalade in an industrial corridor about 8:30 p.m. Saturday. A 2nd officer arrived as backup. Hattiesburg residents Tamika Mills and Pearnell Roberts drove past the scene of the shooting, discovered the 2 officers and called 911. "Never in my life have I experienced or seen anything like this except on TV. And to be in the midst of it, it's shocking and heartbreaking," Mills said. "As we were coming down Fourth Street, we noticed a bunch of lights. As we came on through, (Roberts) told me to turn around because she saw somebody laying on the ground. "So I backed up. That's when we noticed the officer was down. We just saw that one, but in the course of me being on the phone with 911, I turned and I saw another officer across the street rolling on the ground. (Roberts) ran across the street to check on him. He wasn't all the way alert but he asked her, 'Am I dying? I know I'm dying. Just hand me my walkie-talkie.' " It marked the 1st time a Hattiesburg police officer had been killed in the line of duty since New Year's Eve in 1984. Tate, 25, was a recent graduate from the police academy. He posted on his Facebook page that he graduated June 11. Tate graduated South Pike High School and attended Southwest Mississippi Community College before joining the Hattiesburg Police Department. Deen, 34, was a K-9 officer. He was named HPD Officer of the Year in 2012. "People who believe in prayer, who believe in the power of prayer, I'd ask them to pray for the family members," Mayor Johnny DuPree said. (source: USA Today) ARKANSAS: State seeks death penalty In Holly murder trial Sentencing options The 2 sentencing options for people convicted of capital murder are life imprisonment without parole or the death penalty. The sentence range for a kidnapping conviction is 10 to 40 years or life imprisonment. The punishment for rape is 25 to 40 years, or life imprisonment, if convicted. A conviction for residential burglary carries a prison sentence of 5 to 20 years. [source: Staff report] Death row Benton County has 2 men on Arkansas' death row. Don Davis was sentenced to die in 1992 for the execution-style killing of Jane Daniels of Rogers. Brandon Lacy was sentenced to die in 2009 for murder of Randy Walker during a robbery. Circuit Judge Robin Green ruled that Lacy is entitled to an another sentencing hearing. Washington County also has 2 men on death row: Gregory Decay and Zachariah Marcyniuk. Both men were sentenced to death in 2008. Decay killed Kevin Jones and Kendall Rice in their Fayetteville apartment. Marcyniuk stabbed University of Arkansas student Katie Wood to death after breaking into her apartment and laying in wait for her. [source: Staff report] -- Benton County prosecutors claim to have a confession in hand, and they want the death penalty for the Bentonville man accused of raping and strangling 6-year-old Jersey Bridgeman. Defense attorneys will try to convince jurors Zachary Holly is innocent. If he's convicted, they will ask jurors to spare his life. They've been working to develop evidence for a potential penalty phase of the trial that might build jurors' sympathy. The trial began with jury selection Friday in Bentonville. It could last up to 3 weeks. Prosecutors and defense attorneys will begin questioning prospective jurors this morning. They need to select 12 jurors and 3 alternates. Little is known about the state's evidence in the case. The judge sealed key DNA results and the specifics of what Holly told police. Court documents say he initially denied having anything to do with Jersey's disappearance or death. Prosecutors and defense attorneys have mentioned Holly's confession in pretrial hearings, but Holly's interviews were never played in open court. Holly, 30, is charged with capital murder, rape, kidnapping and residential burglary in Jersey's Nov. 20, 2012, death. Holly was arrested 6 days later. He has pleaded not guilty to the charges. Kim Weber, an attorney in private practice in Rogers, said the defense has to make sure the case is about Holly, not the victim. "A little girl has been killed in a horrible, horrible way, but this is not technically her trial," Weber said. "The trial is about the accused and whether or not he committed the crime and what punishment is available." Keeping the focus on Holly may be difficult. More than 100 people gathered the night of Nov. 21, 2012, at the Children's Advocacy Center of Benton County for a candlelight vigil in Jersey's memory. Hundreds of people, many who never met Jersey, attended her memorial service Nov. 27, 2012. Jersey's white casket was surrounded by pink and purple flowers, her favorite colors. Some mourners brought pink carnations tied with purple ribbons. A photo slide show during the service showed a smiling Jersey wearing a tiara, perched on a four-wheeler, dancing in a yellow tutu with glittery wings and posing with her mother and other family and friends. Jersey, who attended Sugar Creek Elementary School, was remembered as a happy child. Ultimate Penalty Former Washington County Prosecuting Attorney John Threet, who sought the death penalty 4 times and secured it twice for convicted murderers, said no prosecutor takes lightly the decision to ask for the ultimate punishment. Threet is now a circuit judge in Washington County. His comments came shortly before Holly's trial was to begin in November. The trial was postponed because of an issue with one of Holly's then attorneys. Threet was prosecuting attorney last November. "The death penalty is heavily weighted against the state through the whole process -- and it should be," Threet said. "The death penalty should be reserved for certain cases where you feel the citizens of the community should decide if the death penalty is appropriate. In Arkansas, we've got 31 people on death row and that goes back to 1989. So, it's not used that often." Threet said he considered the laundry lists of aggravating and mitigating factors in state law and consulted with the victims' families in each case before deciding to seek the death penalty. Benton County prosecutors have cited 3 aggravating factors for seeking the death penalty against Holly. First, they allege the murder was cruel and depraved; 2nd, they claim the murder was committed for the purpose of avoiding arrest for another crime, and the last factor is the age of the victim. Defense attorneys have not yet disclosed any mitigating factors, but abuse allegations surrounding Holly's childhood is certain to be on the list. The defense has not disclosed any specific details concerning the abuse. Mitigating factors can be almost unlimited, but prosecutors are limited to a list of 10 aggravating circumstances. A jury must find at least 1 aggravating circumstance exists before it can return a death verdict, Threet said. A few aggravating factors can trump multiple mitigating factors. "The jury ultimately decides whether those mitigating circumstances outweigh what this person did," Threet said. "You have to look at what a jury is going to think of the situation." Threet said the character and lifestyle of the victim always comes into play, and he thinks juries tend to be more sympathetic to a victim with "clean hands" like a child. Families of some murder victims push for the death penalty, but others will accept a plea bargain of a life sentence in order to avoid the trial, Threet said. "A lot of these families don't want to have to go through that, it's excruciating," Threet said. "I've had multiple times when families decided they did not want to pursue it because they'd have to relive the whole thing, dwell on it and have to talk about it every day. That's terrible for them." The process does not end with a death sentence. The appeals process in Arkansas averages well over a decade and, because of legal challenges to the lethal injection protocols, Arkansas has not executed anyone since 2005. It's also difficult and time-consuming to empanel a jury in a death penalty case, Threet said. "You can't sit if you believe the death penalty should be automatic. You can't sit if you believe the death penalty is never appropriate," Threet said. "You want objective jurors who will follow the law. If you have a preconceived notion, you can't be seated." Weber, a former deputy prosecutor and assistant U.S. attorney, noted there has been very little information released about the case by prosecutors. "I expect difficult hurdles for the prosecution. I anticipate it's not going to be as black and white as it's seemed in the paper," Weber said. "We don't know the facts yet. The state has to prove who did what beyond a reasonable doubt." Weber said she expects jurors will find it is much harder to make a decision in a court of law than in the court of public opinion. "It doesn't matter what's said in the barber shop or the doughnut shop in mornings. It's easy to make that quick call," Weber said. "It's a lot different when you're on the hot seat, and a man's life is on the line." Jersey's Death Holly lived in a trailer house next to Jersey's family on Southwest A Street. Holly and his wife sometimes babysat Jersey and her younger sister. The night before Jersey's death, the couple watched the girls as their mother, DesaRae Bridgeman, worked. When mom got off work, Holly carried a sleeping Jersey back to her house and placed her in her bed, according to an affidavit filed in the case. In one interview, Holly told police he awoke at 3:35 a.m. Nov. 20 with an upset stomach and walked to the E-Z Mart at Southwest Eighth and A streets to get medication, according to court documents. Police obtained video from the store and a sales tape showing Holly did make the purchase. Brandon Crouch, the boyfriend of Jersey's mom, worked the overnight shift at the E-Z Mart during that time, according to court documents. DesaRae Bridgeman awoke that morning and found Jersey missing from their home. Bentonville police got a call at 6:43 a.m. 2 officers found Jersey's body within 15 minutes while searching an empty house at 704 S.E. A St., 2 doors south of her home and on the other side of Holly's residence. A swab obtained from Jersey's body was tested and revealed some sperm cells, according to court documents. The state crime lab developed a DNA profile and begin making comparisons from known samples. Detectives took cheek swabs from Holly for DNA comparison. Holly also gave detectives the clothing he said he had been wearing since he went to bed the night of Nov. 19. The results of the DNA testing remain under seal. The defense team was dealt a blow in August when Circuit Judge Brad Karren ruled statements Holly made to police can be used at trial. Holly's defense team argued police coerced a confession from him during a Nov. 26, 2012, interview at the Bentonville Police Department. Karren found the statements were given voluntarily. The judge also denied a second motion to suppress the statements, and he recently denied an attempt by Holly's attorneys to exclude the DNA sample collected from Holly from being used as evidence. Childhood Abuse Jersey was the victim in another criminal case about a year before her death. She was found Dec. 2, 2011, chained to a dresser in the Rogers home where she lived with her father and stepmother, David Bridgeman and Jana Slinkard. David Bridgeman admitted chaining Jersey to the dresser for three days. He claimed he was trying to protect her because she sleepwalked. He pleaded guilty to felony charges and was sentenced to 18 years in prison. Bridgeman is serving his sentence at the Arkansas Department of Correction's Pine Bluff Unit. His expected parole date is Nov. 1. Slinkard was sentenced to 12 years in prison, but has since been released. She was paroled Sept. 25. David Bridgeman wasn't allowed to attend Jersey's funeral. The jury will not hear testimony regarding Jersey's prior abuse. The defense filed a motion to prevent prosecutors from presenting evidence of the child's injuries and Nathan Smith, Benton County prosecuting attorney, told the court they were not planning to introduce the information concerning Jersey's abuse during the trial. The defense has been working to paint a picture of Holly's troubled childhood as mitigating evidence for a potential penalty phase of the trial. "You normally think of death penalty cases as trying to save their life," Weber said. "I have a lot of respect for people in the defense community who can do these kinds of cases." Holly spent much of his childhood in Bakersfield and Oildale, Calif. He and his siblings were the subjects of numerous abuse and neglect referrals between 1993 and 1997. The Kern County, Calif., Department of Human Services has supplied more than 300 pages of reports, summaries and other documents generated by at least 12 caseworkers and supervisors in connection with at least 14 referrals involving Holly. 2 case workers, Margarita Soza and Jana Davis, are on the defense witness list. The defense lists 15 possible witnesses, which includes several of Holly's family members. The prosecution lists 48, but some are the same as the defense's. The Arkansas State Hospital did intelligence testing and a mental evaluation to determine if Holly was fit to stand trial. The defense had additional testing done by its own expert. The results of the tests remain under seal, but defense lawyers and prosecutors said Holly is fit to stand trial. (source: Arkansas Online) From rhalperi at smu.edu Mon May 11 10:46:31 2015 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Mon, 11 May 2015 10:46:31 -0500 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----NEB., ARIZ., CALIF., WASH., USA Message-ID: May 11 NEBRASKA: Senators saw tide turning against capital punishment in Nebraska The death penalty has rarely needed a defense in Nebraska. Except for a national moratorium on executions ordered by the U.S. Supreme Court in the mid-1970s, the state has always had a law allowing capital punishment. Over the past 35 years, none of the nearly annual attempts at repeal has amounted to a real threat. But the political dynamics on capital punishment in Nebraska have shifted. For the first time in decades, death-penalty supporters find themselves on the defensive. Last month, by a solid 30-13 majority, Nebraska state senators voted to advance a bill that would replace lethal injection with life in prison. For an issue that once divided reliably along partisan lines, capital punishment this time got 17 Republican votes. Now partisans on each side of the issue are preparing for a tough second round of debate, which could begin this week. The most prominent death penalty defender to emerge since the surprising vote has been Gov. Pete Ricketts, who has said he would veto the legislation. The 30 votes the bill received in the first round match the number that would be needed to override a veto. Although Ricketts may still be early in his 1st term, the Republican governor hasn't observed from the sidelines since the vote. Rather, he has called senators and made sure they understand he wants Nebraska to remain 1 of 32 states with capital punishment. "We'll continue to talk to them about this and other issues," Ricketts said, "helping them understand my position on it so they have the full picture when they make those final votes." During his 7 years in the Legislature, Republican Sen. Colby Coash of Lincoln has become an increasingly vocal critic of capital punishment. He has worked especially hard this session to rally support for the repeal bill, which is sponsored by Sen. Ernie Chambers of Omaha. "Conservatives talk about running government efficiently," Coash said. "How do you have a program on the books that hasn't been implemented in 20 years and call that efficient?" In an interview on the subject last week, Ricketts targeted arguments that have helped sway some conservatives to the side of repeal. The governor said the death penalty is not significantly more expensive than life in prison in Nebraska, despite what studies have shown in other states. He said it costs about $50,000 a year to house an inmate, regardless of the sentence. "When you're talking about some of the most heinous criminals, like Raymond Mata, I don't know why they should have the luxury of $50,000 a year on the taxpayers," Ricketts said, referring to a death row inmate who killed and dismembered a 3-year-old boy and fed some of the remains to a dog. During floor debate, several senators said they've come to oppose capital punishment because of their religious objections. The governor, who is Catholic, said he has concluded it's morally consistent to be against abortion and in favor of capital punishment. "We need to recognize there's a difference between innocent life and people who committed these heinous crimes," he said. Another argument that conservatives sometimes offer is that Nebraska so rarely carries out an execution, it???s not worth keeping anymore. Nebraska last executed an inmate in 1997 and has used the death penalty only three times since 1959. Currently the state lacks the ability to carry out a lethal injection because some of the necessary drugs have expired. But Attorney General Doug Peterson said Friday that lethal injection remains a constitutionally valid means of execution, and his office has been actively working "to see that those who were lawfully convicted and sentenced to death have their sentences carried out." Peterson and Ricketts both declined to say how close they are to obtaining a fresh supply of drugs or seeking changes to the lethal injection protocol. But the attorney general said 3 death row inmates - Carey Dean Moore, Michael Ryan and John Lotter - have exhausted their appeals. Trying to engage the public to apply pressure in the debate is a tactic of death-penalty supporters in the Legislature. Rather than filibuster the bill during 1st-round debate, they calculated that allowing senators to show where they stood on the issue might prompt a wave of constituent feedback. Sen. Bill Kintner of Papillion, who has filed an amendment to Legislative Bill 268 that would replace lethal injection with the firing squad, said a filibuster is likely in the second round. If, after 4 hours of debate, repeal supporters can't gather at least 33 votes to cut off debate, a filibuster would block the legislation for the year. Sen. Beau McCoy, another death-penalty supporter, also has filed amendments that would assist in staging a filibuster. Last week Coash said support for the bill is holding firm and he predicted there would be sufficient votes to overcome a filibuster. All of the behind-the-scenes work is perhaps the clearest indicator of the viability of the latest repeal effort. Lincoln attorney Alan Peterson, who has represented Moore for nearly 3 decades and also lobbies on behalf of the ACLU of Nebraska, predicted a close vote when the bill comes up again. "We have an excellent chance," Peterson said. "I'm - what's the term the football coaches use? - 'guardedly optimistic.' But I'm sure not going to predict victory." (source: Norfolk Daily News) ARIZONA: Judge denies motion challenging Arizona's death penalty law A judge has rejected a challenge to Arizona's death penalty law, setting the stage for a likely appeal. Judge Joseph Kraemer of Maricopa County Superior Court on Friday denied a motion filed on behalf of 29 murder defendants. The defendants' lawyers contend that the death penalty law is unconstitutionally arbitrary because a death sentence could be sought in nearly all cases. At issue are the law's 14 possible circumstances when the death penalty could apply. Defense lawyers say prosecutors have too much leeway in picking cases to seek the death penalty. A prosecutor argued that not all homicide cases are charged as 1st-degree murder. The Arizona Republic (http://goo.gl/97796s) reports that Kraemer said he's troubled by the current law but said it has been upheld by the Arizona Supreme Court.. (source: Associated Press) CALIFORNIA: An Irish American judge in California could lead to the end of the US death penalty A couple of weeks ago Boston commemorated the second anniversary of the terrorist bombing of the Boston Marathon. The wounds of those who died and suffered serious injuries that day -- not to mention the psychic wounds suffered by the city at this beloved annual event -- are still fresh. By the time of the second anniversary, the 2 brothers arrested for the crime had already been found guilty of various heinous crimes. The only question that remained was whether or not Dzhokhar Tsarnaev would face the death penalty for planning and carrying out the attack. A lot of attention was paid when the family of a Boston Marathon victim came out and said Tsarnaev should not face the ultimate punishment. That made for an interesting story with elements of leniency, forgiveness, even redemption. But many Americans -- and certainly large numbers of Irish Catholics, whose church opposes the death penalty, and of which there are plenty in the greater Boston area -- believe criminals such as Tsarnaev should face death. Capital punishment remains a wrenching topic in American culture. What is less well-known is that a federal judge whose parents were born in Ireland has played a profound role in the direction of the debate over the death penalty in the U.S. Federal District Judge Cormac J. Carney plies his judicial trade 3,000 miles from Boston, in California. Less than a year ago, in a closely watched case, Carney issued a harsh ruling related to how the death penalty was used in California, which has more than 700 inmates currently serving on death row. "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 (the prison inmates') actual execution," Carney wrote. "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." State prosecutors are appealing Carney's ruling, which found the state's application unconstitutional. But for many, such rulings might ultimately lead to a nationwide abolition of the death penalty, which many other countries have already adopted. Who is this troublemaking judge, Cormac Carney? As a 2010 profile in the magazine The Federal Lawyer noted, "The son of doctors who had emigrated from Ireland in the 1950s, Judge Carney was born in Detroit. His parents eventually moved him and his 3 siblings to Long Beach, California where Judge Carney was raised." Lest Carney be dismissed as a mushy-headed, soft-on-crime coddler of violent felons, he was actually appointed by Republican George W. Bush. "After serving on the state bench for barely a year, Judge Carney was tapped for the federal bench by President George W. Bush, who nominated the judge in early 2003. The Senate Judiciary Committee approved his nomination unanimously, and the Senate confirmed the appointment on April 7, 2003. Only 43 years old at the time, Judge Carney was one of the youngest judges ever selected to sit as a district judge," according to The Federal Lawyer. It must be said that Carney's forceful critique of California's death penalty may simply lead to changes in how capital punishment is enforced. Still, the question of the death penalty is a pressing one for Irish Catholics. Back in March, Pope Francis issued his own latest forceful denunciation of the death penalty. "Today the death penalty is inadmissible, no matter how serious the crime committed," Francis wrote to the president of the International Commission Against the Death Penalty. The Pope added that capital punishment "contradicts God's plan for man and society" and "does not render justice to the victims, but rather fosters vengeance." Even after the Boston Marathon case, it could be Cormac Carney's opinion that shapes the future of the death penalty in the U.S. (source: irishcentral.com) WASHINGTON: Through the 'gallows gates' 2 men were ordered hanged at the Spokane County Courthouse following convictions of 1st-degree murder. A 3rd, Charles Brooks, was hanged in Spokane County in 1892 before the construction of the courthouse and the iron gates that are planned to be restored there. Brooks was found guilty of murdering his wife, Christine Dohlman, a much younger immigrant from Sweden. Brooks reportedly shot Dohlman to death on Havermale Island, now part of Riverfront Park. Brooks was hanged on the Spokane County Courthouse grounds Sept. 6, 1892, in front of 1,000 spectators, according to newspaper accounts. The hanging preceded completion of the current county courthouse by three years. Another man, H.D. Smith, was sentenced to hang for the 1892 murder of John Wyant, a Spangle farmer, but he killed himself to avoid capture after attempting escape in July 1895. The men who walked through the gates to their deaths: Gin Pong was convicted of murdering an associate named Lee Tung, reportedly over an insult about handwriting, at a downtown tavern frequented by Chinese immigrants in 1896. The murder weapons were a pair of hatchets, 1 wielded in each hand by an enraged Pong, according to newspaper accounts of the time. Pong was known around the jail for a "peculiar laugh," according to newspaper accounts, and ate a hearty breakfast of 3 pork chops, 3 fried eggs, slices of bread, three baked potatoes and 2 cups of coffee before his execution on April 30, 1897. George Webster was the last man to hang at the Spokane County Courthouse before the governor ordered all executions take place at the Washington State Penitentiary in Walla Walla. Webster was convicted of murder in the shooting death of Lize Aspland in May 1897. Webster, a farmhand, arrived at Andrew Aspland's farm northwest of Cheney late in the evening. He drank, then reportedly shot Aspland's wife through a window during a dispute. A petition with more than 100 signatures from local attorneys, businessmen and others wasn't enough to sway Gov. John R. Rogers for clemency, and Webster was hanged March 30, 1900. Hanging remains 1 of 2 ways a prisoner may be executed in Washington; the other is lethal injection. Gov. Jay Inslee announced a moratorium on the death penalty in Washington in February 2014. (sources: Spokane Historical Society; Spokane Law Enforcement Museum; "Life Behind the Badge: The Spokane Police Department's Founding Years, 1881-1903" by Suzanne and Tony Bamonte; and archives of The Spokesman-Review and Spokane Daily Chronicle) USA: Boston Marathon Bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev 'Genuinely Sorry,' Anti-Death Penalty Nun Says Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was "genuinely sorry for what he did," famed anti-death penalty advocated and nun Sister Helen Prejean told a Boston court today. Prejean said she spoke to Tsarnaev in recent days and, after the 2 had "established trust," Tsarnaev told her that "no one deserves to suffer like they [the bombing victims] did." "His face registered it. He kind of lowered his eyes," Prejean said. "[His voice] had pain in it. I had every reason to think that he was taking it in and he was genuinely sorry for what he did." Prejean's description of a remorseful Tsarnaev is at odds with the cold-blooded killer as prosecutors have painted him in court. Tsarnaev has not appeared to show any emotion during either phase of his trial, except when he appeared to tear up at his relatives' testimony last week, and has never publicly apologized for his role in the attack. Last month Tsarnaev was convicted on all 30 counts against him related to the April 2013 bombing that killed 3 people - including an 8-year-old boy - and injured some 260 others. Now the same jury that convicted him will decide whether he gets the death penalty. Federal prosecutors had attempted to block Prejean's testimony, according to court documents file last week, but were unsuccessful. Susan Sarandon played Sister Helen in a 1995 movie starring Sean Penn about her relationship with a convicted rapist and killer. In real life, Prejean became a spiritual advisor to that death row inmate, Elmo Patrick Sonnier, and was there when he was executed in an electric chair nicknamed "Gruesome Gertie." Following Prejean???s testimony, the defense rested today and prosecutors began their rebuttal. Closing arguments in the death penalty phase are expected later this week. (source: ABC news) *********************** Dozens of UN Delegations Urge Washington to Outlaw Death Penalty The recommendations were made before the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva as part of the Universal Periodic Review, a probe into UN member states' human rights record that takes place every 4 years. Countries across the world, including Germany, France, Russia, Bolivia and Azerbaijan, criticized the United States for continued use of the death penalty. Several UN members also expressed concern over harsh conditions for those on death row. Sweden, which conducted its last execution in 1910 and later outlawed the practice, called on Washington to impose "a national moratorium on the death penalty aiming at complete abolition." Michael Thomas Slager checks Scott's pulse in North Charleston, S.C. Slager was charged with murder on Tuesday, April 7, hours after law enforcement officials viewed the dramatic video that appears to show him shooting a fleeing Scott several times in the back It also noted that people with mental illness should be exempted from execution. Despite being in violation with the US constitution, executions of persons with a history of mental illness continue taking place in the country. Capital punishment in general, and especially the practice of convicting persons with serious mental health concerns, have drawn much criticism from both local and international human rights groups. Though several states have moved away from capital punishment over the last years, the death penalty remains legal in 32 states. Last year, 7 of these carried out executions. Thousands of people remain on death row in the United States. (source: sputniknews.com) *************** Why is the US Supreme Court reviewing the lethal injection? The United States' Supreme Court has recently heard oral arguments in a death penalty case called Glossip v Gross, concerning the use of lethal injections when putting prisoners to death. Whichever way the Court rules, its decision will have significant ramifications for the way in which capital punishment is carried out. What is the issue in Glossip v Gross? The Eighth Amendment to the US Constitution forbids "cruel and unusual punishments", and ever since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976, states have tried to use methods of execution that are as humane as possible. For many years, states have relied on lethal injections because these are considered to cause less pain and suffering than other methods, such as hanging, electrocution and gassing. In this case, though, three inmates in Oklahoma have argued that the current combination of drugs that are used in lethal injections in Oklahoma poses a risk of severe pain and suffering, contrary to the Eighth Amendment. Why haven't death row inmates argued this point before? They have. In 2008, in Baze v Rees, the Court upheld the lawfulness of Kentucky's lethal injection procedure, which was substantially similar to the procedures used in other death penalty states. Why is this issue being heard again? Much has changed since 2008. At that time, states across the US used a combination of 3 drugs to put inmates to death. The 1st was sodium thiopental, which acted as an anaesthetic. Once the inmate had lost consciousness, they would be injected with pancuronium bromide, which would paralyse the prisoner. The 3rd drug to be administered was typically potassium chloride, which would stop the prisoner's heart and kill them. Since 2010, though, states have found it increasingly difficult to acquire the drugs needed for lethal injections, particularly the 1st drug, sodium thiopental. Pharmaceutical companies have stopped supplying drugs, on the basis that they do not want to be complicit in the taking of life. State authorities have therefore acquired the drugs needed through back-channels and dubious avenues - in some cases, the drugs were sourced from the back offices of a driving school based in a west London suburb. In Oklahoma, and in 3 other states (Florida, Ohio and Arizona), a 3-drug cocktail is still used, but instead of sodium thiopental, a drug called midazolam is used. It's been argued that midazolam is ineffective as an anaesthetic, and that people therefore feel the pain that is caused by the other 2 drugs. What evidence has been presented to the Court? 4 of the Justices on the US Supreme Court have expressed dismay with the lack of scientific evidence that has been offered by the state to defend its protocol. On the other hand, the prisoners have raised the spectre of "botched" executions to provide evidence that the current protocol creates a risk of severe pain and suffering. In 2014, 3 prisoners who were put to death with a cocktail involving midazolam appeared to regain consciousness before the lethal injection process was completed, and witnesses reported that the men involved were gasping for air, and writhing about in pain. Executed prisoner Clayton LockettClayton Lockett is reported to have tried to sit up and speak after being given a lethal cocktail of drugs in April 2014 They have also pointed out that the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has refused to classify midazolam as an anaesthetic because they are not convinced that it works as intended. What will happen if the Court concludes that current protocols are ok? In the short term, it will mean that executions in the 4 states concerned will proceed as normal. In the long term, though, and depending on the reasoning of the Court, it might mean that states across America are given carte blanche to experiment with various combinations of drugs, and the courts won't interfere with their processes. What will happen if the Court rules that this method is unacceptable? Although death penalty abolitionists will hope that this will be another nail in the coffin of capital punishment, experience suggests otherwise. States that have struggled to acquire the drugs needed for lethal injection have not given up on capital punishment, and have instead reintroduced other means of killing people. In April, Oklahoma passed a law that would allow the use of nitrogen gas to kill inmates, in the event that lethal injections are no longer possible. In March, Utah introduced a law that permits the use of firing squads in the event that lethal injections are no longer possible. Is there any way of predicting the Court's decision? At oral arguments, some of the Justices used language that indicated which way they were leaning. Justice Sotomayor repeatedly referred to the idea that, without proper anaesthetic, death by lethal injection was equivalent to "burning someone alive". She seems to be of the view that such a method of execution is barbaric. Justice Alito, on the other hand, suggested that the blame for faulty lethal injections lay at the door of death penalty abolitionists, since it was the anti-death penalty movement that persuaded pharmaceutical companies to stop trading in drugs. According to Alito, abolitionists have waged "a guerrilla war against the death penalty, which consists of efforts to make it impossible for the states to obtain drugs that could be used to carry out capital punishment with little, if any, pain". It's probably safe to predict that the 4 liberal Justices will vote against the current lethal injection protocol, and the 4 conservative Justices will vote to uphold the current procedure. The outcome will likely depend on how Justice Kennedy will vote. Kennedy is usually classified as a conservative, but occasionally votes with the liberal bloc. We'll find out in June. Are there any other features of this case that we should know about? When the Court agreed to hear this case, there were actually 4 prisoners involved. However, 1 of these inmates - Charles Warner - was executed shortly after the Court agreed to hear the case because of a procedural oddity. Procedurally, the Court will only hear a case if 4 of the 9 Justices agree to hear it. However, the votes of 5 Justices are needed in order to stop an execution. Although 4 Justices agreed to hear the case, this was not enough to stop Warner being put to death. It's arguable that Warner should have had his execution postponed while the Justices considered the issue. (source: Dr Bharat Malkani researches and teaches in the fields of human rights and criminal justice, with a particular focus on the death penalty. He is the co-ordinator of Birmingham Law School's Pro Bono Group at the University of Birmingham----BBC news) From rhalperi at smu.edu Mon May 11 10:47:21 2015 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Mon, 11 May 2015 10:47:21 -0500 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news---worldwide Message-ID: May 11 AUSTRALIA: Abolishing the death penalty was less popular than Australians care to remember After the Friday and Saturday funerals for Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran, it's timely to remember that principled opposition to capital punishment is only a relatively recent affair in Australia. By no means is it firmly embedded as an aspect of the 'Down Under Enlightenment'. In January we had a Morgan poll that showed that 52% of respondents answered "yes" to the question: "In your opinion if an Australian is convicted of drug trafficking in another country and sentenced to death should the penalty be carried out?" We have forgotten that abolishing executions required a struggle A 2009 poll with a similar question delivered almost the same result: 51% said "yes". In this year's SMS poll of 2,123 people, a larger majority, 62%, said that the government should not do more to stop the executions of Chan and Sukumaran. It came as a shock, especially as the Indonesian authorities picked up the findings and declared that they were acting in accord with the wishes of most Australians. These responses depend significantly on the nature of the questions asked - 1 line "yes" or "no" polls with an unnuanced question are not regarded as a statistically reliable measure of public opinion. For instance, Australians have been asked in successive polls between 1986 and 2006, "would you be in favour of capital punishment for cases of murder?" According to David Indermaur of the crime research centre at the University of WA, the "yes" answer peaked in 1993 and since then progressively declined. That downward trend was also found in other English speaking contraries, even in the US - although the level of support there is still high. In Australia, support for the death penalty for murder fell below 50% for the 1st time in 2003. However, different questions provoke quite different responses. Research in the US found that if sentences, such as life imprisonment, were posed as an alternative to capital punishment, support for the death penalty dropped by 1/2. You might get closer to measuring an informed response if a question along the lines suggested by Indermaur is posed: Consider yourself to be a judge in a case involving murder. You must decide whether the death penalty should be applied to the accused knowing that it is not necessary to achieve any deterrent effect, and that the alternative sentence of life in prison without parole is available. What is your decision? Sydney's Daily Telegraph thought it was on a winner shortly after the January Morgan poll when it ran a front page headline in relation to Chan and Sukumaran, which aimed at the heart of the paper's demographic: "No Sympathy - Their drug operation would have destroyed thousands of lives - now they'll pay with theirs." However, by the time of the execution of the 2 Australians by Indonesian firing squad, there was no tabloid gloating that they paid the right price. In fact, The Australian's media editor Sharri Markson tweeted that the Herald Sun and the Tele brought "the tragic news to readers in 6 and 7am editions today". Much the same thing happened in 2005, when Australian Nguyen Tuong Van was hanged in Singapore. He had been caught at Changi airport with 396 grams of heroin, on his way to Australia. According to Indermaur, his execution "sparked a new urgency to the debate about the morality of the death penalty". The Howard government was criticised for not having taken the case to the International Court of Justice, but as with Indonesia there was concern in Canberra that the official protests should not affect the economic relationship. Trade trumps human rights. Nguyen's execution took place 38 years after the hanging at Pentridge Gaol in Victoria of Ronald Ryan, who had shot and killed a prison warder while escaping. He was the last person in Australia to be judicially murdered. This was an extraordinary affair and reflected the divisions in Australian politics and society. The government's decision not to commute the sentence of death on Ryan was popular generally, particularly among rural communities and workers. It was the "elites" who were united in opposition. The Victorian media was overwhelmingly against the execution, as were church leaders, the legal profession and academics. 3,000 people gathered in a vigil outside the gaol on the day of Ryan's hanging. Most of the political class mutely supported Victorian Premier Henry Bolte, who was championing Ryan's execution. Bolte saw the protests as a challenge to his authority. "The more the press campaigned, the more the issue was raised as to whom was running the show," he said. Was it to be the newspapers, the "parsons ... the bullfrogs at the university ... the wharfies", or the government? Sir Frank Packer, proprietor of Sydney's Daily Telegraph and The Bulletin, was in Bolte's corner and editorialised in support of Ryan's execution. An issue of The Bulletin was pulped because it carried an anti-hanging cartoon by Les Tanner. Bolte must have kept Machiavelli's advice firmly in mind: "A prince therefore, must not mind incurring the charge of cruelty for the purpose of keeping his subjects united and faithful." The political response to Australians being executed is markedly different today that was the case in 1967 and is even stronger now than it was in 2005 when Nguyen Tuong Van was hanged in Singapore. Overwhelmingly politicians expressed their opposition to the execution of Chan and Sukumaran. That's not to say they reflect an overwhelmingly popular view. Agriculture minister Barnaby Joyce told the ABC's Lateline that many Australians support capital punishment and there needs to be a "discussion" about it. An earlier study by Jonathan Kelley and John Braithwaite at the research school of social sciences at the ANU found that "elites" led the charge on the abolition of the death penalty. Most states abolished capital publishment between 1955 and 1973, and the Commonwealth in 1976. WA clung on until the mid-1980s. Judges used to say that the public's respect for the judiciary fell away after the death penalty was removed from the statute books. Abolition did not come from popular public opinion, in fact it was in spite of what most of the public thought. The undercurrents remain strong, particularly for terrorist attacks on home soil. If politicians make an exception, and impose capital punishment for terrorist offences, they'll probably be cheered on with blood-curdling noises from the "non-elites". American writer Norman Mailer said the only way to get rid of capital punishment in his country was to put executions on television, so everyone could see what goes on. Only then would the public rise up in protest. (source: The Guardian) INDONESIA: State killings: 'Death is theirs, honor is ours' Man, death and honor are interrelated in certain ways. Those whose lives end are solemnly buried, commemorated and remembered. To honor the dead, we are preoccupied with their memorable past and live with a common memory. For them we pray they will rest in peace: RIP, requiescat in pace. Everything will have to be done for their sake and we accept this. For God, as they say, made destiny. Years ago a Dutch anthropologist, based on his ethnographic descriptions of historic and complex funeral rituals, argued that what happens is precisely the opposite. It's all about those left by the dead since the ritual actually reflects who among the living are to deserve the honor in the first place. Rhetorically, it's a tribute for the dead; actually, it's a message of classifying honor from among and between the living. That's what happened when society's 1st-class members - the state dignitaries and the aristocracy - were involved in funerals. All this has, to this day, basically structured events upon the death of any citizen. However, when it comes to deaths caused by the state's actions - be they legal, extra-legal or summary executions and massacres - that system of symbolic honor and messages is intentionally, abruptly and radically disrupted. State killing is now re-packaged as a political issue and justified despite God's destiny, with which the believers themselves abruptly intervene. Here is the case par excellence about honor among those left by the dead, but that has to be claimed, which the modern state usually did forcefully and almost absolutely. Indeed, in the case of the 8 drug-dealing convicts executed on April 29, no one would expect the state to honor the dead - no matter what crimes they were formally indicted with. Quite the contrary: the South Sumatra governor banned the burial of 1 convict, Zainal Abidin, in his hometown of Palembang and there is no clarity on the state of the mental health of the schizophrenic Brazilian convict Rodrigo Gularte during the court proceedings. Not surprisingly, hopes of a change of heart by state dignitaries, given the good behavior of some convicts, were ignored. Instead, and quite consistently, the state dignitaries, supported by the greater public, took the honor for themselves as they justified the killings with the absolute claim of guarding state sovereignty "to save the future of the nation". Any opposition to that claim would touch the nerves and the sensitivity of the state and the general public - even more so when it's loudly pronounced by foreign states. It's not just because of high nationalistic fervor. The state, i.e. the weakened President, badly needs the claim to reassert credibility to enforce the law; yet he might welcome critics as he can use them to strengthen his position to show he is not a puppet. There seems to be little space, unfortunately, for sensible arguments timely put forward by experts at home and abroad that pointed to the state's own Constitution (which acknowledges "the right to live"), to the state's policy inconsistencies (on drug-related policy and in relation to death penalties for Indonesians abroad) and to the fallacy of the use of the statistical method (which absurdly concludes "40 to 50 deaths a day", as the President quoted, because of drug abuse). Thus, however much we cherish the rule of law, the question arises as to how the state could claim the honor of respecting and strengthening state sovereignty over law when much of its apparatuses are corrupt. Worse still, it has been a public secret that the illegal drug trade, thanks to corrupt public servants, continues from inside the prisons. Moreover, in the case of Australians Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran, when the foreign press just days before the executions reported that the judges had attempted to extort bribes from the accused, President Jokowi responded by asking, "Why didn't they say it earlier?" Did the President implicitly acknowledge those mistakes? If so, why didn't he try to postpone the executions and review the cases - as what happened with Veloso? If it's true that there were serious deficiencies that are ultimately fatal, why didn't the state issue a mea culpa instead of proudly defending its honor and sovereignty? None of the above, needless to say, is to deny that drug abuse could potentially be the nation's 1st enemy. Nonetheless, to have capital punishment at all and to apply it in deficient way is a serious matter that needs to be addressed. If the death penalty and the way it is implemented may put the state in an awkward position, even more so, potentially, do the past state killings. The announcement that President Jokowi's administration plans to resolve seven cases of human rights violations should be welcomed. However, 1 case of state killing - that of the rights activist Munir - is missing from the list without explanation. Of the 7 cases of state killings and atrocities, the 1965 human catastrophe is the most serious. Here, too, the state had throughout Soeharto's period claimed the credit and honor, however bloodily achieved, for having "saved the nation". Its political and mental legacy has since remained strong among the establishment - although not without serious queries. State-sponsored massacres thus convey a similar message to the state's legal killings and historic funeral rituals. They all celebrate their credo: death is theirs, life is ours, and so is honor. To many it's time to rethink state discourse and practices. (source: Opinion; Aboeprijadi Santoso, Amsterdam----The writer is a journalist----The Jakarta Post) PAPUA NEW GUINEA: PNG says death penalty 'under review' after Indonesia fallout Prime Minister Peter O'Neill said the death penalty is "under review" in Papua New Guinea after recent global outcry over the execution of foreign drug convicts in neighbouring Indonesia. The Pacific island nation revived capital punishment 2 years ago to reduce rampant crime, prompted in part by the burning alive of a 20-year-old woman by a crowd for sorcery. While the law allows for execution by lethal injection, hanging and firing squad, no death row convicts have been killed since then due to a lack of infrastructure. "As I have indicated publicly, that (death penalty) is under review," O'Neill told reporters in comments published by the Post-Courier on Monday, after being asked whether PNG would think again following the Indonesian fallout. "Our agencies of government are reviewing all aspects of the death penalty in our country and we will debate this issue on the floor of parliament when parliament resumes." O'Neill's comments came on the eve of a 2-day visit by Indonesian President Joko Widodo, under whose brief leadership 14 drug convicts have been executed, 12 of them foreigners. Jakarta put to death 2 Australians, a Brazilian, and 4 Nigerians on a prison island, along with 1 Indonesian, last month despite worldwide calls for them to be spared and heartrending pleas from their families. Widodo was unmoved, arguing that Indonesia is facing an emergency due to rising narcotics use. (source: english.astroawani.com) SAUDI ARABIA: Sheikh Nimr's Brother Warns Riyadh against Cleric's Execution If the Saudi regime goes ahead with its decision to execute prominent Shiite cleric Sheikh Nimr Baqir al-Nimr, it would have terrible consequences for the oil-rich kingdom,the cleric's brother said. "Any offensive move" against Sheikh Nimr would lead to short and long-term consequences for the Arab country, Mohamed al-Nimr said on Sunday. He emphasized that the Saudi authorities are fully aware of the repercussions of the likely execution of his brother, who has been in detention for nearly 3 years on political charges. The remarks came after unnamed European diplomatic sources said Saudi Arabia intends to carry out the death sentence of Sheikh Nimr on May 14. Human rights activists have urged the Al Saud regime to immediately revoke Sheikh Nimr's death sentence and release him. Back in early March, a Saudi Arabian appeal court approved the death penalty of the prominent cleric. Sheikh Nimr was detained in July 2012 following demonstrations that erupted in the country's Qatif region. He is accused of delivering anti-regime speeches and defending political prisoners. His arrest sparked widespread protests in the Arab country. In October 2014, Sheikh Nimr's family reported that a Saudi judge has found him guilty of "sedition" and sentenced him to death. (source: Tasnim news agency) IRAN----executions 5 Prisoners Hanged in Iran 5 prisoners were hanged in 2 different prisons in Iran Saturday morning May 9. According to the official website of the Iranian Judiciary in Gilan Province (Northern Iran) a 27 year old man identified as "A. F." was hanged in the prison of Rasht (capital of the province) Saturday morning, The prisoner was convicted of murder, said the report. edam-isca 4 other prisoners were hanged in the Urmia prison (northwestern Iran) on Saturday May 9. According to unofficial reports these prisoners were convicted of murder. The prisoners are identified as Adel Bakhshalizadeh, Bahman Esmaeili, Ghader Hamidi and Ali Tajdari. These executions have not been announced by the official Iranian sources. (source: Iran Human Rights) *************** Call For Iran To End Death Penalty 2 human rights experts have condemned the sharp increase in executions across Iran in recent weeks, urging the Government in Tehran to heed the Organization's appeal for an immediate halt on the use of the death penalty. "When the Iranian government refuses to even acknowledge the full extent of executions which have occurred, it shows a callous disregard for both human dignity and international human rights law," said Ahmed Shaheed, the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Iran. According to a UN human rights report released last year, the new Islamic Penal Code that entered into force in 2013 now omits references to apostasy, witchcraft and heresy, but continues to allow for juvenile executions and retains the death penalty for activities that do not constitute most serious crimes in line with the safeguards guaranteeing protection of the rights of those facing the death penalty such as adultery, repeated alcohol use, and drug possession and trafficking. Iran has witnessed a surge in executions over the past 2 years. At least 852 individuals were executed between July 2013 and June 2014 - the last reporting period for which data is available - representing an "alarming" increase in the number of executions in relation to the already-high rates of previous years, according to UN estimates. In addition, more than 340 persons, including at least 6 political prisoners and 7 women, were reportedly executed since January 2015. "We are alarmed by the recent surge in the number of executions, which has occurred despite serious questions about fair trial standards," added Christof Heyns, the UN Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial executions. "Many of the prisoners executed during this period were charged with drug-related offences, which do not involve intentional killing and hence do not meet the threshold of the 'most serious crimes'." Both experts drew particular attention to continued reports of public executions, noting that 15 such executions were known to have already occurred in 2015. Public executions, they said, had "a dehumanising effect on both the victim and those who witness the execution" and ultimately reinforced the "already cruel, inhuman and degrading nature of the death penalty." Mr Shaheed and Mr Heyns urged the Iranian Government to establish an immediate moratorium on the death penalty throughout Iran with a view to abolishing the practice altogether. (source: Newsroom America) INDIA: Death penalty justified in crimes against women which shock, repulse community: SC Noting that crime against women are on the rise and courts are too soft on the perpetrators, the Supreme Court held that in heinous crimes which both shock and repulse society, the extreme punishment of death is justified. An unforgiving Supreme Court declared this while confirming the death penalty of 2 men who gang-raped and brutally murdered a 22-year-old BPO employee on November 1, 2007 night after she was picked by her company cab to the office. The cab driver Purushottam Borate and his friend Pradeep Kokate drove her to a nearby jungle despite her protests, raped her and smashed her head, killing her instantly and then drove back to town after a hiatus of 2 hours to pick up the next employee to work. The court said the duo exploited their "position of trust" to commit an "extreme act of depravity" and then acted in a "calculated and remorseless" manner after the commission of the offence. "This depravity would attract no lesser sentence than the death penalty," a -judge bench led by Chief Justice H.L. Dattu held in a verdict on Friday. Noting that the crime falls within the "rarest of rare", the court held that the collective conscience of the community is so shocked by this crime that imposing a lesser sentence, even life imprisonment, would fail justice. The court noted how in recent years, the rising crime rate, particularly violent crimes against women has made the criminal sentencing by the courts a subject of concern. "The sentencing policy adopted by the Courts, in such cases, ought to have a stricter yardstick so as to act as a deterrent. There are a shockingly large number of cases where the sentence of punishment awarded to the accused is not in proportion to the gravity and magnitude of the offence thereby encouraging the criminal and in the ultimate making justice suffer by weakening the system's credibility," the Chief Justice observed. Citing a precedent, Chief Justice Dattu held that "the extreme punishment of death would be justified and necessary in cases where the collective conscience of society is so shocked that it will expect the holders of judicial power to inflict death penalty irrespective of their personal opinion". (source: The Hindu) PAKISTAN: Mincing no words: Envoy says EU not in favour of Pakistan executions It has been almost 1 1/2 years since Pakistani products were given duty-free access to European markets under the Generalised System of Preference, known as "GSP Plus' status. In return for the concession, Pakistan promised to implement 27 international conventions related to human rights, good governance and labour and environmental standards. The status was approved for 10 years but after every 2 years the 28-nation European bloc will assess whether Pakistan is fulfilling the conditions required to get duty-free access to European markets. The 1st assessment is a few months away but restoration of the death penalty and establishment of military courts may hamper Pakistan's efforts to continue enjoying this concession. EU Ambassador in Islamabad Stefano Gatto cautioned on Sunday that lifting of the 6-year moratorium on capital punishment as well as establishment of military courts could be taken as negative steps, although both these issues may not be directly linked with the GSP-plus status. "It is difficult to argue that the restoration of the death penalty or more executions is a step in the right direction in the EU," Gatto said in an exclusive interview with The Express Tribune. He was asked whether these issues could affect Pakistan's GSP-plus status. "If you are a bit cynical and you look from outside, you would say that we gave GSP plus to Pakistan to improve human rights standards and what they did now they have military courts and they have the death penalty back," Gatto added. Pakistan lifted the moratorium on the death penalty soon after the December massacre at the military-run school in Peshawar that killed over 140 people, mostly children. In a series of new measures under the National Action Plan, parliament also approved a new legislation giving powers to the military to set up special courts to try hardcore terrorists. But Ambassador Gatto said the EU had doubts over the military courts. "We want to see strengthening of civilian courts in the civilian system rather than giving the role to military courts as there are less chances of transparency," he emphasized. Asked about the EU assessment so far about Pakistan meeting the conditions for GSP plus status, the envoy said it was too early to draw any conclusion. He said the EU was not expecting Pakistan to implement the 27 conventions overnight. "It can never be the case in Pakistan or elsewhere." "We don't look at numbers, but we look at trends. We look at some positive steps because the idea behind is we favour you a market access to our markets as a stimulus to improve the human rights situation." (source: Express Tribune) ******************** Pakistan Newspaper Ad Says Relatives of Terrorists Can be Punished with Death Sentence A controversial advertisement appeared in national Urdu newspapers in Pakistan last week, threatening relatives of 'missing terrorists' with punishment that could include death penalty if they failed to report their disappearance to authorities. The advertisement published on Friday was in the form of a public notice, though no government department or agency was mentioned, according to Dawn. The notice read: "In accordance with the Code of Criminal Procedure 1898 and other laws related to terrorism, public at large are informed that if any member or members of their family including those non-relatives looked after by them are individually or being a member of an organisation involved, or there are apprehensions of their involvement, in any act of terrorism and are missing from their residences for that purpose, they should report it to the nearby police station or office of assistant political agent along with picture of the missing person or persons." "In case of failure if any terrorist was arrested in connection with an act of terrorism, including suicide bombing, or is killed then legal action will be taken against his parents, brothers or the relative who had looked after him under provisions of the above mentioned laws in which that terrorist was found involved or killed including death penalty, life imprisonment and confiscation of movable and immovable properties." The ad created a stir, especially among lawyers, who said that there are no provisions in Pakistan's law that can give death sentence to relatives of a terrorist. Noor Alam Khan, advocate of the Supreme Court, told Dawn that the advertisement could incite family members to spy on their relatives, which goes against Islam. Other lawyers pointed out that Pakistani laws allow only for punishment of up to six months in jail for intentionally withholding information of an offence committed. The Pakistan government and army are cracking down heavily on terrorism in the country, especially after the Peshawar school massacre last December. While the Taliban and Al Qaeda are the dominant terror groups in the country, the Islamic State is also reportedly gaining ground in the beleaguered nation. Last month, Isis claimed responsibility for an attack on American medical worker Debra Lobo in Karachi. (source: International Business Times) HUNGARY: Hungary can restore death penalty only if it leaves EU: Barroso Hungary could bring in the death penalty but only if it leaves the EU, former European Commission president Jose Manuel Barroso has said in response to calls by Hungarian premier Viktor Orban for debate on its restoration. "If a member state wants to bring it in, then it can do, but in this case it must leave the EU," Barroso, who headed the EU executive arm from 2004 to 2014, said in an interview broadcast Sunday by Hungarian television channel ATV. "Restoring the death penalty is simply not possible in an EU member. The debate was closed a long time ago, all member states are clear about this," said Barroso, who belongs to the same centre-right European People's Party (EPP) as the Hungarian prime minister. Orban has repeatedly clashed with Brussels over a number of policies that critics say endanger core EU values, and his remarks on the death penalty have earned him yet more criticism. Last month, speaking after the brutal murder of a shop assistant during a robbery, Orban said the death penalty "should be kept on the agenda". During a radio interview Friday he said EU member states should be able to decide on the issue on the national level. "If we can protect (citizens) without bringing in the death penalty then so be it. But if that doesn`t work, then it should be brought back," Orban said. Barroso's successor Jean-Claude Juncker said Orban could expect a "fight" if he wants to reintroduce the death penalty. Hungary abolished capital punishment after the end of communism in 1990, fulfilling a key condition for membership of the European Union, which it joined in 2004, and whose treaties ban its use. (source: Zee news) ***************** Varga opposes death penalty Hungary's Minister of National Economy Mihaly Varga is against the death penalty, the minister told Hungarian online daily origo.hu in an interview today. In response to a query on whether Varga would be happy if death penalty was reintroduced in Hungary, the minister said that it "would be strange" to "be happy about the death of someone". "Life is a 1 time precious gift, which cannot be taken from someone, nor from ourselves. Therefore, I cannot agree with neither the death penalty, nor euthanasia," the minister said. Varga added that should a voting take place on the matter in the Hungarian Parliament, he would vote against it. At the end of April, Hungary's Prime Minister Viktor Orban said, in reference to the murder that took place in a tobacco shop, that a life sentence is not deterrent enough, as such, the death penalty needs to be kept on the agenda. As the notion of the death penalty collides with EU regulations, the prime minister's comment triggered a Europe-wide backlash. Following the PM's comments, Martin Schulz, the President of the European Parliament, initiated a phone conversation with Orban. No information has since been made public on whether the conversation between the 2 took place or not. Hungary's Christian democrats KDNP, which is the coalition party of ruling Fidesz, rejected the introduction the death penalty as it is not in line with Christian principles, vice-president Bence Retvari said earlier. (source: Budapest Business Journal) From rhalperi at smu.edu Mon May 11 14:31:11 2015 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Mon, 11 May 2015 14:31:11 -0500 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----PENN. Message-ID: May 11 PENNSYLVANIA: Lawyers Should Appropriately Raise the Death-Penalty Moratorium in Voir Dire Lawyers should appropriately raise the death-penalty moratorium in voir dire. I am assigned to try a capital murder trial. May I voir dire the jury on the moratorium issued by Gov. Tom Wolf on all capital cases? This is an interesting ethical issue. The best advice is to ask for a sidebar with the court or file a motion in advance for the court to make a decision. The worst thing would be for a lawyer to ask that question to a panel of jurors without prior approval by the judge. The bottom line is that it appears that it would be an ethical question to ask. In death penalty cases, the voir dire of jurors is a very important process. The critical aspect of a voir dire of jurors is not only to educate jurors and to find out their viewpoints, but also to make sure that jurors will not think there is anything that will detract from their individual decision on death. In other words, if a juror believes that they don't have the final say - if they think the court will change a decision on appeal or the governor will change it - then the juror feels less responsible and may be more inclined to impose death, feeling that theirs is not the final decision. The current death-penalty moratorium could clearly lead a potential juror on a capital murder case to believe that perhaps whatever they decide is not going to ever happen. The moratorium may or may not prevail. There is litigation in the state Supreme Court on that very issue. Interpretation of the Pennsylvania Constitution and whether a reprieve can only be temporary is an issue that will be decided at some point by the Supreme Court pursuant to the language of the Pennsylvania Constitution. In any event, it would appear that a lawyer has an ethical obligation and legal duty to clients in picking a capital murder trial to inquire of the jurors if they are aware of the moratorium and how that would affect their judgment. The lawyer, as noted above, should file a motion in advance to get court approval of this line of questioning. But it appears that this would be approved by any court because of the concern that a juror might feel less than responsible if they believe the moratorium will prevent the imposition of death. Therefore, the answer to the question is a lawyer should seek to voir dire prospective jurors on a capital murder case on the issue of the governor's moratorium on the death penalty. But it should be done in a professional fashion, by filing motions and having argument outside the presence of the prospective jurors, so the court can make a decision on this issue. If the court decides it cannot be the subject of voir dire, then the lawyers preserve the issue for future appeals. It would also appear there ought to be some sort of instruction to the jury in the capital phase about the issue of the death-penalty moratorium to ensure that the jurors do not feel less responsible for voting for death because of their belief that the moratorium has ended the carrying out of death sentences in Pennsylvania. Also, even if the Supreme Court upholds Wolf, there is no guarantee that a future governor won't reverse the moratorium. Therefore, this is an important issue that has to be explored with a jury, but in an appropriate and proper fashion. (source: thelegalintelligencer.com) From rhalperi at smu.edu Mon May 11 14:31:53 2015 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Mon, 11 May 2015 14:31:53 -0500 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide Message-ID: May 11 MALAWI: UN commends Malawi set free 13 persons on death row: Kafantayeni justice The United Nations has welcomed the release of 13 persons from death row in Malawi in pursuant to a ruling to the Supreme Court of Appeal that prisoners sentenced to a mandatory death sentence are entitled to be resentenced. In 2007, in the Kafantayeni case, the High Court declared that mandatory death sentences were unconstitutional, being in violation of the right to a fair trial and the prohibition of inhuman and degrading treatment or punishment. Following amendments to the Penal Code in 2011 allowing courts discretion in sentencing murder suspects, the Malawi Human Rights Commission in conjunction with NGOs in 2013 launched a death row re-sentencing project, with 192 prisoners entitled to be resentenced. In a statement issued Friday made available to Nyasa Times, the UN resident coordinator in Malalwi Mia Seppo is urging the government of Malawi to consider ratifying the Second Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), aiming at aboliton of the death penalty. "By doing so, Malawi would join the approximately 160 of the 193 Member States of the United Nations that have abolished the death penalty or introduced moratoriums, either in law or in practice," she says. Seppo says, in line with the 2014 recommendations of the UN Human Rights Committee, the UN calls on the Malawi government to review the Penal Code and ensure that the death penalty, if imposed at all, is applicable only to the most serious crimes as defined by article 6, paragraph of the ICCPR. Malawi Human Rights Commission (MHRC) in conjunction with the other non-governmental organisations launched a "Death Row Inmates Resentencing' project in 2013 to facilitate resentencing of all convicts on death row. The project will phase out this year. Other implementing institutions include the Paralegal Advisory Service International, the Centre for Human Rights Education, Advice and Assistance (Chreaa), Chancellor College and the Malawi Prison Service. (source: Nyasa Times Reporter) BANGLADESH: Unconstitutionality of mandatory death penalty Amidst of debate over the abolition of death penalty around the world, the higher judiciary in Bangladesh has come with a milestone judgement declaring mandatory death penalty unconstitutional. This judgement was pronounced in an appeal arising out of a Writ petition jointly filed by the Bangladesh Legal Aid and Services Trust (BLAST) and Shukkur Ali, a convict who was sentenced to death under the Nari o Shishu Nirjaton (Bisesh Bidhan) Ain 1995. The Appellate Division of the Supreme Court declared section 6(2) (3) (4) of the Nari O Shishu Nirjaton (Bisesh Bidhan) Ain 1995 and section 34(2) of the Nari o Shishu Nirjaton (Bisesh Bidhan) Ain 2000 unconstitutional because they prescribe a mandatory death penalty for the offence of causing death after rape. The aforesaid sections were challenged as they violate Articles 7(Supremacy of the Constitution), 26 (Laws inconsistent with fundamental rights to be void), 27(equality before law), 31(right to equal protection of law), 32 (right to life) and 35 (Prohibition on cruel and degrading treatment or punishment) of the Constitution. The provisions were also questioned as it did not keep any scope of exercising the power of judicial discretions in awarding sentence. The judgement was delivered by the Hon'ble Chief Justice of Bangladesh Mr, Justice Surendra Kumar Sinha presiding over a bench comprising Justice Nazmun Ara Sultana, Justice Syed Mahmud Hossain and Justice Hasan Foez Siddique. The judgment has some dynamic features. Firstly, it widens the scope of judicial discretions. For curtailment of such power may result into injustice. The constitution has guaranteed right to life and that can only be taken away through the due process of law. Due process of law not only includes law making process but also involves procedural protections with a view to ensuring fair trial and justice. By virtue of the device of due process of law, the judges can exercise their judicial minds in order to check unfairness and arbitrariness in judicial proceedings. Considering this, the Hon'ble judges in the aforesaid judgement ruled out the absence of judicial power of discretions in awarding sentence. Secondly, the judgment carries few elements of rule of law which need to be emphasised in terms of law making process. For example, if we look at Article 31 of the Constitution, then we see that the Article not only guarantees equal protection of law but also imposes limitation on the power of parliament in the enactment of laws. Similarly, Article 7 and 26 works as safeguards against arbitrary law making process. The Articles oblige the parliament to make reasonable laws. The judgment will make the lawmakers more cautious in maintaining reasonableness and rationality of law. Thirdly, It reminds again that imposition of harsher punishment is not the sole way of ensuring justice and mitigating crime rate rather in some cases it disregards the standard of procedural fairness. The imposition of rigid penalty can impact negatively on the efficiency of courts and make sentencing less transparent. Whereas the criminal cases in Bangladesh rarely see conviction, the imposition of harsher punishment can impact negatively on the offenders. While the offenders got the sense that the punishment is certain and the discretion of judges is limited then they might engage in committing crime out of vengeance and show disrespect towards the law. Finally, this judgment secures the right to freedom from torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment which clearly reflects the urge of the judiciary to close the gap between international and national standards of ensuring fair trial. By declaring mandatory death penalty unconstitutional the judiciary has enriched the jurisprudence of punishment theory which is something new in the Bangladeshi context. It reminds us again that right to life necessarily includes right to respect for life. (source: Mohammad Golam Sarwar is a lecturer, faculty of law, Eastern University; The Daily Star) IRAQ/SYRIA: ISIS fighters trick men into dates to prove they are gay----Some men can buy their freedom by paying a ransom, but most face death by being thrown off a roof ISIS and other extremist Islamic groups are using honey trap methods to lure in and capture allegedly gay men. A source inside ISIS-controlled territory told the Daily Star: 'They set up dates to coax them into being arrested and executed.' ISIS' religious police, the Hisbah, have a special squad of young fighters whose task it is to trick gay men into going on dates with them, according to the Daily Mail. They aim to wipe out homosexuality, which is haram, or banned, under Islam, from Iraq, Syria and Libya, according to the Star's source. If men go on dates with the fighters, the extremists see it as proof for their homosexuality; a 'crime' which, under ISIS, is punished by death. 'Sometimes the men are lucky if they have money and can pay a ransom,' the Star's source said. 'But often they are taken straight to their deaths.' Men are often thrown off roofs; those who survive the fall have been seen to be stoned to death by a mob watching the execution. Other Islamist groups, including the Syrian Al Nusra who are closely linked to Al Qaeda, have been known to use similar methods to capture gay men. (source: gaystarnews.com) From rhalperi at smu.edu Tue May 12 12:04:37 2015 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Tue, 12 May 2015 12:04:37 -0500 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, N.Y., DEL., ALA., OHIO, NEB., USA Message-ID: May 12 TEXAS----impending execution Convicted killer of 3 in Houston asking for execution delay Derrick Dewayne Charles was a convicted burglar wanted by authorities for ignoring mandatory meetings with his parole officer when he was arrested for killing his 15-year-old girlfriend, her mother and her grandfather at their home in Houston 13 years ago. 10 months later, Charles pleaded guilty in May 2003 to capital murder, leaving a Harris County jury to decide whether he should spend the rest of his life in prison or be sent to death row. Jurors decided he should be executed after hearing about his extensive juvenile record, his burglary conviction and the details of the killings. Charles, now 32, is set for lethal injection Tuesday evening. His attorneys are asking the U.S. Supreme Court to halt the execution. He would be the 7th convicted killer executed this year in Texas, which carries out the death penalty more than any other state. The Houston man is 1 of at least 3 Texas inmates scheduled for lethal injection over the next several weeks. The Texas Department of Criminal Justice has said it has enough pentobarbital to carry out 2 of the executions, meaning the prison agency would need to replenish its supply of the difficult-to-obtain sedative for capital punishment use or find a substitute drug to replace it. Worried about future shortages, the Republican-controlled Texas Legislature is considering changing state law to keep the identity of execution drugmakers confidential. Suppliers have reported being threatened by death penalty opponents, and the Texas Senate on Monday approved a measure that even would keep death row inmates from knowing where the state is getting the drugs used to execute them. Charles was arrested a day after the bodies of Myiesha Bennett, her 44-year-old mother Brenda Bennett, and 77-year-old grandfather Obie Bennett were found at their northeast Houston home. People who knew them became alarmed after not hearing from them for several days. Relatives have said Brenda Bennett wasn't thrilled with her daughter's relationship with Charles, who was 19 at the time. Attorneys for Charles who are seeking to get the punishment halted say he is mentally incompetent for execution and that the courts should authorize money for psychologists and investigators, so the defense can develop those arguments. The Supreme Court has said condemned inmates must be aware they are about to be executed and have a rational understanding of why they're being put to death. Charles was diagnosed as mentally ill when he was a child and was deprived of care and medication while growing up, one of his attorneys, Paul Mansur, told the justices in a filing. "This evidence ... raises substantial concern that the state of Texas may execute an incompetent inmate," Mansur said. Another appeal argued that the trial court violated Charles' constitutional rights by refusing to appoint psychiatric experts and investigators. State attorneys are opposing any delay in the punishment. They say questions about whether Charles is mentally incompetent for execution were rejected by courts earlier and that his lawyers improperly filed their constitutional challenge. "There is simply no evidence of any inherent mental illness or psychosis that might call into question Charles' competency to be executed," Texas Assistant Attorney General Fredericka Sargent told the justices. Court records show a warrant was issued for Charles in February 2002, 2 months after he was paroled after serving 8 months of a 3-year burglary sentence. He met once with his parole officer, then failed to show up for other required sessions. Charles was arrested at a Houston motel where Brenda Bennett's car was found. Police have said he told them he beat and strangled Obie Bennett. Myiesha Bennett was choked with an extension cord, beaten with a box containing stereo speakers and hit with a TV. Brenda Bennett was thrown into a water-filled bathtub along with a plugged-in TV. When that failed to electrocute her, she was dragged through the house, raped and strangled. Court documents indicate that Charles said he smoked marijuana soaked in embalming fluid before the killings, then hallucinated while committing them. (source: Associated press) ********************* Executions under Greg Abbott, Jan. 21, 2015-present----6 Executions in Texas: Dec. 7, 1982----present-----524 Abbott#--------scheduled execution date-----name------------Tx. # 7-----------May 12--------------------Derrick Charles------525 8----------June 3--------------------Les Bower------------526 9-----------June 18-------------------Gregory Russeau------527 (sources: TDCJ & Rick Halperin) *********************** Senate Approves Bill to Keep Execution Drug Providers Secret A state Senate measure to keep the names of execution drug providers from the public won initial approval on Monday in a 23-8 vote. Final passage is expected on Tuesday. State Sen. Joan Huffman, R-Houston, told lawmakers her legislation, Senate Bill 1697, was a "practical solution" to the harassment and threats faced by companies providing the state prison system with pentobarbital, the single drug used in Texas to execute inmates convicted of capital murder. "Discussion in the public area has led to a chilling effect for companies who want to supply this compound to the state of Texas," she said. "There are very few doses left of the drug that???s currently being administered." In 2013, the Texas Department of Criminal Justice announced it had obtained doses of pentobarbital from The Woodlands Compounding Pharmacy near Houston. The agency turned to compounding pharmacies after manufacturers stopped providing the lethal injection drug to the agency. The Woodlands pharmacy owner told the agency that publicizing the transaction led to threats, and as a result the agency stopped releasing the names of pentobarbital suppliers. Last year, then-Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott sided with TDCJ officials, concluding that the names of compounding pharmacies could be kept secret, even though such information had long been public. Adding more fuel to the debate, a Travis County judge ruled in December that the state's prison system must make the providers public. State Sen. Kirk Watson, D-Austin, objected to Huffman's measure, citing concerns about transparency. "We are moving into an area here where we are talking about contracts with the state that we are going to hide from the public," he said. The state of Texas' lethal drug cache continues to remain low. Last week, the state had only enough pentobarbital for two more executions, including the one scheduled for Derrick Charles on Tuesday. TDCJ spokesman Jason Clark verified on Monday that a recent pentobarbital purchase means there will be enough for a 3rd execution scheduled on June 18. A similar measure to keep secret the providers of lethal injection drugs has been proposed by state Rep. John Smithee, R-Amarillo. The legislation made it out of a House committee but hasn't come to the floor for a vote. (source: Texas Tribune) NEW YORK: Richard Bartlett, Legislator Who Fought New York's Death Penalty, Dies at 89 Richard J. Bartlett, an upstate legislator who was instrumental in virtually abolishing capital punishment in New York State and who, as an administrative judge, oversaw a reorganization of the state's courts, died on Wednesday at his home in Glens Falls, N.Y. He was 89. The cause was congestive heart failure, his son, Michael, said. Mr. Bartlett, a Republican assemblyman from Warren County at the time, made his impact on penal law as chairman of the New York State Temporary Commission on Revision of the Penal Law and Criminal Code. Gov. Nelson A. Rockefeller appointed him to the post in 1961. In 1965, the commission produced the 1st major revisions of the penal law in 80 years and recommended, 8 to 4, that capital punishment be abolished. "The social need for the grievous condemnation of the gravest crimes can be met, as it is met in abolition states, without resort to barbarism of this kind," Mr. Bartlett and a majority of the commission concluded. There were 21 prisoners on death row in New York at the time. The Legislature limited the death penalty to people convicted of killing a peace officer acting in the line of duty and to convicts serving a life sentence who murdered a prison guard or an inmate in prison or while trying to escape. The bill cleared the Assembly by a vote of 78 to 67, just 2 votes more than the constitutional minimum needed for passage. New York has not executed anyone since 1963. In 2004, the state's highest court declared the death penalty unconstitutional. Before Mr. Bartlett oversaw the merger and modernization of New York's court system, it was a jumble of fiefs where meting out justice swiftly, even if it was a priority, appeared to be a bureaucratic impossibility. He set about overhauling it in 1974, when Chief Judge Charles D. Breitel of the Court of Appeals named him the first chief administrative judge of a unified state court system. During Mr. Bartlett's 5 years in the post, the Office of Court Administration was established to centralize management of the state's unwieldy trial court system, and a permanent Judicial Conduct Commission was set up to hold accountable judges accused of misconduct. Many of the changes he introduced in New York were embraced by other states. Richard James Bartlett was born in Glens Falls on Feb. 15, 1926, the son of George Bartlett, a special agent for an insurance company, and the former Kathryn McCarthy, a nurse. He graduated from Georgetown University and Harvard Law School. His wife, the former Claire Kennedy, died in 2010. Besides his son, he is survived by a daughter, Amy Bartlett; 2 grandsons; and a sister, Nancy Bartlett Horne. Mr. Bartlett represented Warren County in the Assembly from 1959 through 1966. After serving as chief administrative judge, he became dean of Albany Law School and rejoined the law firm he co-founded, which is now known as Bartlett, Pontiff, Stewart & Rhodes. (soruce: New York Times) DELAWARE: Repealing death penalty a vital 1st step Last week in the News Journal, a young African-American reporter wrote a column titled "History proves justice for us is hopeless." He was responding to a story about a Dover Police Department officer who was caught by his dashboard camera kicking a suspect in the head, breaking his jaw and leaving him unconscious. He called for justice but wasn't expecting any. "Please excuse me if I don't hold out any hope," he wrote. "I don't have any left." His attitude is understandable. Our country's history of racial justice is bleak. But when the reporter wrote about losing hope, I couldn't help thinking about Bryan Stevenson, a Cape Henlopen High School graduate who has spent his career, his entire adult life, seeking justice for the most despised members of society, those condemned to death row. Speaking in December at the Eagle's Nest Fellowship Church near Milton, Stevenson emphasized the importance of hope. "Injustice prevails where hopelessness persists," said Stevenson, who heads the Equal Justice Initiative in Birmingham, Ala. "We can???t create justice unless we are hopeful." Hopefulness has brought Stevenson a long way. A recent issue of Time magazine counted him among "The 100 Most Influential People," with tennis great Serena Williams providing a write-up about why he was picked. That hopefulness helped him, just last month, free an Alabama man who had spent nearly 3 decades on death row. (Stevenson was able to disprove the only evidence against him.) And that hopefulness brought him once again back to Delaware, where I met him downstairs in Legislative Hall in Dover. He had come home, briefly, to speak to legislators about repealing the state's death penalty. He had arrived in Delaware the night before, and was leaving later that day to present a speech in New York City. He squeezed me in between sessions with state representatives. Like last session, a bill repealing capital punishment in Delaware has passed the state Senate with bipartisan support, including 2 Sussex County Republicans, Sen. Gary Simpson of Milford and Sen. Ernie Lopez of Lewes. Last time around the bill died in committee, never making it to the floor for a vote. That could happen again. But there are reasons, as Stevenson might say, to be hopeful. For one, Gov. Markell, after a protracted silence on the issue, has said he would sign the bill. This is new. 2nd, it has become clear - even painfully obvious - that our system of justice is badly flawed. In July, Delaware's chief medical examiner was fired for his office's mishandling of evidence. Worse, the country's most respected crime lab, the FBI's vaunted forensic unit, provided "flawed testimony in almost all trials in which they offered evidence over more than a 2-decade period before 2000," according to a Washington Post article. The cases included "those of 32 defendants sentenced to death." Supposedly, scientific hair and bite mark comparisons were largely bogus. Sadly, it gets worse. For years, these problems were kept secret. Prosecutors and defendants alike weren't notified. This is the system of justice we trust to carry out the ultimate punishment? But Stevenson sees reason for hope. Maryland has abolished the death penalty; Pennsylvania's Gov. Tom Wolf recently issued a moratorium on executions. Now it's Delaware's turn. "Because I'm from Delaware," Stevenson said, "I have a deep interest in our state taking a step forward." He doesn't consider death penalty repeal as an end in itself, despite its importance. He sees it as a beginning. "I'm really worried, to be honest, about the lack of progress on racial justice, generally, in the state of Delaware," he said. "Our state has not evolved very much when it comes to racial justice," Stevenson said. "There are no people of color on the appellate bench. Wealth still matters more than culpability in criminal trials." Delaware, he said, has not dealt with its past. "We've never said or done anything to really change this history that begins with slavery and continues through lynching and segregation," he said. And when he talks about slavery, he's not just talking about enforced servitude. He's talking about the narrative that justified slavery, the narrative that held blacks were inferior. The 13th Amendment ended slavery, but not the narrative supporting it. But that can change. "Repeal of the death penalty is a really important first step to say we are going to create a new future, when it comes to how we manage inequality and poverty," Stevenson said. At 9:30 a.m. Wednesday, a rally will be held outside Legislative Hall in Dover to show support for repealing the death penalty, featuring Black Thought of Jimmy Fallon's "Tonight Show." At 11 a.m., the House will convene a hearing on Senate Bill 40, which would end capital punishment. Bryan won't be there in person, but his spirit of hopefulness will. "If it gets to the floor, I think it will pass," he said. "And that's why I think it's an exciting time in the state. If you put the death penalty behind us you can focus on other issues." (source: Don Flood, CapeGazette.com) ****************** Entire House should vote on death penalty bill The biggest question facing Senate Bill 40 is whether it will live to Thursday. The proposed ban on executions in Delaware goes before a House committee Wednesday morning. The Judiciary Committee hearing should be a lively one, with testimony from death penalty proponents and opponents as well as a protest rally featuring a musician from The Roots, the house band of "The Tonight Show" starring Jimmy Fallon. The bill has already passed the Senate, in a close vote. Several legislative observers do not think it will get that far in the House. They expect it to be voted down in the committee and never come to the full House for a vote. That would be wrong. The committee should approve the bill so that the full House can vote on it. By now, most people have formed their opinions on the bill and the death penalty in general. The voters deserve to know how their representatives will vote. That, of course, puts the pressure on the elected officials. However, that is their job. Delaware has 15 inmates on death row. This bill would not affect them. It would only affect those convicted after the bill is passed. The issue is a tough one, of course. People often are torn. Some opponents of the death penalty see the issue clearly: They want it stopped. Some, including victims' family members and law enforcement officials, point out that the real viciousness was in the murder that was committed. The arguments have been tough. When determining a life-or-death policy for the public, the arguments must be tough. They must be tested. Many people have responded by falling back on old positions. However, the debate has changed minds. Gov. Markell, for example, has said he would sign the bill if it passes the Legislature. He has allowed 2 executions to go forward while he was governor. Now, he says, he has doubts. The governor points to the recent revelations that FBI forensic analysts gave flawed testimony in hundreds of cases across the country. The testimony was based on mistaken conclusions from evidence tests over a 2-decade period. Of the 268 cases examined so far, The Washington Post has reported, the FBI's analysts testified wrongly in favor of the prosecution in 257. Of these, the inmate has already been executed or died in prison in 14 cases. Hundreds more have been thrown in doubt. In addition, Delaware's own medical examiner department is recovering from a scandal that involved tampered and missing evidence. For Gov. Markell, the chances of a mistake are too high. It would be an action that cannot be undone. For him, the whole process has been thrown into doubt. Obviously, the issue is a crucial one for a democracy. A lot is at stake. The committee system was designed to weed out bad bills, or ones that do not have enough legislative or public support. This bill does not fit that description. It is an urgent, important issue for the state. The committee should let the full House vote on it. (source: Editorial, delawareonline.com) ALABAMA: Grandmother who ran her granddaughter to death sentenced to life in prison That is what Alabama grandmother Joyce Hardin Garrard told her granddaughter's bus driver, Raeanna Holmes, when Holmes stopped at the house on her end-of-day route on Feb. 17, 2012: Savannah Hardin was in trouble for lying about some candy she took from a classmate. As punishment, her grandmother told the 9-year-old to run. Across the street that day, according to court testimony, neighbors Chad and Jolie Jacobs watched with increasing concern as Savannah ran for more than 3 hours, with her 50-year-old grandmother shouting: "I didn't tell you to stop!"As the punishment continued, and Savannah was later ordered to run while carrying firewood sticks, the neighbors assumed that the elementary school student was getting an occasional respite. But that wasn't true, and by the time the neighbors attempted to intervene, at about 6:30 that evening, Savannah was on the ground, vomiting, as her grandmother shouted: "Get up! I better not have to tell you again!" Savannah had a seizure and was hospitalized. She died days later from extreme physical exertion, an autopsy ruled. Her grandmother was convicted of capital murder earlier this year. On Monday, Judge William Ogletree sentenced Garrard to life in prison without the possibility of parole. Ogletree's decision is in line with an earlier recommendation from a jury to spare Garrard the death penalty. The jury was split 5 to 7 in favor of life imprisonment, a sentence that prosecutors supported, AL.com reported. But in Alabama, a judge can override the sentencing decision of a jury in a capital case such as Garrard's. Alabama judges have opted for the death penalty in cases in which a jury has recommended life imprisonment 101 times since 1976, according to a report from the Equal Justice Initiative in Alabama. Overrides have gone the other way - from death to life - just 10 times, by contrast. The witness accounts from Holmes and Chad and Jolie Jacobs contained excruciating details from the moments that prosecutors argued led to Savannah's death. They also contained regret: "I wish I had done something a lot sooner," Jolie Jacobs said. Holmes said she felt "partly responsible" for the girl's death. Holmes initially caught Savannah in the lie that led her grandmother to punish her so severely. "I should have paid for those candy bars," the bus driver said. In the end, prosecutors determined that 2 women were responsible for Hardin's death: Garrard and Hardin's stepmother, Jessica Hardin, who was also charged with murder. Prosecutors have accused Hardin of failing to intervene in Garrard's treatment of her stepdaughter. Hardin is still awaiting trial and plans to plead not guilty. According to a sketch of the day in question, which was detailed by AL.com, Holmes told Garrard on a Friday morning that she had caught Savannah in a lie. The girl had taken some fundraiser candy from another student, eaten it and left the wrappers on her seat on the bus. At first, Savannah denied taking the candy, but she later confessed. Soon after, Garrard called the mother of the girl from whom Hardin had taken the candy, made an offer to pay for the candy bars Savannah had taken and said her granddaughter was in big trouble. According to testimony from the mother, Juanita Sweatt, Garrard also indicated that she suspected that Savannah was bullying Sweatt's daughter. After getting off the phone, Sweatt asked her daughter about Savannah. She denied that Savannah had ever hit or bullied her on the bus. Garrard's tone on that 1st phone call was enough to prompt Sweatt to call her back after speaking to her daughter. "I didn't want Savannah to get in trouble for something that didn't happen," Sweatt said, according to an account of her testimony from the Gadsen Times. Garrard has a different explanation for what transpired that afternoon: Savannah was running because the 9-year-old "asked me to coach her," the grandmother testified. "Instead of coming in 2nd in her running class at school, she wanted to come in 1st." She said Savannah's punishment was to pick up sticks in the yard, an activity that Garrard said she did, too, because "I felt just as responsible for her lying as she was." According to the version of events Garrard gave at the trial, Savannah was injured when she fell while Garrard stepped inside. Prosecutors presented testimony indicating that Garrard's story changed more than once in the hours after Savannah was hospitalized. Witness accounts don't paint a complete picture of what happened that afternoon, but they do contradict elements of Garrard's story. Holmes stopped by the house on her route home, after Hardin didn't take the bus at the end of the day. Her exchange with Garrard was captured on a surveillance video on the bus. Holmes saw Hardin picking up sticks in the yard. Her grandmother said that the girl was "gonna learn" not to lie and that she would "run until I tell her to stop." Across the street, Chad and Jolie Jacobs first noticed Savannah at about 4 p.m., running in a short pattern around the yard of Garrard's house, they testified. At 5 p.m., they said, Savannah was carrying sticks for firewood as her grandmother continued to yell in a "hateful, hostile" tone. By 6:30 p.m., after the couple had come back home from a short trip, Savannah was on the ground in the yard, vomiting. Here's how AL.com summarized the couple's testimony of the scene: "Get up! I better not have to tell you again!" Jolie said she heard Garrard yell. By this time, the child was begging to stop. Jolie said she thought she heard "skin on skin" across the street, as though Joyce was striking the child. Savannah was vomiting. Still Joyce barked at her to carry the wood, even as she was crying. Savannah was on her hands and knees. Joyce tried pouring water into her mouth, telling her she'd better drink up or she couldn't go to the bathroom. The water was running out of her mouth. It was at that point that the couple decided to intervene. But medics were already arriving at the house. Savannah's stepmother had placed a 911 call to get help for the girl. According to testimony from Lori Beggs, the dispatcher who took that call, Jessica Hardin and Garrard were unusually calm, considering that they told the dispatcher that Savannah was unconscious after a seizure. Hardin did not mention that her stepdaughter had been running and told the dispatcher that she had fallen off a step. She was on the ground in the front yard when paramedics arrived. Savannah was naked from the waist down when Mountainboro volunteer firefighter Justin Hairrell arrived at the scene, he testified. Her bottom half was covered in a wet blanket, and she was wearing a soaked T-shirt. Garrard's attorneys asked Ogletree to keep Garrard in prison for life, telling the court: "The worst punishment you could give is to send her to the penitentiary as the grandmother who ran her grandchild to death." (source: Washington Post) OHIO: Lawmakers want to exclude mentally ill from death penalty A major change in Ohio capital punishment policy by excluding "serious mentally ill" offenders from execution is expected to be introduced Tuesday in the Ohio Senate. Sens. Bill Seitz, R-Cincinnati, and Sandra Williams, D-Cleveland, have been working on legislation stemming from recommendations made by the Ohio Supreme Court Death Penalty Task Force in April 2014. The mental illness exclusion, along with about a dozen other task force recommendations, are planned to eventually be introduced in the General Assembly. The bill would bar execution of people who, when they committed the crime, suffered from a serious mental illness that impaired their ability to "exercise rational judgment in relation to their conduct, conform their conduct to the requirements of the law, or appreciate the nature, consequences or wrongfulness of their conduct," according to the National Alliance on Mental Illness Ohio, which supports the legislation. While the Seitz-Williams bill would forbid their execution, seriously mentally ill defendants could still be prosecuted and sent to prison for murder. In a letter to lawmakers seeking support for the bill, NAMI and the Ohio Psychiatric Physicians Association said, "We believe that those who commit violent crimes while in the grip of a psychotic delusion, hallucination or other disabling psychological condition lack judgment, understanding or self-control. Until such time as the U.S. Supreme Court decides on this question, the responsibility for prohibiting the execution of such individuals in Ohio rests with the Ohio General Assembly." "The death penalty is not the answer to the problem of violence committed by persons with severe mental disorders," the letter continued. "The better policy is access to appropriate mental health care - ideally before such a tragedy occurs - and, most definitely, in place of executing some of Ohio's most critically ill individuals." Seitz's office said in addition to he and Williams, the bill has 12 co-sponsors so far, 6 Republicans and 6 Democrats. Other task force proposals be unveiled in the legislature in the future are establishing a statewide indigent death-penalty litigation fund in the Ohio Public Defender's office; requiring certification for coroner's offices and crime labs, and prohibiting convictions based solely on uncorroborated information from a jailhouse informant. (source: Columbus Dispatch) NEBRASKA: 'Words don't adequately describe the sadness''----Unspeakable' acts: 5-year-old was alive when he was thrown into river, law official says 5-year-old Josue Ramirez-?Marinero was alive and asleep when his 25-year-old half brother ripped the boy from his car seat and tossed him over a bridge rail into the Elkhorn River, according to a law enforcement official familiar with accounts of that night. Roberto C. Martinez-Marinero, 25, reportedly admitted to authorities that he killed his mother, left his 11-month-old half brother in a dumpster in La Vista and then threw 5-year-old Josue into the Elkhorn River. For those "unspeakable" acts, Douglas County Attorney Don Kleine said Monday that he will seek the death penalty against Martinez-Marinero. Kleine said the killing conjured up images of previous child deaths, including the November 2000 killing of 7-year-old Tramar Chandler, who had witnessed the murder of his 13-year-old sister and the attempted murder of his mother. Arthur Lee Gales is on death row for those killings. "These are the kind of cases that never leave you," Kleine said. "Words don't adequately describe the sadness and gravity and senselessness when something like this happens to a child." Most nonsensical, authorities say, is why Martinez-Marinero allegedly sought to eliminate witnesses and then, soon after, admitted to his mother's slaying. Authorities allege that Martinez-Marinero told a couple of acquaintances that he had killed his mom. He then went to police and made the same admission. That left a question looming Monday: If he purportedly was willing to admit his actions, why would he attempt to get rid of his brothers? The case came perilously close to 2 child deaths, Kleine noted. 11-month-old Angel was spared when an alert passer-by heard rustling in a dumpster and rescued the boy. A garbage truck was scheduled to unload the trash bin the next day - and Angel almost certainly would have died in the crush, Kleine said. There was no such salvation for Josue. The boy's body was discovered Monday morning about a mile south of the U.S. Highway 275-West Center Road bridge. According to authorities: Martinez-Marinero and his mother, Jesus Ismenia Marinero, had been arguing about money in the weeks before the killing. Sometime during the night of May 5 or into the morning of May 6, their argument escalated at the apartment he shared with his girlfriend near 20th Street and Poppleton Avenue. Martinez-Marinero told law enforcement officials that his mother slapped or swatted at him. He lost it. He beat his mother in the face and head with a baseball bat and then stabbed her multiple times, Kleine said. A law enforcement official who spoke on condition of anonymity said she suffered as many as 20 stab wounds. Martinez-Marinero's girlfriend, Gabriela Guevara, reportedly was with Martinez-Marinero when his mother was killed and helped dump her body near Fourth and Cedar Streets. She also was with Martinez-Marinero when Angel was left in the trash bin in La Vista and when Josue was thrown into the Elkhorn River. Martinez-Marinero and Guevara reportedly have 2 young children of their own. Guevara faces up to 55 years in prison on the 5 accessory counts. Martinez-Marinero, who has no criminal record, faces life in prison or the death penalty. Under state law, Kleine said, 2 aggravating factors exist that could merit the death penalty: multiple slayings; and Josue was killed to eliminate a witness to a slaying. After 4 days of searching, Josue's body was spotted by searchers on a Waterloo Fire Department rescue boat at 10:23 a.m. Monday, a mile downstream of the bridge, Omaha Police Capt. Kerry Neumann said. The body was on the east bank, stuck in tree branches. At 11:30 a.m., Neumann said, Omaha Fire Department divers recovered the body with the help of the Waterloo fire crew. Crime lab technicians examined the body to confirm an identity; an autopsy will follow. Omaha Mayor Jean Stothert issued a statement Monday afternoon, noting that Omaha is a "supportive, caring community that will keep this family in our prayers." "I am heartbroken for the family of Ismenia Marinero and her son Josue," Stothert said in the statement. "Gratefully, little Angel survived and has been reunited with his family. Omaha police and firefighters, with help from many agencies, worked for many days to find little Josue. Many are parents themselves, who worked with compassionate determination to bring the emotional search to a conclusion." Waterloo Fire Chief Travis Harlow said the "ultimate goal" was to find Josue's body. Severe weather pulled crews off the river about 1 p.m. Sunday, he said, but they were back searching at 8 a.m. today. More than 100 officers from the FBI, Omaha police and local law enforcement agencies spent the weekend searching a milelong stretch of West Center Road east of the Elkhorn River. They reportedly were looking for the baseball bat and knife and possibly a cellphone. Those items had not been found as of Monday night. DJ Ginsberg of the United States ATV Search & Rescue team said he was relieved to know the search for Josue was over. About 14 members of the team searched both sides of the river Friday, Saturday and Sunday. "I'm just glad that his body was found," Ginsberg said. "There can now be closure for the family." The search for Josue may have closure, but the search for answers does not. As relatives and friends heard Monday that searchers had found Josue, his baby sitter, Teresa Rivera-Avelar, sobbed uncontrollably. Rivera-Avelar - who watched Josue and Angel 6 days a week - spent time with Ismenia Marinero and her boys just hours before they disappeared. "I spent all of my time with them. They (Josue and Angel) grew up at my house," she said. "I loved Josue as my own child, and Ismenia was my best friend." A fund has been set up for the Ramirez-?Marinero family. Make a donation at any Omaha U.S. Bank branch. (source: omaha.com) USA: Colorado movie gunman's lawyers object to 'upsetting' testimony Lawyers trying to avoid the death penalty for Colorado movie massacre gunman James Holmes objected on Monday when prosecutors tried to bring testimony the defense called "upsetting" from investigators at the bloody crime scene in July 2012. Public defenders for Holmes, 27, argued that the former graduate student's right to a fair trial would be jeopardized by lurid details of the scene where 12 people were killed and 70 wounded at the packed midnight premiere of a Batman film in a Denver area multiplex. Prosecutor Rich Orman responded with scorn. "The upsetting thing is that the defendant went into a theater of innocent people and shot! The upsetting thing is the defendant shot a little girl," Orman said, his voice shaking with emotion. "The upsetting thing is the crime." Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty for Holmes, who has pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity to multiple counts of murder and attempted murder. Beginning the 3rd week of the trial that is expected to last 4 to 5 months, attorneys for the former neuroscience graduate student objected to prosecution plans to call a fingerprint expert who examined the bodies. The defense lawyers said the testimony was likely to be "upsetting" and "unnecessary" because it follows multiple other law enforcement witnesses who described finding the victims inside theater nine of the Century 16 cinema in Aurora. Arapahoe County District Court Judge Carlos Samour ruled that the prosecution can present evidence on identifying the dead, as long as it does not belabor the point. He said he would deal with defense objections on a question-by-question basis. The jury also heard from an FBI special agent who showed photographs of Holmes' bomb- and booby-trapped apartment. Among the images was a calendar hanging on his bedroom wall with the date of the massacre, July 20, 2012, circled next to a number 1 and the mathematical symbol for infinity. His public defenders say Holmes suffers from schizophrenia and was not in control of his actions when he plotted and carried out the attack. They concede that he opened fire in the theater, and say only his state of mind should be in question. They say the jury could be prejudiced against Holmes if the prosecution persists in its strategy of calling crime scene technicians to give detailed testimony, interspersed with heart-wrenching accounts from wounded survivors. The prosecution says Holmes carried out the massacre because he had lost his girlfriend and career, and had a "longstanding hatred of mankind." (source: Reuters) ******************* Neuro-expert testifies for Tsarnaev This is the 2nd post in a series about the application of neuroscientific research about the adolescent brain to the defense of Dzohkar Tsarnaev, who was found guilty last month of bombing the Boston Marathon in April 2013. Now, in the sentencing phase of the trial, the defense called Jay N. Giedd last week. Geidd, chief of brain imaging in the Child Psychiatry Branch, National Institute of Mental Health, is a prominent child and adolescent psychiatrist who specializes in brain imaging. As we predicted in our earlier post, the expert witness described the development of the prefrontal cortex, the area instrumental in planning, impulse control, and judgment, relative to the limbic, or emotion-regulating, systems of the brain. Dr. Giedd indicated that the average teen's prefrontal cortex - recall, Tsarnaev was 19 when he participated in the bombing - is only 1/2 as developed as it will be by the time its owner reaches his late 20s. As a result, the capacity of the prefrontal cortex to override the aggression or excitation mediated by the limbic portions of the brain tends to be weak during the adolescent years. Dr. Giedd also spoke of teens' predilection for choosing smaller, short-term rewards over long-term gains: They are "less worried about longer-term consequences." The implication here is that Tsarnaev's brain, like all teen brains, was especially sensitive to pressure by peers and loved ones. The approval of his domineering older brother Tamerlan, this narrative suggests, was made even more compelling for Dzohkar because of the way his brain functioned. On cross-examination, though, Dr. Geidd acknowledged large variations in brain development across individuals. He further granted that "Even under age 10, they can do quite well with planning and consequences" and that there is much we don't yet know about drawing strong connections between features of the brain and a given teen's behavior. Trying to grasp the brain's complexity, he noted, is "humbling business." It is also humbling to try to infer a killer's state of mind - that is, his motives and understanding of right and wrong. Here, the immature brain strategy loses much of its force: still developing or not, teens' basic moral schema are formed well before age 19. One does not need a fully formed brain to know that blasting nails and ball bearings into a crowd has lethal and personally tragic consequences. Any 9 year-old who is not intellectually deficient grasps the finality of death and understands that killing innocent people is wrong. Although many teens might impulsively go on a joy ride or two with older friends or foolishly stay out late the night before a morning exam, virtually none seriously consider murdering others, let alone undertake the act of doing so. How did the jury seem to respond to the information about the teen brain? We can't tell from news reports whether the defense invoked vivid brain images (though we imagine that such exhibits would have been noted in the press coverage), but according to Jack Lepiarz, WBUR reporter, the testimony on the teen brain did not seem "sexy" relative to the gore-filled exhibits of jagged wounds and torn limbs presented by the prosecution during the guilt phase. But how much influence would images wield if they had indeed been shown? During the earlier days of neurolaw, judges and prosecutors worried that brain scans would be too compelling, or "prejudicial," to juries. That might have been the case a decade ago when multi-colored brain scans were a novelty in media coverage. Perhaps by now, however, many laypersons have become inured to them. Recall the case of Herbert Weinstein discussed in the previous post. He was the executive who strangled his wife during an argument and then pushed her out the window of their Manhattan high-rise to make her death look like a suicide. Weinstein, as we noted, was discovered to have a large fluid-filled cyst in the right orbitofrontal cortex. Reportedly, the prosecutor was not impressed with the hypothesis that the cyst led him to commit murder, but he agreed to a plea deal because he thought the jury would be persuaded by the images. In a 2009 case of an Illinois defendant named Brian Dugan, the judge, too, was concerned about the prejudicial power of brain scans. Dugan faced the death penalty for the kidnapping, rape, and murder of a 10-year-old girl. To vacate his death sentence, the defense team turned to fMRI to buttress the claim that he was a psychopath, a morally disabled man whose sickness was such that he could not feel right from wrong or that he did not care about the distinction. As a psychopath, Dugan would have known that killing and raping an innocent person was against the law, but he would have been poor at empathizing emotionally and perhaps even regarded the misery he'd inflicted on others as being "their problem, not mine." Under testing conditions, Dugan's fMRI showed diminished activity in the "paralimbic system," an interconnected set of emotion-processing structures in the brain. At trial, however, the judge did not allow the psychologist called by the defense, Dr. Kent Kiehl of the University of New Mexico, to display scans of the defendant's abnormal paralimbic activity; he worried that they might confuse or mislead the jury. As a compromise, he allowed Kiehl to show jurors a diagram of the findings and to explain their meaning. In the end, the jury was unmoved and sentenced Dugan to death. In the courtroom there are, of course, so many variables that impinge on jurors' views: the quality of the lawyering, the strength of witness testimony, the appeal of the defendant himself, and so on. In controlled lab studies, scientists have explored whether brain images can seduce participants into accepting logically flawed statements, but the findings have been mixed. Other work on prospective jurors suggests that scans may sometimes, but not always, lessen the amount of punishment participants mete out to presumed criminals. The scans, it seems, hold less persuasive power than neurobiological language to dampen observers' intuition about blaming the perpetrator. Some scientists argue that brain-based explanations of immoral or antisocial actions are effective antidotes against stigma. If people view mental illnesses as diseases of the brain, their reasoning goes, they may be less likely to blame offenders for their misbehavior. Research supports this possibility but there is a largely unappreciated flip side: attributing people's bad behavior to bad brains (or genes) rather than poor character or a bad childhood leads others to believe that these individuals are more dangerous and resistant to treatment or rehabilitation. Biological explanations of mental illness and addiction further fuel pessimism about the likelihood of recovery and the effectiveness of treatment. Thus far, then, it would appear that its influence on the jury may well have been minimal. If so, this is all for the good. No game-changing information was imparted by the neuroscientist's testimony last week. For one thing, the testimony was about teens as a group, not about Tsarnaev himself; nor was it about a defect per se. Also, his crime has a compelling psychological explanation that no neuroscience story can readily explain away. Nor did his testimony tell us much that psychologists - and many parents - have not already known for decades, namely, that many adolescents prioritize short-term rewards over long-term punishments. Tsarnaev was almost certainly influenced by his brother and swayed by his emotional appeals, but he repeatedly elected to follow his brother's directives. His efforts were planned and protracted, and his actions sustained by a set of internally consistent, if profoundly hateful, beliefs. Tsarnaev's story is a human tragedy, a tale of devastating personal choices about which developmental neurophysiology has precious little to add. (source: Dr. Sally Satel and Prof. Scott O. Lilienfeld , guest blog; Washington Post) ********************** Police violence, executions, Gitmo: US grilled by UN human rights panel The UN Human Rights Council called out the US over the disturbing trend of excessive force being used against minorities by law enforcement agencies, adding that the US has "largely failed" to follow up on recommendations made in 2010. Appearing before the so-called Universal Periodic Review, which all 193 UN countries must submit to every 4 years, US ambassador to the council Keith Harper and acting US legal advisor Mary McLeod were quizzed regarding recent cases of police brutality. Namibia UN representative Gladice Pickering called on US officials to "collaborate closely with marginalized communities to fix the broken justice system that continues to discriminate against them, despite recent waves of protest over racial profiling and police killings of unarmed black men." James Cadogan, a senior counselor in the US Justice Department's civil rights division, told the meeting in Geneva his country must strive to ensure that "our civil rights laws live up to their promise," before rattling off a list of cases of high-profile killings of unarmed black men by the US police. "The tragic deaths of Freddie Gray in Baltimore, Michael Brown in Missouri, Eric Garner in New York, Tamir Rice in Ohio, and Walter Scott in South Carolina have... challenged us to do better and to work harder for progress," he said. In the case of Freddie Gray, 6 police officers have been charged in connection with Gray's death. The public is closely watching the results of such cases, coming as it does just months after the death of Michael Brown, the unarmed black teenager who was shot and killed in Ferguson, allegedly as his arms were raised in a surrendering gesture. One of the outgrowths of these unfortunate incidences has been the so-called Black Lives Matter movement, which began as a hashtag after George Zimmerman's acquittal for the shooting death of Trayvon Martin in 2013, and gained momentum following the shooting of Michael Brown. Cadogan said criminal charges have been brought against more than 400 law enforcement officials in the last 6 years, the AP reported. Human Rights Watch says the US has "largely failed" to introduce the UN's recommendations from 2010. These included not only the subject of police brutality, but also the study of racial inequalities regarding the death penalty. "The US has been strong on process and short on substance," Antonio Ginatta, US advocacy director at Human Rights Watch, said in a statement ahead of the latest review. At the same time, the US heard calls to close Guantanamo Bay, the detention facility on Cuban territory where over 100 men continue to be held, as well as reining in Internet surveillance, the AP reported. Representatives from Brazil and Kenya expressed concern over the full extent of America's surveillance system, brought into the light of day in 2013 by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden. Last week, a federal appeals court ruled that the National Security Agency's program to collect data on phone calls violates the Constitution. David Bitkower, a deputy assistant attorney general with the US Justice Department, said the government does not collect intelligence to suppress dissent or to give businesses an advantage, and insisted there is "extensive and effective oversight to prevent abuse," according to the AP. The US officials also heard criticism over the continued use of the death penalty. Swedish UN representative Anna Jakenberg Brinck called for a "national moratorium on the death penalty aiming at complete abolition." Other countries, including France, pushed for "full transparency" in the types of drugs being administered during executions, following news that some death row inmates suffered lingering pain and death during their executions. The United States ranks 5th in the world in executions after China, Iran, Saudi Arabia and Iraq, according to Amnesty International. (source: rt.com) From rhalperi at smu.edu Tue May 12 12:06:12 2015 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Tue, 12 May 2015 12:06:12 -0500 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide Message-ID: May 12 SAUDI ARABIA----execution Saudi beheads 80th person this year Saudi Arabia Tuesday carried out its 80th beheading of the year, edging closer to the 87 executions it carried out during all of 2014, according to AFP tallies. The interior ministry said a Saudi citizen, Rabie al-Sai'ari, had been convicted of trying to smuggle hashish into the kingdom. He was executed in Najran, a district on the border with Yemen, a ministry statement carried by the official Saudi Press Agency said. The ministry has cited deterrence as a reason for its use of the death penalty despite criticism from human rights watchdogs. Amnesty International ranked Saudi Arabia among the world's top 3 executioners of 2014. On a visit to Riyadh this month, French President Francois Hollande said that capital punishment "should be banned," and his country is campaigning around the world for its abolition. Drug trafficking, rape, murder, apostasy and armed robbery are all punishable by death under Saudi Arabia's strict version of Islamic sharia law. (source: The Daily Star) INDONESIA: Indonesian lawyer: Mary Jane Veloso's death sentence can still be canceled or commuted The Indonesian lawyer of Mary Jane Veloso said on Tuesday the cancellation of the death penalty on the convicted overseas worker is still possible. Atty. Rudyantho, who is in the country along with 2 other Indonesian lawyers, made the statement at the Department of Justice (DOJ), where they met with DOJ Undersecretary Jose Vicente Salazar and chief legal counsel Ricardo Paras to discuss Veloso's case. "The cancellation of the death penalty is still possible," Rudyantho said, adding that it is their intent to have the death penalty canceled or commuted. "I am a lawyer. I have to be optimistic to help my client," he further said. The Indonesian lawyers, who are to return to Indonesia Thursday, said they decided to come to Manila even without a formal invitation from the Philippine government, to gather evidence and documents that would help permanently save Veloso from the death penalty. "I came here to try to find out how to help Mary Jane. We will try our best to help her, to find out the real story, including what happened in Malaysia when Sergio recruited her and sent her to Indonesia," he added. The impending execution by firing squad of Veloso was interrupted by a last-minute reprieve from Indonesian President Joko Widodo last month. The Indonesian government said the reprieve was to allow Veloso to testify against the case of her illegal recruiters in the Philippines. This developed as DOJ Secretary Leila de Lima disclosed more alleged victims of Veloso's recruiters, Ma. Cristina Sergio and her live-in-partner, Julius Lacanilao, have also approached the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) while still others were referred to them by the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA). De Lima said some of the victims have sent handwritten letters to the NBI detailing their harrowing experiences with Sergio. De Lima said the cases are now being investigated by the NBI. "The DFA referred to us the additional cases for verification or validation, and these were automatically assigned to the NBI for investigation," she explained. Earlier, 10 others, aside from Veloso and Lorna Valino, Ana Maries Gonzales and Jenalyn Paraiso, came forward and filed charges of illegal recruitment and human trafficking before the NBI. (source: interaksyon.com) AUSTRALIA: Executioners, Song, Silence Just after midnight a few days ago, a small crowd gathered in a jungle clearing on Nuksakambangan, a prison island in Indonesia. It was an awful, terrifying moment. And so powerful it seemed strangely holy. A row of 8 men, tied to wooden crosses, with arms outstretched and feet bound, faced a firing squad. The men wore white shirts. A black cross was taped on the chests of the condemned to show where their hearts were. All 8 refused blindfolds, choosing instead to look their executioners in the eye. As they waited for the gunfire, the men - from Australia, Nigeria, Indonesia, Brazil and Ghana; all convicted of offenses related to drug smuggling - sang hymns. A pastor who was present, Karina de Vega, said that even though they were not all Christians, they sang like a choir: "It was breathtaking." Brintha Sukumaran, a sister of Myuran Sukumaran, an Australian man on death row, as she arrived at a prison island to visit her brother ahead of the executions in Indonesia on Tuesday. 2 Australians, Andrew Chan, 31, and Myuran Sukumaran, 34, led the group. Former ringleaders of what became known as the "Bali 9" drug operation, the pair had undergone a transformation in the decade they had spent in jail. Mr. Chan had been ordained a minister, while Mr. Sukumaran had become an accomplished artist. The Australian prime minister, Tony Abbott, and the foreign minister, Julie Bishop, had pleaded for stays of execution, in vain. And, over the final weeks, Australians had been galvanized into unexpected protests. As the members of the firing squad cocked their rifles, the strains of "Amazing Grace" were heard in the darkness. The drug smugglers were singing a hymn written by a former slave ship captain, John Newton, also a wretch who wanted to be saved. Then the bullets came. And an amazing thing happened: Australia, a proudly secular, cynical country, stopped. Even those who did not weep were silent; a curious stillness infected the country the day after the shooting. 2 of them were ours, and they had been shot dead. In the hours before the executions, thousands held candles at vigils, lay sleepless in their beds or woke early, fumbling for the news on their phones. The appeals for clemency had been a tortuous, protracted process, and we grew accustomed to the faces of the condemned on our screens and newspaper pages. Now their lives were snuffed out and many felt anguished and distressed. According to a recent poll, almost 1/2 of Australians are atheists: 48 % of respondents said they had never believed in a "classical creator God" or no longer did; and 60 % think the Bible is a book of myths. Yet the story of redemption in an Indonesia jail persuaded my country to rethink its attitude toward the death penalty. Mr. Abbott called the executions "cruel and unnecessary," pointing to the fact that the men were "fully rehabilitated." After the executions, he announced that Australia would withdraw its ambassador to Indonesia. Australia is officially opposed to the death penalty - the last person to be executed was hanged in 1967 - but polls have shown us to be conflicted and inconsistent on the question. We don't favor it here, but Australian public opinion is more sympathetic toward it in other countries or if it is used against terrorists (like those responsible for the 2002 Bali bombings that killed 202 people, including 88 Australians). A recent poll found that 52 % agreed that fellow Australians who had been convicted of drug trafficking and sentenced to death in another country should be executed. Yet almost the same number (53 %) objected to the executions of Mr. Chan and Mr. Sukumaran. The 2 also drew support from both sides of Parliament and across the media. Perhaps it was because the former traffickers had genuinely reformed. They had become figureheads within the prison, helping inmates and leading church services. It was also reported that Mr. Chan and Mr. Sukumaran had risked their own safety to protect women's quarters when a riot broke out in 2012. Mr. Chan converted to Christianity during a stint in solitary confinement when he realized his death sentence was likely to be carried out. To ensure that his prison ministry would continue, Mr. Chan trained others to be leaders. "Jesus set me free," he said. Sincerity is judged exactingly in Australia; we have crude words for those who try to pull the wool over our eyes, for fraudsters or pretenders. We are also deeply suspicious of piety. But we believed these men as they cried for another chance. (A poll taken after the executions found 71 % of Australians thought the death penalty should not be used against drug traffickers, and just over half thought Australia should take a more aggressive stance on the subject globally.) And this is why their long trek to a brutal death became somehow sacred. It made many of us reconsider the possibility of change, the potency of mercy and the terrible finality of taking another's life. In the run-up to the executions, Simon Smart, the director of the Center for Public Christianity, asked: "Why do we long for redemption stories? Where do we find hope in the midst of struggle and disappointment? The short, beautifully tragic lives of these young men seemed to point to something of an answer. Were they on to something as they sang their way to their graves?" On top of those questions, more are now being asked: Should we make stronger efforts globally to lobby against the death penalty? How should we respond to the fact that Indonesian officials continue to ask for clemency for their own citizens on death row in other countries - slam them as hypocrites or fight with them? If Mr. Chan and Mr. Sukumaran forgave their persecutors, can we? The Rev. Christie Buckingham was with the men before they died. Their last hour, the pastor said, was one of their finest: "giving comfort to all around them, including the guards who had become fond of them." If there are any moments that should compel a country to pause and think, this was one. (source: Opinion; Julia Baird, a journalist and television presenter with the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, is working on a biography of Queen Victoria----New York Times) IRAN----executions Public Executions Scheduled in Iran's Ethnic Region 3 people are scheduled to be hanged publicly in the town of Hamidiyeh (Southwestern Iran), reported the Iranian state media. Quoting the head of the judiciary in Khuzestan, Farhad Afsharnia, the report said that these people were involved in the shootings in early April in Hamidiyeh where 3 security officers were killed. Several people were arrested in connection with the shooting but none of them have been identified by name and no further details have been provided by the edam4authorities. The public hangings are scheduled to take place in the coming days. Khuzestan province is the home of Iran's Arab minority where there have been several protests against the authorities in the past few months. In the past few days there have also been protests in Kurdistan, home to the Kurdish ethnic group. IHR strongly condemns the scheduled public hangings in Hamidiyeh. Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam, the spokesperson of IHR said: "The public executions are meant to spread fear in the society. It seems that the scheduled public executions are the authorities' response to the recent protests in Khuzestan and Kurdistan. We call on the international community to react to the violent crackdown in the ethnic regions of Iran." (source: Iran Human Rights) ************************ 6 prisoners hanged The Iranian regime's henchmen hanged at least 6 men in the northwestern city of Orumiyeh on Thursday. Prisoners Shahin Salehi, Haji Abbassi, Ahmad Shiri, Latif Alizadeh, Abdolaziz Fouladi and Hassan Bina all were executed in the city's main prison. Also on Saturday a prisoner was hanged in public in the city of Rasht. UN human rights experts condemned the recent surge in executions in Iran, the majority of which are unreported. Reports received from Geneva on 8th May 2015 from United Nations Special Rapporteurs involving the situation of human rights in Iran by Ahmed Shaheed and on extrajudicial executions by Christof Heyns have condemned the drastic increase in executions since the past few weeks. In many cases executions have gone unreported by official sources and the names of those being executed have not been disclosed to the public. "When the Iranian government refuses to even acknowledge the full extent of executions which have occurred, it shows a callous disregard for both human dignity and international human rights law," Mr. Shaheed stressed. Between the 9th and the 26th of April as many as 98 prisoners are reported to have been executed at an average of 6 per day. "We are alarmed by the recent surge in the number of executions, which has occurred despite serious questions about fair trial standards," Mr. Heyns noted. (source: NCR-Iran) ****************************** Iran summarily executed 98 people in a month: U.N. report The United Nations expressed its condemnation of the latest figures of executions carried out by the Iranian authorities during the past few months. According to a report documented by Dr. Ahmed Shaheed, the Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in Iran, and Christophe Heinz, the Special Rapporteur on arbitrary executions, Iranian authorities executed 98 prisoners in April. Shaheed said that the Iranian government refuses to acknowledge the number of arbitrary executions that took place last month. "This is a complete contempt for human dignity, and the international principles of human rights," he added. On the other hand, Heinz expressed his "shock" about the high number of executions in Iran. The report pointed out that since the beginning of January, 340 people were executed in Iran, including dozens of political prisoners, seven of them were women, including activist Rehana Jabari. At least 15 cases were subject to public executions, according the U.N. The report also indicated that some 852 people were executed in Iran in 2014, including women and minors. Heinz and Shaheed appealed to the Iranian authorities to abolish the death penalty and abide by international conventions. In the meantime, peaceful protests swept the Kurdish city of Mahabad, and expanded to other cities in northwestern Iran where Kurds constitute majority following decades of suppression. The Iranian security forces started taking more repressive measures against angry Kurdish protesters, who started taking to the street after the 23-year-old Kurdish girl, Farinaz Khosrawani, committed suicide following a sexual harassment by an Iranian security officer last Thursday. Last February, the Kurdish political activist Saman Nesim was executed in the jail of the city of Urmia, in western Iran, on charges of participating in armed activities of the Party of Free Life of Kurdistan against the Iranian government. The Iranian government is facing severe criticism from the United Nations and the international organizations for violations against human rights, especially after the documentation of dozens of summary executions of opponents, journalists and civil rights activists. (source: aranews.net) ***************** Iran hardliners cling to death penalty The jailing of a well-known campaigner against the death penalty and a sharp rise in executions has once again put Iran's poor human rights record in the spotlight. Why has President Hassan Rouhani and his team failed to meet hopes for reform at home despite making gains on the international stage? "They took my mummy to Evin prison again," says 8-year-old Kiana. In their short lives, Kiana and her twin brother, Ali, have seen many arrests and raids on their home. Their mother is Narges Mohammadi, a well-known human rights lawyer and campaigner, who has been in and out of jail on charges related to her work, for much of the past 5 years. In 2012, after suffering severe ill-health, Ms Mohammadi was granted leave to serve the remainder of a 6-year prison sentence at home. But last week while the children were at school, intelligence officials came to the house, with no warning or explanation, and took her back to jail. One of the charges levelled against Ms Mohammadi was that she was running an "illegal group" campaigning against the death penalty. It is a tough cause to fight in a country that has the second highest rate of executions in the world, after China. When President Rouhani swept to power in 2013, there were hopes his more moderate stance would mean improvements in human rights. But since he took office, the number of executions carried out in Iran has actually risen. President Rouhani is thought to be a moderate influence The Oslo-based Iran Human Rights organisation says Iran executed 735 people in 2014 - a 10% increase on the previous year. In April the group said it had documented 43 judicial killings in Iran in just 3 days. It is impossible to independently verify these numbers, but most human right observers say they are credible. The majority of executions carried out in Iran are for drugs-related offences And in a country with a serious addiction problem, they elicit little public sympathy. But in the past 2 years, there have been a number of high-profile death row cases - mainly involving juvenile offenders or women - which have struck a chord with the public, prompting appeals for clemency. But President Rouhani has so far kept silent about the death penalty. The main reason is that constitutionally he has very little room to act. Although he is the elected president, Iran's complex power structure means Mr Rouhani has no power over the judiciary, which answers instead to the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Internal suspicion The judiciary is dominated by hardliners deeply suspicious of the overtures Mr Rouhani has been making to old adversaries such as the US. The more ground the president gains on the international stage, the more resistance the hardliners will put up to any change to the status quo at home. line -- Executions in Iran: In the 18 months since the election of President Rouhani in June 2013, Iranian authorities executed more than 1,193 people. This is an average of more than 2 executions every day. The number of executions in that period was 31% higher than the number in the 18 months before President Rouhani assumed power. The number of juvenile offenders executed in 2014 was the highest since 1990. [source: Iran Human Rights (March 2015)] -- "There is an internal conflict going on now between the hard-line judiciary and Rouhani's moderate administration," says Iranian human rights campaigner Taghi Rahmani. Taghi Rahmani says the authorities are trying to silence dissenting voices "And it's the activists who are paying the price." Mr Rahmani is married to Narges Mohammadi, and like his wife a veteran of the Iranian prison system. He has spent 14 years in jail for his political activities. Ms Mohammadi is not the only campaigner to make the headlines. In recent weeks, there has been outcry on Iranian opposition social-media sites over the judiciary's treatment of a number of well-known activists. Ahmad Hashemi is a respected former government official in his 60s who was jailed for supporting the opposition protests in 2009. In early May, he was allowed out of prison to visit his terminally ill wife only to discover that she had already died and he was in fact going to her funeral. At the same time Majid Tavakoli, a charismatic student activist, was also given leave towards the end of a 4-year prison sentence. But after just 3 days at home with his mother, he was suddenly recalled to serve out the remaining 2 weeks of his sentence. As Iran prepares to hold a general election in February 2016, the stand-off between moderates and hardliners is expected to intensify, and there are fears that this will lead to a further crackdown on opposition activists, journalists and campaigners. Taghi Rahmani told the BBC his wife's detention was a warning shot. "By arresting her, they are trying to send a signal to others to stay quiet," he said. Narges MohammadiNarges Mohammadi had been released on the grounds of ill health With international talks over Iran's nuclear programme now approaching a crucial June deadline, President Rouhani is focusing all his efforts on reaching a final agreement. To clinch a deal, he needs the support of the country's supreme leader. And observers say this means that right now he has neither the time nor the will to address human rights reform or the death penalty. Mr Rahmani says whatever happens, he and his wife are not planning to give up their political activities. But it is clear they and their family are paying a heavy price. Mr Rahmani now lives in self-imposed exile in France and has only seen his children once in the past 3 years. With his wife back in jail, Kiana and Ali are now living with their grandmother. "The one thing I really worry about," he told the BBC. "Is that one day, my kids might question our decision to take a stand." (source: BBC news) *********** Iran Rejects UN Human Rights Report on Executions Iran's Foreign Ministry rejected as "downright lie" a recent report prepared by the UN special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Iran, Ahmed Shaheed, and Christof Heyns, the UN rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions. The report on the alleged unreported executions in Iran or the execution of political prisoners is a downright lie, Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Marziyeh Afkham said on Sunday, stressing that such untrue claims run counter to the professional responsibilities of Shaheed and Heyns. Her comments came after the two UN staffers in a May 8 report condemned what they called a sharp increase in executions in recent weeks in Iran, alleging that many executions have gone unreported by official sources, and the names of prisoners have not been published. Maldivian Shaheed and South African Heyns have also alleged that 98 prisoners "are reported to have been executed" in Iran between April 9 and 26, including at least 6 political prisoners and 7 women. In reaction, Afkham underscored that the allegation of a rise in the death penalty and "reliance on the estimated figures without any source or sources that are not authentic" nullify such a report. "It's a great pity that the trend of the (UN) special rapporteur's (Shaheed's) activities suggest that he does not seek credible evidence, and despite the reports and documents issued by Iran, such claims are continuously repeated with quite political purposes," she noted. The spokeswoman explained that Iran's law hands out capital punishment only for "the most serious crimes, including narcotics trafficking". "The Islamic republic of Iran calls on the special rapporteur not to include traffickers, murderers and those who have committed terrorist crimes in the list of the political prisoners," she pointed out. (source: Tasnim News) NORTHERN IRELAND: Couple incarcerated on death row while wrongly accused of murder set to share their experiences in Belfast ---- The pair attribute yoga and meditation practices developed in prison for much of their strength and their ultimate survival Peter Pringle and Sunny Jacobs - who both faced the death penalty after being convicted of murders they didn't commit - are coming to Belfast. Before they met, Sunny and Peter faced the death penalty for separate crimes. In 1976, Sunny was placed on death row in Florida for the murder of 2 police officers. 4 years later, in Dublin, Peter was sentenced to death for the murder of 2 officers in the Republic. Sunny served 17 years and Peter 15 years behind bars. But were victims of wrongful convictions and after lengthy battles for justice were exonerated. They met in 1998 when Sunny travelled to Ireland to speak at an Amnesty International event. Peter was one of the last people in Ireland to be sentenced to death in 1980. Capital punishment was only abolished in 1990. 2 weeks before he was due to be killed, Peter was told he would instead spend 40 years behind bars. He began to study law and his case was reopened in 1992. He was subsequently cleared. The couple attribute yoga and meditation practices developed in prison for much of their strength and ultimate survival. It took the confession of another, 15 years after her conviction, for Sunny's long-maintained innocence to be realised. During her incarceration awaiting execution, Sunny was placed for 5 years in solitary confinement in a cell 6ft by 9ft. Despite the years they lost in prison and everything they have been through, they are not bitter. Peter said: "Life has turned out beautifully. "Sure, it's not without its difficulties. We have no money. But we do good work. "We are at peace. And we have a great life together. We look forward, and we live in the moment." The couple will visit the Yoga Fellowship on Saturday. (source: Belfastlive.com) UNITED ARAB EMIRATES: UAE court orders revew of torture evidence in migrant worker death row case Abu Dhabi's highest court has commissioned a new panel of doctors to review the medical evidence in the case of an Indian migrant worker sentenced to death on the basis of a 'confession' extracted under torture. At a hearing in the case of Ezhur Gangadharan, sentenced to death in 2013, the Abu Dhabi Supreme Court ordered a panel of 3 new doctors to review all of the medical evidence in the case - including that of Mr Gangadharan's torture. Gangadharan, a father of 3 who works in the UAE to support his family in Kerala, India, was arrested in 2013 in connection with the rape of a minor at the school where he worked for 32 years. The legal charity Reprieve says that upon arrest, Mr Gangadharan was repeatedly tortured by police. He was reportedly told that if he did not confess to committing the crime, the abuse would continue. The injuries Mr Gangadharan sustained were detailed in 2 medical reports submitted at trial. There was no physical or DNA evidence linking Mr Gangadharan to the crime. A number of other Indian nationals were also detained and tortured in relation to the offence. In February 2014, the Abu Dhabi Supreme Court vacated Mr Gangadharan's death sentence and ordered the Court of Appeal to re-consider the evidence of his torture at the hands of police. However, when reconsidering the case, the Court ignored this evidence, as well as expert testimony on the lack of DNA evidence, relying exclusively on his coerced confession to confirm the death sentence. Indian embassy officials attended court today (11 May 2015), at which the judge set May 25th as the date for the next hearing. Maya Foa, director of Reprieve's death penalty team, said: "Mr Gangadharan was sentenced to death primarily on the basis of nothing other than a 'confession' extracted after brutal police torture, despite a large amount of evidence pointing to his innocence. All of this evidence must be fully considered, and today's hearing suggests that the court agrees. It is understandable that victim's families seek justice, especially in a case of this nature, but scapegoating a man from one of the UAE's most vulnerable groups of people is not justice of any sort." (source: ekklesia.co.uk) MALDIVES: 2 sentenced to death over crimes committed as minors The juvenile court has today sentenced 2 young men to death over a murder committed when the pair were minors, but the 2 are unlikely to face the death penalty. The 2 unnamed 19-year-olds denied charges over the stabbing and death of Hussain Waheed in Male in December 2013. They were 16 at the time. Waheed had died of heart failure due to the stab wounds to his chest. Speaking at the UN human rights council last week, legal affairs secretary at the president's office, Aishath Bisham, said "it would be legally impossible to issue the death sentence" if the accused denies murder charges at any stage of prosecution. 1 of the suspects was charged with murder while the other was charged with being an accomplice to the murder. Another 14-year-old was arrested at the time and charged with assaulting an individual on the scene. The juvenile court sentenced the pair based on testimony by 4 eyewitnesses. All 9 heirs of the victim have asked the court to implement the death penalty. In 2014, the Maldives repealed a 6-decade-old de facto moratorium on the death penalty, ostensibly to tackle a surge in fatal stabbings. Over 30 people have been killed in violent crimes in the past 7 years. Under the new regulations, individuals as young as 7 years of age can be sentenced to death if convicted of wilful murder. The juvenile court has now sentenced a total of 4 young men to death for murders committed when they were minors. 2 young men convicted of wilful murder in the death of Abdul 'Bobby' Muheeth were also sentenced to death in May 2013. The government says capital punishment can only be enforced if all 3 tiers of the judiciary find the accused to be guilty and if all heirs of the victim request the death penalty. Bisham also said the president is required to review if due process was followed before he enforces the death sentence. The last person executed in the Maldives was Hakim Didi, who was found guilty of practicing black magic in 1953. The common practice has since been for the president to commute all death sentences to life imprisonment through powers vested in him by the Clemency Act. The new regulations has revoked president's authority. Several countries at the Universal Periodic Review, including France, the United Kingdom, Ukraine, Namibia, Spain, Australia and Montenegro expressed concern over Maldives' decision to end the unofficial moratorium on the death penalty. (source: minivannews.com) From rhalperi at smu.edu Tue May 12 17:31:37 2015 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Tue, 12 May 2015 17:31:37 -0500 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----PENN., DEL., OHIO, USA Message-ID: May 12 PENNSYLVANIA: Man guilty of 1st-degree murder in Baldwin woman;s death A jury took just 75 minutes to convict a Pennsylvania man of 1st-degree murder in the stabbing death of his estranged girlfriend more than 3 years ago. Now the Washington County jury will hear additional evidence and arguments before deciding whether 26-year-old Jordan Clemons, of Pittsburgh, deserves the death penalty or life in prison. "The court is entering the penalty phase. They'll look at aggravating and mitigating circumstances, and the jury will look at that," said Washington County District Attorney Gene Vittone. The defense argued Clemons was irrational and guilty only of 3rd-degree murder, a malicious killing without premeditation that carries up to 40 years in prison. But the jury agreed with prosecutors who argued that Clemons slashed 21-year-old Karissa Kunco's throat 4 times, deep enough to hit her spine, making it 1st-degree murder. Kunco's body was found in a wooded area of Mount Pleasant Township in January 2012 a day after Kunco's family reported her missing. (source: WPXI news) ********************* Family urges death penalty against Mt. Washington man convicted of killing ex-girlfriend Paul Kunco on Tuesday asked a Washington County jury if it's truly necessary for him to explain the impact his daughter's murder has had on his life. "Probably not," he said from the witness stand at the Washington County Courthouse. Jurors found Jordan Clemons, 26, of Mt. Washington, guilty Monday of killing his ex-girlfriend, Karissa Kunco, 21, in 2012. Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty. Kunco's family testified in the morning about losing their daughter, who was found naked with her throat slashed in a wooded area off Sabo Road in Mt. Pleasant. Clemons' lawyers are expected to present arguments Tuesday afternoon and Wednesday to try to persuade jurors to spare their client's life. On the witness stand, Paul Kunco shared memories of his daughter, including her love of playing basketball and helping him with his fantasy football drafts. He told jurors of the time she got mad at him for drafting Tom Brady of the New England Patriots as his quarterback and then about how happy she was when he used his league winnings to buy her new shoes. "I haven't done another fantasy football draft since I lost my daughter. I can't," he said. He said his 2 daughters grew up following a tradition of calling him after midnight on New Year's Eve. His older daughter, Kayla, would call first, followed by Karissa. "This past New Year's Eve, I sat there with a cell phone and Kayla called," he said. "Then I just sat there with a sick feeling knowing that I'm not getting another phone call. I'm not getting a text message, but I still held it hoping, saying 'maybe,'" he said. Kathy Kunco, Karissa's mother, told jurors that life has been a struggle since her daughter's death. "I am living every parent's worst nightmare," she said. "I relive the visions of what she went through every night. I wonder what were her last words. What were her last thoughts," she said through sobs. "Her body was dragged into the woods as if she were a rag doll. 3 1/2 years later, I feel as if I am living a horror story. I'm still waiting for someone to wake me up." She said she constantly checks her cell phone, hoping to receive a text message from her daughter that says, "It's OK mom, I'm coming home." Clemons' defense team is expected to call a number of witnesses to the stand to tell jurors that Clemons does not deserve the death penalty because he suffered brain injuries as a high school football player, was abused as a child and has dealt with drug and alcohol addiction. "We cannot change anything that has happened, and we cannot detract from the family's loss," Assistant Public Defender Charles Carpinelli told jurors. "But you have to remember that the death penalty is something we reserve for the worst of the worst." (source: triblive.com) DELAWARE: Tight vote expected in death penalty repeal hearing A 2-year long effort to end Delaware's death penalty could come down to 1 vote. The legislation heads before a key House committee Wednesday where lawmakers failed to release a similar measure 2 years ago. Several legislators on the committee, as well as activists, say they expect a tight vote on the measure this time. "I don't think much has changed since we heard the bill last time around and I think it is likely going to be met with the same result," said Rep. Trey Paradee, D-Dover, who sits on the committee and is opposed to repealing the death penalty. But supporters of the repeal effort, buoyed by Gov. Jack Markell's public support for the legislation last week, say they're hopeful that this is the year the bill will get out of the House Judiciary Committee, but know that they need 1 person on the 11-member committee to reconsider their position. "Now is the time for Delaware to be on the right side of history," said Kristin Froehlich, president of Delaware Citizens Opposed to the Death Penalty. "We can be at the tail end and wait for other states to lead the way, or we can be a leader in this fight." The legislation faces an uphill battle in committee, where the chair, Rep. John "Larry" Mitchell, D-Elsmere, is a former law enforcement officer opposed to the measure. "I have always been for not repealing the death sentence," Mitchell said. "It is a tool, something that has been in place and not had issues in Delaware in the past." Another member of the committee Rep. Steve Smyk, R-Milton, is a retired Delaware state trooper. There are several other Republicans on the committee, including Rep. Jeff Spiegelman, R-Clayton, who were opposed to the matter in 2013. Spiegelman said he's opposed to repealing the death penalty now, more than ever. The vote will be a very tight one, he added. "I'm a (new) father," he said. "There is a sense that wasn't there 2 years ago. What if something terrible happened to my son? What would I consider just at that point?" But the measure does have allies in a bloc of several Wilmington and New Castle lawmakers. Rep. Gerald Brady, D-Wilmington West, said Tuesday that he's confident the bill will make it through the committee and on the House floor. But it will be close, he added. "The reason that it is going to be such a close vote is because of geographics and professions," he said. The debate over the death penalty has been a polarizing, divisive and emotional one. Supporters say the practice is outdated, fraught with error and applied arbitrarily and disproportionately. It???s an expensive measure that doesn't make residents any safer, they say. Recent cases in Delaware and across the nation have shown that there are inadequacies in the justice system that present a real risk that innocent people are put to death, they add. Opponents to repealing the death penalty say capital punishment acts as a deterrent to violent crime and is a tool prosecutors can use for the most heinous of perpetrators. They argue that many of the statistics cited by supporters have no real grounding in Delaware and that the vast majority of people living in the state oppose the death penalty. Fred Calhoun, president of the Delaware Fraternal Order of Police, said the system is not broken in Delaware. Repealing the death penalty will not reduce crime, or save money, he added. It will only stand to put correctional officers in jeopardy, he said. "If you have life in prison, what else do you have to lose," he said. "It puts all of the corrections officers in danger." Delaware has 15 inmates currently on death row. The legislation exempts them from any repeal. The last time Delaware executed someone was in April 2012 when 28-year-old Shannon Johnson was killed by lethal injection, Johnson was convicted in the 2006 shooting death of Cameron Hamlin, 26, an aspiring musician. The death penalty hearing begins at 11 a.m. Wednesday morning. (source: The News Journal) OHIO: UC's Ohio Innocence Project and Exonerees Honored at Award Ceremony by Death Penalty Advocacy Group----Ohio Innocence Project Director Mark Godsey, OIP attorney Brian Howe and several exonerees received a "Special Recognition" award from the Death Penalty Focus advocacy group on May 7 in Beverly Hills, Calif. The University of Cincinnati College of Law's professor Mark Godsey, Ohio Innocence Project (OIP) attorney Brian Howe and three exonerees were recognized with the Rose Elizabeth Bird Commitment to Justice Award at the 24th annual Death Penalty Focus Awards dinner, held in Beverly Hills, Calif. Death Penalty Focus, founded in 1988, is an organization committed to the abolition of the death penalty through public education, grassroots organizing and political advocacy, media outreach, and domestic and international coalition building. The award recognizes individuals whose actions and stories bring to light the flaws in the US judicial system. Wrote Mike Farrell, the organization's president, in an email about the award, "Your efforts which resulted in the exoneration of these men for a crime they did not commit are an incredible accomplishment. It is cases like these which further illustrate the importance of our work to end the death penalty." Farrell, an actor and activist, is well-known for his role as Captain B.J. Hunnicutt from the hit TV show "M.A.S.H." Event attendees included: Ed Asner, known for his Emmy Award-winning role as Lou Grant during the '70s and early '80s on "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" and spin-off "Lou Grant" and as Ed Wuncler on "The Boondocks," among many other film and TV roles; actress Amy Brenneman, known for her role in the TV series "Judging Amy," Violet Turner in "Private Practice" and Laurie Garvey in HBO's "The Leftovers"; Larry Flynt Jr., publisher and president of Larry Flynt Publications; and many others. OIP Award Recipients Attorneys Terry Gilbert, Mark Godsey, Brian Howe; Exonerees Wiley Bridgeman, Ricky Jackson, Kwame Ajamu; Attorney David Mills Godsey and Howe were recognized for their representation of Ricky Jackson. The OIP's investigation also ultimately freed Jackson's co-defendants, Wiley Bridgeman and Kwame (Bridgeman) Ajamu, who - along with Jackson - were honored for their courage and commitment. The men together served over 100 years in prison for a crime they did not commit; many of those years were spent on death row. Jackson has the tragic distinction of setting the record for the longest-serving person to be exonerated in U.S. history. They were exonerated in November 2014 after a key prosecution witness, Eddie Vernon, recanted his story that he saw the men shoot and kill Cleveland businessman Harold Franks in 1975. In addition to the OIP team and exonerees, several other individuals and organizations were recognized for their work at the event. Awardees included Dale Baich, an assistant federal public defender, who defended Joseph Wood, a man whose botched 2-hour execution in Arizona last year was deemed by many to violate the Eighth Amendment; Rabbi Leonard Beerman, a founder of the DPF and lifelong opponent of capital punishment; and the program "Death Row Stories," an 8-part CNN series exploring cases that pose hard questions about capital punishment and the justice system. About the Lois and Richard Rosenthal Institute for Justice/Ohio Innocence Project Harnessing the energy and intellect of law students as its driving force, the OIP seeks to identify and assist inmates in Ohio prisons who are actually innocent of the crimes they were convicted of committing. Innocence Projects across the country have freed more than hundreds of wrongfully convicted inmates to date. The Ohio Innocence Project to date has helped 23 individuals obtain their long-sought freedom. Read more about Ricky Jackson's story: http://www.law.uc.edu/oip/ricky-jackson Learn more about the Ohio Innocence Project: http://www.law.uc.edu/oip (source: uc.edu) USA: Capital punishment's loyal officer It was a zinger worthy of a Presidential debate (and almost certainly just as planned). Justice Samuel Alito, confronted Federal Public Defender Robin Conrad in the midst of her oral argument on April 29 in Glossip v. Gross, a case challenging Oklahoma's lethal injection execution procedure. Yes. I mean, let's be honest about what's going on here. Executions could be carried out painlessly. There are many jurisdictions - there are jurisdictions in this country, there are jurisdictions abroad that allow assisted suicide, and I assume that those are carried out with little, if any, pain. Oklahoma and other States could carry out executions painlessly. Now, this Court has held that the death penalty is constitutional. It's controversial as a constitutional matter. It certainly is controversial as a policy matter. Those who oppose the death penalty are free to try to persuade legislatures to abolish the death penalty. Some of those efforts have been successful. They're free to ask this Court to overrule the death penalty. But until that occurs, is it appropriate for the judiciary to countenance what amounts to a guerilla war against the death penalty which consists of efforts to make it impossible for the States to obtain drugs that could be used to carry out capital punishment with little, if any, pain? The diatribe won the lion's share of media attention on the case and much of it seemingly approving. The stunning nature of his attack on our adversary system has gone little remarked. Indeed Justice Alito seemed to be refreshingly candid (Chris Christie style): "let's be honest about what's going on here." He appealed to his media audiences common sense that executions could be carried out painlessly (although four of his colleagues doubted that the last time SCOTUS reviewed lethal injections in Baze v. Rees). He acknowledged that abolitionists have been making significant political progress lately winning legislative abolitions, with "red" Nebraska only the latest state legislature to express a desire to rid the law of capital punishment. He invited direct challenge to the constitutionality of the death penalty: an invitation that might have seemed totally empty a few years ago but now seems to have increasing constitutional force (see Jones v. Chappell finding the California death penalty unconstitutional on grounds of being arbitrary and capricious). But behind this this seemingly candid and refreshing acknowledgment was a remarkable attack upon a lawyer doing exactly what lawyers are supposed to do: zealously advocating for her clients. Justice Alito (echoed by Justice Scalia) cast Federal Public Defender Conrad and her colleagues as duplicitous, pleading the terrible risk of pain facing their clients while working behind the backs of the courts and states to deny states access to chemicals that could painlessly cause death and thus subverting the honorable workings of justice. Absolutely no evidence is presented or even suggested for this conspiracy. In fact, it is a mirror image of reality. The problems American states are confronting in finding drugs to make lethal injections look kind and gentle lie in a growing global movement against capital punishment, in which America is increasingly seen as part of an anti human rights "axis" along with Iran, China, and Saudi Arabia. Federal public defenders (and indeed many other Americans) may well sympathize with this global movement but they are hardly relevant to that movement. As Justice Alito must surely know, the European Union - our major trading partner and political military ally and the site of many of the world's leading pharmaceutical producers - are legally bound to oppose the death penalty where ever it exists. Federal public defenders are even more irrelevant to the completely understandable fact that many businesses will need no additional reason other than publicity to choose to disassociate their products from the deliberate killing of human beings. The real guerilla war is being waged by death states that continue to pursue executions even as crime remains at historic lows and public opinion turns against this archaic ritual. Many of these states are making a farce of the Court's own decades-long effort to forge a more legal and more humane death penalty - by using all means, legal or otherwise, to acquire execution drugs - and obstructing prisoners and their advocates from discovering even the most basic scientific facts about how the state proposes to take their lives. Meanwhile the death penalty majority on the Supreme Court has fought its own battle to prevent continued judicial oversight of state executions. Indeed, the first named petitioner in the case in which Justice Alito delivered his appeal for honesty was executed earlier this year even as the issue he raised was scheduled for Supreme Court argument. Justice Alito is correct that the times are changing rapidly for the death penalty. In retrospect, the rejuvenation of capital punishment in the 1970s after a couple of decades of declining public support may have had more to do with the high violent crime rates and toxic racial politics of that era - conditions that have changed in many respects - than any core American commitment to capital punishment. Serious challenges to the constitutionality of the death penalty may soon find themselves before the SCOTUS. One can only hope that Justice Alito will bring a less closed mind to those arguments than he did to the ones Federal Defender Robin Konrad (and Justice Sotomayor) presented him in Glossip. It is our common law tradition that judges are to consider the fate of litigants one at a time, and answer the compelling legal questions that their treatment poses. Yet in his exchanges with Ms. Konrad, Justice Alito showed an injudicious interest in capital punishment as an institution. In his willingness to defend the death penalty (and his even odder insistence that if it is to end, it must receive the presumably more honorable dispatch of a direct constitutional assault) Justice Alito seems to be more committed to that institution than to our Constitution. Justice Alito's passion for the death penalty recalled for me the curious character of the "Officer" who conducts a "Traveler" to witness the execution of a condemned prisoner in Franz Kafka's haunting story The Penal Colony. The story, set in a little described "penal colony," involves an execution ritual in which the condemned are placed into a complex machine known as the "harrow" that effectively kills them by slowly inscribing the name of their crime into their body with metal needles as they are rotated within the harrow. The harrow requires constant tinkering, which the Officer enthusiastically supplies. The Officer acknowledges to the increasingly uneasy Traveller that the colony's commitment to this strange ritual is in fact waning fast, but he remains so loyal to it that he abandons all restraint - and ultimately even self preservation - in attempting to obtain for it at least one last victim. Like the penal colony's harrow, our execution machinery needs constant tinkering, both technical and legal. Some Justices, Harry Blackmun and John Paul Stevens, once supporters of the death penalty, eventually renounced "tinkering with the machinery of death" and denounced the penalty as irreconcilable with commitment to the rule of law. More Justices soon must make clear that their decades long servitude to this institution must come to an end. But perhaps the last will be Justice Alito, who - like Kafka's Officer - seems increasingly willing to depart from his role in order defend the machinery of death against law itself. (source: Jonathan Simon, professor of law, Univ. Calif., Berkeley----The Berkeley Blog) ******************* Problems with FBI hair analysis latest example of the perils of old-fashioned forensic science Kirk Odom was convicted of a 1981 rape and robbery after a woman identified him as her attacker and an FBI specialist testified that hair on her nightgown was consistent with hair on Odom's head. But DNA testing some 30 years later affirmed what Odom long had maintained: The hair wasn't his; neither was the semen left on a pillowcase and robe. A felony conviction that imprisoned him for decades was overturned in 2012 by a judge who declared it a "grave miscarriage of justice." "I was hoping that I was going to go home that day," Odom, recalling his trial in Washington, D.C., said in an interview. Instead, "they sentenced me to 20 to 66 years in prison." His experience is but one example of flawed forensic science from the pre-DNA era, a simmering problem that now appears far more widespread than initially thought. The Innocence Project, which works to exonerate the wrongly accused, has identified 74 overturned convictions in which faulty hair evidence was a factor. Now, a new disclosure by the FBI that experts gave erroneous testimony on hair analysis in more than 250 trials before 2000 suggests that number could rise dramatically. Defense lawyers say the latest revelations - on top of established concerns about bite mark identification and arson science - confirm fears about the shortcomings of old-fashioned forensic techniques and could affect thousands of cases. Advancing technologies have put such techniques under more scrutiny, including from judges, and highlighted the limits of once-established practices. "There are forces converging at the moment that are finally bringing some recognition to the failings of many venerable techniques," said Chris Fabricant, director of strategic litigation at the Innocence Project. A 2013 Associated Press investigation concluded that at least 24 men convicted or charged with murder or rape based on bite mark evidence - the practice of matching teeth to a flesh wound - were exonerated since 2000. Some high-profile criminal cases involving arson science have come under renewed scrutiny amid debunked fire investigations. Last year, a Pennsylvania judge threw out the conviction of a Korean immigrant who had spent 24 years in prison for his daughter's death. When subjective speculation is injected into a trial under the guise of science, "then a real perversion of justice is what happens," Fabricant said. Microscopic hair analysis, which involves comparing hair specimens through a microscope, has for decades been an established FBI practice and passed along at seminars to hundreds of state-level examiners. But critics say the technique lacks objective standards, with limitations that led experts to too often overstate the likelihood of a match with a particular hair found at a particular scene. Though this kind of analysis can be used to exclude a person as a potential source of a hair sample, critics say there's no way to conclusively know how common or rare the specimen is because no national database of hair specimens exists. A 2009 report from the National Academy of Sciences described as "highly unreliable" testimony purporting to identify a particular defendant through hair analysis. The FBI has acknowledged its scientific limitations and uses the practice now in conjunction with more scientifically reliable DNA testing. The Justice Department in 2012 embarked on a review of more than 2,000 criminal cases following high-profile exonerations in which microscopic hair analysis was used. The government provided an astonishing update last month when it revealed that of the 268 trials reviewed as of mid-March, investigators found erroneous statements from FBI experts in nearly all of the cases - including in death-penalty prosecutions. The review is limited to cases dating before 2000 in which FBI examiners provided evidence. But the number of affected cases would almost certainly be much higher if the review took into account cases involving FBI-trained state examiners. Still, no one knows how many defendants have been wrongly convicted because the existence of flawed testimony - often just 1 element of a prosecution - does not establish innocence. "What it does mean is that those cases need to be looked at very closely to see what role hair played in the case," said Norman Reimer, executive director of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers. Advocates say they are working to ensure that individuals potentially affected have opportunities to challenge their convictions. They've also encouraged states to do their own audits because most of the prosecutions were local cases. The Justice Department has said it will waive procedural objections, including statute-of-limitations claims, in federal cases. Odom, 52, always maintained his innocence, saying he did not know the woman and was not at her apartment when the assault occurred. But the hair evidence and eyewitness identification proved persuasive, and Odom spent more than 20 years in prison before being released on parole in 2003. The big break came when the public defender's office in Washington reopened Odom's case following the earlier exoneration of another local man because of faulty hair evidence. DNA testing on evidence pulled from storage showed that the hair on the woman's garment could not have come from Odom. The conviction was thrown out - a relief for a man who had been a registered sex offender and whose travel had been hampered. When the call came that he'd been cleared, Odom was on a nighttime plumbing job, "and I just yelled out in happiness. It was a very joyful moment." (source: Star tribune) ******************* Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokar Tsarnaev's youngest victim at centre of death penalty debate----8-year-old victim's father described gut-wrenching decision to leave him at the scene U.S. prosecutors on Tuesday rejected a claim by the Boston Marathon bomber's lawyers that they had not proven that the death of the attack's youngest victim took a heavy enough toll on his family to influence a jury to sentence bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev to death. The prosecution's statement, in a filing in U.S. District Court in Boston, comes a day before the two sides are to give their closing arguments. After those arguments, the same jury that found the 21-year-old ethnic Chechen guilty of killing three people in the April 15, 2013, attack begin deliberations on whether to sentence to Tsarnaev to death by lethal injection or to life in prison without possibility of release. On Monday, defense attorneys had argued that prosecutors had not shown evidence to back up the claim that the death of 8-year-old Martin Richard was one of the "aggravating factors" that the jury could take into account in making its decision on Tsarnaev's fate. Boston Marathon Bombing Dzhokhar Tsarnaev is said to have expressed genuine sorrow for the victims of the Boston Marathon bombing, according to death penalty opponent Sister Helen Prejean. His lawyers have rested their case to save him from execution. Richard's father, William, during the 1st phase of the trial described being thrown through the air by the twin pressure cooker bombs, seeing his 3 children's injuries and making the gut-wrenching decision to leave badly wounded Martin at the scene with his wife, who was also injured, so that he could save the life of his youngest daughter, Jane. None of the Martin family was called to testify in the trial's sentencing phase after they asked federal prosecutors in a statement published on the front page of the Boston Globe newspaper to drop their quest for the death penalty. Martin family did not testify Instead they heard from a doctor who described the enormous injuries Martin Richard had sustained. "The injuries to Martin covered his entire body and were described as extraordinarily painful," prosecutors wrote in a court filing on Tuesday. "This evidence comports with the type of "victim impact" evidence which is clearly admissible." BOSTON-BOMBINGS-TRIAL In making their sentencing decision, the jury is expected to weigh the "aggravating" factors of Tsarnaev's crime, including the young age of some of his victims and the large number of people injured, against "mitigating" factors put forth by the defense, which contends Tsarnaev played a secondary role in an attack planned and driven by his 26-year-old brother, Tamerlan. Tamerlan died 4 days after the bombing following a gunfight with police that ended when Dzohkhar ran him over with a stolen car. (source: CNC news) From rhalperi at smu.edu Tue May 12 17:32:24 2015 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Tue, 12 May 2015 17:32:24 -0500 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide Message-ID: May 12 PAKISTAN----execution Saulat Mirza hanged till death at Machh Jail High-profile death row prisoner, Saulat Mirza has been hanged till death at Machh Jail in Bolan distsrict of Balochistan at 4:30am in Tuesday's wee hours. An hour before the hanging, Deputy Superintendent jail, judicial magistrate Hidayatullah and medical officer reached the jail. Mirza's medical checkup was completed. Afterwards, he was shifted to gallows. As soon as the clock clicked 4:30am, the lever was pulled. He was left hanging till 15 minutes. Doctor Sajjad Haider examined the body and confirmed his death. Mirza's 3 nephews received the body. His body has been moved to CMH Quetta. From Quetta, the body will be airlifted to Karachi at 2pm today. Coffin, shroud and coffin were earlier transported to the jail, according to Edhi spokesman in Quetta. The spokesman said the body will be delivered wherever Mirza's family members want. Judge Rashid Mahmood was appointed a magistrate to oversee his hanging. According to his brother, Farhat Ali, Mirza's body will be brought to his residence in Maymar where he will be given last bath. Later on, the funeral prayer for his eternal death will be offered after Maghrib prayer. He will be laid to rest in Muhammed Shah Cemetery, Karachi, Anda Morr, according to his brother. According to jail authorities, 4 brothers and 2 sisters of Saulat Mirza met him yesterday for the last time in the prison. It should be mentioned here that Mirza was arrested on December 10, 1998, from the Karachi Airport on his return from Bangkok. A local anti-terrorism court awarded him death penalty in May 1999 for a triple homicide, as he was found guilty for killing Managing Director of Karachi Electric Supply Corporation - now K-Electric-- Shahid Hamid, his driver Ashraf Brohi, and security guard Khan Akbar in a July 5, 1997 shooting. Mirza's Wife Files Clemency Appeals But Turned Down Sindh High Court (SHC) on Friday rejected an application of Mirza's wife seeking deferment of her husband's execution. The court upheld Supreme Court's past decision on Mirza's hanging. Later, Saulat Mirza's wife Nighat Mirza appealed yesterday to President Mamnoon Hussain to suspend the execution of her husband in order to launch an inquiry into his disclosures about criminals. Speaking to SAMAA, Nighat demanded the government to release the report of joint investigation team that interrogated Mirza in jail. "Government should re-open Shahid Hamid murder case for the sake of peace in Karachi," she said. Talking to SAMAA's current affair program 'Awaz', she demanded Shahid Hamid case be re-opened, asserting all evidences will be wasted in the event of his hanging. Mirza Seeks To Make More Disclosures Mirza reportedly told his family that he was willing to expose more people if his hanging was delayed. "I have decided to take this step against terrorism," he was quoted as saying. Mirza said that he did not want to be go to the gallows without sharing with the authorities a secret hoard of information that could prove vital in bringing about peace in Karachi. "I know a lot of things that can help the men of affairs restore calm in the metropolis. I am not asking them to undo my punishment, but rather give me some time to atone my sins" said he. Begging pardon for his heinous crimes in his foremost video statement, Mirza, who had tears in his eyes, warned the party workers, sympathizers, and wannabe members, against falling in the wrong hands and the subsequent brainwashing. "Today I have become an example for all those who are in the party or deliberating to join it. Let me tell you they use the workers as tissue paper wipes and then throw them away. So open your eyes and do what is right," he said dubbing himself as other activists as expendables. Adding to his statement, a disillusioned Mirza minced no words when he sounded out he had been disowned by the party. "They always turn their back on the workers who land in the hands of law," said the erstwhile hitman. Following his video confession, Mirza made more disclosures in front of JIT at Machh Jail. Hours before his execution, his wife made strong pitch for Mirza's assertions before JIT to be made public. Saulat Mirza's Hanging Put On Hold Mirza was earlier scheduled to be hanged on March 19; however, his hanging was postponed following his shocking revelations about MQM and its leadership including Altaf Hussain and Sindh governor Dr. Ishratul Ebad in a video statement telecasted on national media hours before his execution. Following the telecast, President Mamnoon Hussain stayed his hanging apparently on his 'health woes'. Later, April 1st was fixed for sending him to gallows; however, his sentence was again put on hold for further investigations into allegations he leveled against the MQM and its leaders. In April 2014, he was transferred to Machh Jail, Balochistan. However, when he will be executed, is not yet known. Outrageous Revelations against MQM & PPP Mirza, a former political activist, claimed that Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) leader Altaf Hussain had ordered him to carry out the murders. He also leveled charges against Pakistan People's Party claiming that the MQM facilitated him along with other party activists at prisons when PPP was in power. According to Mirza, the former party leader, Syed Mustafa Kamal, was kicked out of the party in an unspeakably insulting way only because of his outspokenness. Kamal is a serving Senator in the upper house and has served as the Nazim (mayor) of Karachi from 2005 to 2010. Mirza claimed that a sharp rise in popularity could get you killed or booted out of the party. "If your following is gaining momentum in the party then the chances of your besting the topguns grow fatter, which they will never allow to happen," said the man of the moment. The dead-man-talking also accused the Governor of Sindh, Dr Ishrat-ul-Ebad of using his authority to have the criminals find a safe passage. The Governor House, in a late night statement, denied these accusations in the strongest of words. In his video statement, Mirza also dragged Pakistan People's Party (PPP) into the 'accusatory picture' by alleging that the MQM had had him facilitated when Asif Ali Zardari led political party was in power, a charge Information Minister Sharjil Memon rejected as pack of lies. (source: samaa.tv) **************** Black warrants of 3 Machh jail prisoners issued The Balochistan Home Department issued the black warrants of 3 condemned prisoners languishing in Central Jail Machh. News that the black warrants of condemned prisoners were sent to the Machh jail administration on Monday for execution. The condemned prisoners include Muhammad Musa, Ali Gul and Akhtar Muhammad. The Jail Superintendent had been asked to fix the date for execution of the condemned prisoners within 7 days. Superintendent Machh Jail Ishaq Zehri told DawnNews that Akhtar Muhammad from Killa Abdullah district would be executed on May 19, while Muhammad Musa and Ali Gul would be hanged on May 20. The mercy petitions of the prisoners were rejected by President Mamnoon Hussain previously. The condemned prisoners were convicted by anti-terrorism courts in Quetta for various murder cases. Since the lifting of the moratorium on the death penalty last year, three condemned prisoners have been executed in Machh Jail Quetta, Zehri said. On Tuesday morning at 4:30 am, former Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) worker and high profile prisoner Saulat Mirza was hanged in Machh jail. Sources in the Balochistan Prisons Department told Dawn.com that the number of condemned prisoners in the province was 90. (source: Pakistan Herald) BANGLADESH: Death for 2, life imprisonment for 1 in Faridpur murders A Dhaka Court has awarded death sentence to two and life imprisonment to one convict for murder of an ex-BIWTA official and his wife in Faridpur. The accused murdered the couple over a land dispute. On Tuesday Dhaka's Fourth Speedy Trial Tribunal Judge ABM Nizamul Haq delivered the verdict in the 2-year old case. Out of the 3 convicts, Md Nazrul Islam and Sujan Bepari have been given death penalty and the victim's nephew, Mir Md Tanvir Rahman was given life imprisonment. Tanvir has also been fined a sum of Tk 20,000, and 1 year jail term if he does not pay the fine. According to the case documents, on Oct 26, 2013 the convicts slaughtered Shamsul Haque Mir Malot, 70, and his wife Nahar Begum alias Shelly, 60, at Munshidangi village of Char Tepakhola in Faridpur. (source: bdnews24.com) INDONESIA: 'Mothers were peeled off their sons': Myrtleford lawyer on horror of Bali executions After 8 years working to save the lives of the 2 Australian men on death row for drug trafficking in Indonesia, Jakarta-born lawyer Veronica Haccou says the last afternoon on the case was the hardest. "We saw mothers being peeled off their sons, wives being peeled off their husbands, children from their parents," Ms Haccou told ABC Statewide Drive's Nicole Chvastek. "Those people who are in power who ordered the execution, they were not the ones who had to tap the mothers on the shoulder and say 'Your time is up with your child, you have to go now'. We sat there for the last 72 hours, for the time that we were given to be with the clients, watching the family and the clients saying goodbye." Ms Haccou was with Chan, 31, and Sukumaran, 34, in the final moments before they were shot dead on the prison island of Nusakambangan late last month. The Myrtleford-based lawyer first volunteered to work on the men's case in May 2007, hoping her fluency in the Indonesian language could help the Australians' fight for clemency. Over the ensuing 8 years Ms Haccou says she held out hope until the last minute, when she heard gun-fire ring out in the early hours of the morning on April 28th this year. After 10 years in prison, Ms Haccou says, the 2 men were "truly reformed". "When they were marched to where they were going to be executed, they led the singing, and as the other death row inmates' voices started to falter Andrew said, 'Sing up boys', and they sang until they were shot. "Until the very, very end they thought of other people... tried to comfort them. They were truly reformed young men. They made me proud." Ms Haccou describes the Indonesian judicial system as "extremely inconsistent" and says the reasons given for the men's executions are "illogical and nonsensical". Chan and Sukumaran's deaths have compelled Ms Haccou to fight for the abolishment of the death penalty worldwide. "Andrew and Myu have committed a serious crime, but we have ceased from committing eye-for-an-eye punishment a long time ago," Ms Haccou said. "There were different laws in different countries, death for apostasy, amputation for theft, flogging for blasphemy, stoning for adultery... so is that okay? Should we sit back and say that's their law?" Indonesian President Joko Widodo has stood by his decision to execute convicted drug smugglers, declaring the death penalty a "positive" for Indonesian law. "Every day 50 young Indonesians die, in 1 year that is 18,000 dead," Mr Widodo told reporters on Saturday, regarding the toll of drugs in Indonesia. "I'm sure other countries will understand this." Ms Haccou says executing Chan and Sukumaran will stop others trafficking drugs in Indonesia. "If [President Joko Widodo's] intention was to show people that the drug dealers he executed were worthless human beings then he has failed miserably, because what the boys did in the past 10 years, being reformed young men and what they did all the way to the end, until they were shot, was something to be proud of." (source: ABC News) *************** Executions signal a return to Sukarno-style foreign policy in Indonesia On 29 April Indonesia executed seven foreigners and one Indonesian for drug offences. The refusal of President Joko Widodo (Jokowi) to offer clemency despite pleas from foreign leaders has been analysed in a number of ways. Most have interpreted Jokowi's decision as that of a contested head of state in a fragile democracy heeding public opinion, which seems to overwhelmingly (86 % in a recent poll) support the death penalty for drug trafficking. But was his decision instead a deliberate act of public diplomacy, designed to send signals to those missing the Sukarno era? Some background is important. Jokowi is the first Indonesian president not to be drawn from either the civil and military elite or the oligarchies that came to the fore during Suharto's New Order from 1967 to 1998. As the former mayor of Solo and governor of Jakarta, Jokowi epitomises a new generation of politicians who are a product of decentralisation and have strong local roots. During the presidential election campaign, Jokowi's opponent Prabowo Subianto, a cashiered former general, attacked Jokowi as being merely 'a little boy from the kampongs', not the strong martial leader that Indonesia ostensibly needs. Jokowi's intransigence on the executions issue has been interpreted as an effort to belie this accusation. As Jokowi lacks a majority in the Indonesian parliament, he has had to govern by developing ad hoc coalitions to effectively advance his reform agenda. Yet Jokowi's actions cannot be understood without reference to the wider context of Indonesia's foreign relations. Jokowi's foreign policy represents a return to the guided democracy period of Indonesia's founding president, Sukarno. Certainly the 'boy from the kampongs' has a very different persona from the aristocratic Sukarno, yet both their direct charismatic appeal to the masses and their political philosophies have common features. Both view the international stage as being, above all, a means of advancing their domestic agenda. Former president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono issued a moratorium on the use of the death penalty. This showed he understood that demonstrating the emerging power of the 'world's largest Muslim country and 3rd largest democracy' required being sensitive to Western norms. Jokowi, like Sukarno, would appear to have no such qualms. Jokowi's speech on 22 April 2015 at the 60th anniversary celebrations for the Asia-Africa (Bandung) conference demonstrated this philosophical lineage with Sukarno. While there was not the same lofty anti-colonial rhetoric, the thrust of the speech was the same - that is, the need to break away from the Western economic order. Is this mere rhetoric? Jokowi politically relies on the Indonesian Democratic Party, which is chaired by Sukarno's daughter Megawati Sukarnoputri. 2 weeks earlier, on 9 April, Megawati lectured Jokowi at her party's congress in Bali on the need to adhere to its economically nationalist party platform. But advancing an economically nationalist agenda has its limits: it is in contradiction with Indonesia's need for foreign investment. Given such constraints, Jokowi has needed to prove his nationalist credentials in other areas, including by resisting foreign pressure on the application of the death penalty. On the international stage so far Jokowi, like Sukarno for most of his presidency, is essentially his own foreign minister. Compared to her predecessors, Indonesia's current foreign minister, Retno Marsudi, seems to be an intellectual lightweight. It would appear that Megawati pushed for her appointment for symbolic reasons - she is Indonesia's 1st female foreign minister. However, to be fair, this novice foreign minister has not yet been given an opportunity to shine on the international scene. This is in part the case because the foreign policy priorities given to Retno Marsudi also reflect a return to the Sukarno legacy. The 1st of these is the protection of Indonesia's maritime sovereignty, which is frequently infringed upon by the current Australian government's 'turn the boats back' policy. This preoccupation with maritime sovereignty is linked to the Indonesian sense of homeland tanah-air (the land and the sea) and was articulated during the Sukarno period in the principle of Wawasan Nusantara. Jokowi's flamboyant Minister of Maritime and Fishery Affairs, Susi Pudjiastuti, is the most visible exponent of Indonesia's maritime security. True to Sukarno's praxis - and like the macabre executions of foreign drug traffickers - the protection of Indonesia's sovereignty has been expressed in the most dramatic way to garner media coverage: the blowing up of illegal fishing vessels. The 2nd foreign policy priority given to Retno Marsudi - the much-needed defence of Indonesian workers overseas - appears to have had one happy consequence for the execution case. Partly as a result of a massive social media campaign in Indonesia itself, Mary Jane Veloso, a poor, clearly manipulated Filipino maid who was due to be executed with the 7 other foreigners, was granted a reprieve. It appears that Jokowi's support base felt empathy with someone who (to use Jokowi's campaign slogan) was, in a sense, '1 of them'. And as this was consistent with his Sukarnoist beliefs, political practice and domestic priorities, Indonesia's president took note. (source: David Camroux is Associate Professor and Senior Researcher in the Centre for International Studies at Sciences Po in Paris and co-editor of the Journal of Current Southeast Asian Affairs----East Asia Forum) From rhalperi at smu.edu Tue May 12 21:52:37 2015 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Tue, 12 May 2015 21:52:37 -0500 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, N.C., FLA. Message-ID: May 12 TEXAS----execution Houston killer executed Derrick Dewayne Charles, condemned for the 2002 Houston murders of his teenage girlfriend, her mother and her grandfather, was executed in the state death house Tuesday after the U.S. Supreme Court declined to review whether the killer wrongly had been refused help in developing an incompetency claim. Charles, 32, was the 7th Texas killer to be put to death this year. The sentence was carried out with a single lethal injection of pentobarbital. In petitions to the Supreme Court, Charles' laywers argued that lower courts had erred in denying him funds for a comprehensive mental health evaluation. An earlier record of mental health difficulties, they contended, warranted further exploration. The lawyers hoped to save their client's life through the high court's 1986 Ford vs. Wainwright decision, which held a killer may be spared execution if his "mental illness prevents him from comprehending the reasons for the penalty or its implications." Charles was convicted in the July 2002 murders of Myiesha Bennett, 15, her mother, Brenda Bennett, 44, and her grandfather, Obie Bennett, 77. According to court documents, Charles was angry with Brenda Bennett for telling police he was having sex with her underage daughter. On the day of the killing, Charles, high from smoking marijuana adulterated with embalming fluid, surreptitiously came to the Bennett's northeast Houston home, and again had sex with the teen. When Myiesha and her mother later left to run an errand, Charles lingered in the teen's bedroom, until he was discovered by the girl's grandfather. Charles, who later pleaded guilty to the capital murder charge, beat the old man with athletic trophies and other items before strangling him with a lamp cord. When Myiesha and her mother returned hours later, Charles bound them. He then beat Myiesha with stereo speakers, dropped a television set on her head and strangled her. Charles placed Brenda Bennett in a water-filled bathtub, into which he tossed a plugged-in television set. When electrocution failed to result, Charles dragged the woman from the bathroom, then sexually assaulted and strangled her. Prior to the killings, Charles had been assessed a 3-year prison sentence for burglary of a habitation. He had been paroled 7 months before the murders. Charles was pronounced dead at about 6:30 p.m. Charles becomes the 7th condemned inmate to be put to death this year in Texas and the 525th overall since the state resumed capital punishment on December 7, 1982. Charles becomes the 7th condemned inmate to be put to death in Texas since Greg Abbott became governor in January of this year. Charles also becomes the 14th condemned inmate to be put to death this year in the USA and the 1408th overall since the nation resumed executions on January 17, 1977. There were 20 executions in the USA last year by this date. (sources: Houston Chronicle & Rick Halperin) ****************** Houston man convicted of killing 3 put to death A Texas inmate was executed Tuesday for the killings of his 15-year-old girlfriend, her mother and her grandfather nearly 13 years ago in Houston. Derrick Dewayne Charles, 32, became the 7th prisoner put to death this year in the nation's most active capital punishment state. He was pronounced dead at 6:36 p.m. CDT, 25 minutes after being given the execution drug. Asked by the warden if he wanted to make a final statement, Charles replied: "Nah. I'm ready to go home." As the pentobarbital took effect, he took 2 breaths, yawned and then appeared to go to sleep. 6 relatives of Charles' victims witnessed the execution, but he made no eye contact with them. The lethal injection was carried out after the U.S. Supreme Court rejected arguments from Charles' attorneys that he was mentally incompetent for execution and that they needed time and court-approved money for experts and investigators to pursue that claim. Another appeal argued Charles' trial court also acted improperly by refusing to appoint psychiatric experts and investigators. "We are disappointed with the Court's response," Paul Mansur, Charles' lead attorney, said in a statement. "Derrick Charles has a lifelong history of severe mental illness. While the Court has ruled that it is unconstitutional to execute the insane - those people without a rational understanding of why they are being executed - it is a hollow promise without resources and evaluation. "Derrick Charles and his deteriorating mental condition deserved that." State lawyers opposing Charles' appeals said his attorneys had made similar arguments about his competency before and that the courts rejected those. Charles pleaded guilty to capital murder charges in 2003 for the slayings of Myiesha Bennett, her mother, Brenda Bennett, 44, and her grandfather, Obie Bennett, 77. Their bodies were discovered at their Houston home in July 2002. Charles, then 19, was arrested the next day at a motel where police also found Brenda Bennett's car. Relatives said she was not pleased with Charles' sexual relationship with her teenage daughter. Charles had a juvenile record, was convicted as an adult of burglary, received three years in prison, served eight months and was paroled. Court records show a warrant was issued for his arrest after he met once with his parole officer, then ignored subsequent required meetings. After Charles pleaded guilty in court to the capital murder charges, a Harris County jury had to choose between a life prison term and a death sentence. They chose death after testimony showed Obie Bennett was beaten and strangled and Myiesha Bennett was choked with an extension cord, beaten with a box containing stereo speakers and hit with a TV. Evidence also showed Brenda Bennett was thrown into a bathtub filled with water and a plugged-in TV. When that failed to electrocute her, she was dragged through the house, raped and strangled. Court documents indicated Charles said he smoked marijuana soaked in embalming fluid before the killings, then hallucinated while committing them. At least 2 more Texas inmates are scheduled for lethal injection over the next several weeks. Charles' execution leaves the Texas Department of Criminal Justice with enough pentobarbital to carry out the 1st one, set for June 3. To accommodate the 2nd one scheduled for June 15, the prison agency will need to replenish its supply, a task that has become increasingly difficult as drugmakers have refused to sell their products to state corrections departments nationwide for execution use. ****************** Executions under Greg Abbott, Jan. 21, 2015-present----7 Executions in Texas: Dec. 7, 1982----present-----525 Abbott#--------scheduled execution date-----name------------Tx. # 8----------June 3--------------------Les Bower------------526 9-----------June 18-------------------Gregory Russeau------527 (sources: TDCJ & Rick Halperin) NORTH CAROLINA: NC death penalty also puts pharmacists in ethical bind The N.C. Senate will soon vote on a bill that would allow executions to go forward without a physician's supervision. The lawmakers who introduced this legislation say they believe it will help clear the way for executions to resume in North Carolina by eliminating the hurdle of finding a doctor willing to break his oath to do no harm. However, doctors are not the only medical professionals involved in the death penalty in North Carolina. Pharmacists play the critical role of supplying drugs for lethal injection and are also being asked to violate their profession's ethical code by participating in executions. Across the United States, pharmacists are increasingly being asked to play the role of executioner. Pharmaceutical companies that make drugs previously used in executions, for good reason, have decided they want to be in the business of curing, not killing, patients and have refused to sell their drugs to executioners. One drug manufacturer even has asked states to return any of its drugs purchased for executions. The result is a drug shortage that has led prison officials to experiment with new drug cocktails, some of them manufactured by compounding pharmacists. Were North Carolina to restart executions, it would almost certainly be forced to turn to similar methods of procuring drugs. That is presumably the reason legislators added a last-minute provision to their bill that, in addition to removing doctors from the execution chamber, would keep secret information about who carries out executions, what types of drugs are used and from where those drugs come. Pharmacists should not be part of such human experimentation, nor should they play a role in an intentional killing - much less one that is carried out in a secretive manner. In the past few months, both the American Pharmacists Association and the International Academy of Compounding Pharmacists have announced that supplying execution drugs constitutes a violation of pharmacists' ethics. A pharmacist who violates the rules of his own professional associations unnecessarily opens himself up to the possibility of professional discipline or an expensive lawsuit. Every pharmacist takes an oath to "consider the welfare of humanity and relief of suffering my primary concerns" and to apply "my knowledge, experience, and skills to the best of my ability to assure optimal outcomes for my patients." Whether or not you support the death penalty as a matter of public policy, providing the drugs for an execution clearly violates this oath. In 2006, I retired after 30 years as executive director of the N.C. Board of Pharmacy. In no way would helping to kill a person fit in with my life's work to protect public health and welfare. The reasons for pharmacists to sit out executions go beyond simple ethics. Lethal injection is a complicated medical procedure with the potential to go terribly wrong. The series of botched and torturous executions we have seen in states such as Oklahoma, Ohio and Arizona make that abundantly clear. If the legislature's current bill passes, North Carolina will have even fewer safeguards against botched executions than those states do. For a process in which errors have become rampant, we should be increasing scrutiny and safeguards, not eliminating them. The public has a right to know whether an execution method is torturous. As pharmacists, we rely on the public's trust that we have our patients' best interests at heart. It would embarrass and compromise our profession to participate in a process conducted in secrecy, that has the potential to cause an agonizing death and that violates our promise to relieve suffering. (source: Op-Ed; David Work lives in Wilmington----News & Observer) FLORIDA----new death sentence Wood sentenced to death for retired game warden's murder Zachary Taylor Wood was sentenced to death in a historic decision Tuesday. Fourteenth Judicial Circuit Judge Christopher Patterson announced the sentence for Wood's part in the murder of retired game warden James "Coon" Shores. While it was not the 1st death sentence to be recommended by a jury, the sentence is the 1st to be handed down by a judge in a Washington County courtroom under the county's modern judicial history. Wood delivered a statement to the court during the sentencing, both apologizing to the victim's family and stating he felt Patterson would give him the death penalty to "further his political career." "I'm convicted of something I didn't do," Wood said. "Killing me isn't going to bring Mr. Shores back." A jury recommended death for Wood in February after finding him guilty of 1st-degree murder, burglary of a structure while armed with a firearm and robbery with a firearm. Washington County sheriff's deputies found Shores, 66, shot to death on his Johnson Road property in April 2014. Deputies arrived after they received information from Alabama law enforcement that a vehicle connected to the shooting of a state trooper was registered to Shores. Testimony indicated Shores found Wood and his co-defendant, Dillon Rafsky, on his family land after they had burglarized his family's old homestead, which is located on the property. According to law enforcement, Shores told the men to leave and was then beaten, bound at his feet and hands, and shot execution-style. Prosecutors stated Shores also was doused with an accelerant in an attempt to set him on fire. In addition to the death penalty for Shores' murder, Wood is sentenced to serve 100 years each for the burglary and robbery counts. Wood offered to testify against Rafsky during his trial, which is expected to take place this fall. The sentence is subject to automatic review by the Florida Supreme Court, and Wood's family says they are preparing for an appeal. "This has been a miscarriage of justice," said Wood's sister, Heather Griffin. "Zack wasn't tried by a jury of his peers; he was tried by a jury of Mr. Shores' peers. He was not given a fair trial. "Zack is not responsible for Mr. Shore's death. He is a victim. The co-defendant beat and shot Zack" before Shores' murder. Griffin added that she believed Wood's guilty verdict was rendered in part because of his romantic relationship with Rafsky. "If this would have been a traditional relationship, Zack would have not been punished for his abuser's crime," she said. "I am truly sorry to the Shores family, but there is no peace without forgiveness in your heart." Shores' family says they are simply glad the trial and sentencing are over. "We're glad it's over with, but we're not excited about it because (Wood's family) lost a loved one, too," said James Shores' older brother, Joe Boy Shores. "We feel for their family." (source: Panama City News Herald) From rhalperi at smu.edu Tue May 12 21:54:06 2015 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Tue, 12 May 2015 21:54:06 -0500 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide Message-ID: May 12 PHILIPPINES: Death penalty should be revived There are many measures being proposed in Congress that I am not in favor of. In fact, I often feel that there are far too many laws now being enforced or waiting for their turn in Congress that are just duplicates of existing laws or rewording of laws that are in existence and just not being enforced. I feel that instead of looking for way too many new laws to pass, we should focus on implementation instead. After all, what is a law if can't be enforced or pushed? It's just a bunch of words on paper with no real meaning. However, there is a measure being proposed by Senator Tito Sotto about bringing back the death penalty that I feel merits more attention. In fact, I have to strongly agree that the death penalty should be revived if we really want to make a dent in the alarmingly high rise in crime in recent years. In the past, criminals that were found guilty beyond reasonable doubt of heinous crimes were sentenced to death by electric chair. And I feel that if this measure were once again available in our judicial system then perhaps criminals would have something to fear. I've said in columns past that I think one of the reasons that criminals commit crimes with abandon here is that they are not afraid of facing consequences. They always feel that they will get away with it. Perhaps a harder stance on crime is required in order to make real change. It may not completely eradicate crime. I'm pragmatic enough to recognize that, but we've been hungry for some real change when it comes to dealing out justice and perhaps this could be a good 1st step. Unfortunately I know that committing to capital punishment also means committing to being able to dispense justice fairly and truly. After all, when a human is asked to pay the ultimate price for his crime, we have to be sure that they are guilty 100 % beyond reasonable doubt. That's the 1 hurdle I feel the death penalty will face should implementation come to pass. Not only are criminals not afraid of the consequences of their actions in the Philippines, but they also feel that they will get off when it comes to prosecution. This is even truer if they have money. In our country we have to face the fact that money talks and sometimes even if a criminal is caught red-handed, they manage to buy their way out. If capital punishment is once again implemented, we have to be sure that this can no longer happen. When it comes to this kind of justice, it should be applicable to everyone or no one. That is the only way it will truly work. After all, look at the case of Mary Jane Veloso? After all the protesting we did to save her life, we have to be just as flexible when evidence proves that someone may not be truly guilty. The road to amending the justice system is definitely going to be very long and very tedious. Corruption must be weeded out and of course, many human rights activists and the Catholic bishops will protest the return of capital punishment, but I feel that, if paired with a just and reliable system, it will do more good than harm. After all, why side with the criminals who roam the streets and commit crimes instead of the victims who have lost loved ones and have had their lives changed forever? It's time to pay the piper when it comes to heinous crimes and high time to make criminals fear the consequences of their actions. Perhaps this way senseless violence can be avoided. I read an editorial recently that spoke about the many acts of violence people face on the road and I can't help but feel that these cases are a ridiculous waste. Many of them have even ended in someone losing their lives. What's astounding is that a lot of the perpetrators have the gall to disobey road rules and then violently lash out when caught in the act. What gives these terrible road rage perpetrators the confidence to act so badly? It???s the fact that so many of them get away with it with only a slap on the wrist. Now, don't get me wrong, I don't think road rage criminals deserve the death penalty (unless they killed someone of course - that would be a different story), but I think that if we adjust the justice system to enforce capital punishment than enforcing punishment for all crimes should level up. I guess in general, I feel that we need to enforce punishment better across all crimes and that if this happens than I hope we would see a decrease in violence and crime in the country. Honestly, it astounds me how brazen criminals can be with little to no regard for human life or safety. Be it cases of riding in tandem, road rage gone bad, ATM skimming crimes, or even just snatch and pull right on the street in plain site the incidences of crime are rising at an alarming rate and it's become scary to even drive on Edsa in broad daylight. We see more and more videos being posted on social media sites warning us about new ways criminals are committing crimes and it's become ridiculous already. What do we need to do to make our society safe? Again, I don't think that re-implementing the death penalty is going to fix it all, but I can't help but feel it's a good 1st step because it will not only give criminals something to fear, but it will force us to take a good long and hard look at our justice system as well and fix what needs to be fixed. After all, these steps will go hand in hand if capital punishment is back in the mix. It's going to be a very long process, but I think it's time to bring back the Old Testament message of "An eye for an eye." It's high time criminals have something to fear again. (source: Opinion, Tony Katigbak----The Philippine Star) From rhalperi at smu.edu Wed May 13 10:47:56 2015 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Wed, 13 May 2015 10:47:56 -0500 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, DEL., N.C, GA., MO., KAN., NEB. Message-ID: May 13 TEXAS----execution Texas executes mentally incompetent death row prisoner Derrick Dwayne Charles was executed Tuesday in Texas at the Walls Unit execution chamber in Huntsville. Charles, 32, was injected with a single dose of pentobarbital and was pronounced dead at 6:36 p.m. local time. Charles's execution went forward after the US Supreme Court declined to review whether he had been wrongly refused help in developing an incompetency claim based on his mental disability. He was the 7th prisoner executed in Texas so far this year, more than in any other state. Charles was convicted and sentenced to death in 2003 for the killings 13 years ago of his 15-year-old girlfriend Myiesha Bennett, her mother Brenda Bennett and her grandfather Obie Bennett. 19 years old at the time, Charles told authorities that he was high from smoking marijuana soaked in embalming fluid and was delusional when he committed the crimes. He pleaded guilty to capital murder, leaving it to a jury to decide whether he should receive a life sentence or the death penalty. The US Supreme Court denied a last-minute appeal on Charles's behalf to stay his execution, despite clear signs of his intellectual disability. In 1986, the high court ruled in Ford v. Wainwright that an individual should be spared execution if "mental illness prevents him from comprehending the reasons for the penalty or its implications." Charles's lawyers argued that their client "suffered from severe and debilitating mental illness since childhood" as a result of genetic inheritance and his childhood environment. Recently, the Houston-based US District Court for the Southern District of Texas also rejected Charles's petitions for a stay and for funds to hire a mental health expert to develop his insanity claim. Turning down the petitions, US judge Nancy Atlas also seized on the technicality that Charles???s attorney waited 4 months after the state had set an execution date before turning to the courts. The Fifth Circuit Court of appeals in New Orleans refused to halt Charles's execution as well. Charles's appellate attorney, Paul Mansur of the Texas Defender Service, argued in a series of unsuccessful appeals that Charles received some psychiatric care as an adolescent and most likely suffered from attention deficit disorder, depression and a possible brain injury. Court documents assert that his mother suffered from schizophrenia. According to court records, Charles was diagnosed with depressive disorder and at age 10 was violent toward his peers, lost his temper easily, had witnessed domestic violence and had to undergo treatment due to "serious dysfunctionality at home and at school." A psychological assessment notes that he came from a "very deprived background." Hospital records show that Charles was at risk for mental anguish and suicide and suffered seizures and stuttering as an infant. In 1995, his parents admitted him to the hospital for symptoms of depression, lack of sleep, irritability and violent outbursts, including fights at school. Hospital records at the time showed Charles testing "in the intellectually deficient range of intelligence" and exhibiting "some signs of neurological problems." This record of mental impairment was not enough to sway the courts to spare Derrick Charles's life. Texas lawmakers are also intent on keeping the state's killing machine going, despite a shortage of pentobarbital, the lethal drug used by the state to send prisoners to their deaths. After Charles???s execution, Texas has only 2 more doses of the deadly barbiturate on hand. In a 23-8 vote Monday, a state Senate measure to keep the names of execution drug providers from the public won initial approval. State Sen. Joan Huffman said her legislation, Senate Bill 1697, was a "practical solution" to the harassment and threats faced by companies who provide pentobarbital to the state prison system. A similar measure has been proposed in the Texas House. "Discussion in the public area has led to a chilling effect for companies who want to supply this compound to the state of Texas," Huffman said. "There are very few doses left of the drug that's currently being administered." Texas and other states have turned to compounding pharmacies, which are only loosely regulated, for the drugs for lethal injections, as manufacturers in the US and Europe have stopped providing them for use in executions. In 2013, the Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ) announced that the Woodlands Compounding Pharmacy, near Houston, had provided it with doses of pentobarbital. The Woodlands owner said public knowledge of the transaction led to threats against the pharmacy. After this, the TDCJ stopped releasing the names of its pentobarbital suppliers. Last year, then-Texas attorney general Greg Abbott concluded that the names of the compounding pharmacies could be kept secret, despite the fact that such information has long been public. A Travis County judge then ruled in December that the prison system must make the providers' identities public. TDCJ has refused to release the names of its drug sources as the issue plays out. State Senator Kirk Watson, an opponent of Senate Bill 1697, commented, "We are moving into an area here where we are talking about contracts with the state that we are going to hide from the public." Attorneys for death row inmates in Texas and other states argue that such secrecy on the lethal chemicals makes it impossible to ensure that the state can carry out an execution in line with the Eighth Amendment's prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment. They point to a series of recent executions in which condemned inmates displayed clear signs of pain during their lethal injections. These executions included that of Michael Wilson in Oklahoma, who said, "I feel my whole body burning" while strapped to the gurney; Dennis McGuire in Ohio, who gasped for air and choked for about 10 minutes before dying; and Clayton Lockett in Oklahoma, who regained consciousness during his execution, writhing and moaning, before finally succumbing 43 minutes later. Of the 1,408 executions carried out in the US since the Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976, 525 of them have been in Texas. (source: World Socialist Web Site) ****************** Texas Is Almost Out Of Execution Drug Again. The Legislature Is Trying to Help. As has happened with regularity over the past couple of years, the Texas Department of Criminal Justice is almost out of pentobarbital, it's drug of choice for killing condemned murderers. According to information released by the TDCJ Monday to the Texas Tribune, it has 3 pentobarbital doses left. That's enough to make it through Gregory Russeau, scheduled to die June 18 for bludgeoning 75-year-old James Syvertson to death in Tyler in 2001. The TDCJ has problems acquiring the drug because pharmacists and drug companies are uncomfortable helping the state kill people, especially if the identity of those providing the drugs is made public. Upon being outed in 2013, Dr. Jasper Lovoi, a compounding pharmacist from the Woodlands, asked the state for his drugs back. "I, and my staff, are very busy operating our pharmacy, and do not have the time to deal with the constant inquiries from the press, the hate mail and messages ... Please contact me immediately to arrange for the return of the drugs," he said at the time. After the Lovoi incident, then-Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott agreed that the agency could keep pentobarbital provider's identities secret, going against longstanding policy. A Travis County judge ruled against that decision in December. A bill passed by the Texas Senate on Tuesday would clear the mess up. "Discussion in the public area has led to a chilling effect for companies who want to supply this compound to the state of Texas," Senator Joan Huffman, S.B. 1697's author, said Monday. "There are very few doses left of the drug that's currently being administered." Huffman's plan, which she called a practical solution, would make it state law to keep the names of execution drug providers secret. Kirk Watson, a Democrat from Austin, criticized the bill for decreasing transparency. "We are talking about contracts with the state that we are going to hide from the public," he said. (source: Dallas Observer) DELAWARE: Death penalty repeal supporters rally Wednesday morning About 50 people rallied outside of Legislative Hall Wednesday morning to support repealing Delaware's death penalty, calling capital punishment an ineffective tool applied with racial and socioeconomic bias. "Delaware and all other states should look in their history and see that they have done enough killing over the years," said James Marshall of Dover. "The state that started a nation, we started it on destruction and killing, now what do we want to do? Continue that lifestyle forever?" The rally, put on by the Delaware Death Penalty Repeal Project, comes hours before a crucial House committee. Lawmakers on the House Judiciary Committee will decide whether or not to release the bill for a full hearing midday Thursday. Rep. Sean Lynn, D-Dover, the bill's sponsor, has said the vote will be close and he doesn't expect it to turn out in his favor. Lynn has vowed to take any steps necessary to get the bill to a full hearing on the House floor, including a procedural measure that would bypass the committee entirely. Supporters say now is the time for Delaware to get out of the murder business. The death penalty, they say, is an expensive and ineffective measure. It doesn't prevent crime, they said. But opponents of repealing the death penalty say capital punishment is a crime deterrent and is an effective punishment for the most heinous of perpetrators. Also at the rally Wednesday morning was Tariq "Black Thought" Trotter, co-founder of The Roots, a Philadelphia hip-hop group and the house band on Jimmy Fallon's The Tonight Show. Trotter said Wednesday that repealing the death penalty is an important civil rights and social justice issue. Capital punishment, he said, is applied with a systematic bias. "It's an antiquated concept," he said. "It represents the worst of the American justice system." Delaware is 1 of 32 states that employs capital punishment. The last inmate put to death was Shannon Johnson, 28, in April 2012, by lethal injection. Senate lawmakers passed the repeal measure 11-9 in April. Legislation to end capital punishment in Delaware failed in a House committee in 2013. 15 inmates are currently sitting on Delaware's death row. They would be exempt from the repeal legislation, should it pass. Gov. Jack Markell came out in support of the legislation last week, saying that the death penalty is an "instrument of imperfect justice." (source: The News Journal) NORTH CAROLINA: Jamell Cureton: Throw my charges out Jamell Cureton, facing the death penalty in what authorities describe as the gang-related slayings of 3 people, appears in Charlotte federal court Wednesday to ask that the charges be thrown out. Cureton says his right to defend himself has been undermined by a Jan. 12 raid on his Mecklenburg County jail cell. During the search, FBI agent seized protected correspondence between Cureton and his attorney among other documents, the 22-year-old Charlotte man says. In a 4-page, handwritten letter to U.S. District Judge Max Cogburn, Cureton says some of the documents have yet to be returned, and he believes they have been shared with prosecutors. That, he says, compromises his right to a fair trial. "I honestly see no possible way to properly or effectively defend myself," Cureton wrote. Cureton is among 12 reputed members of the United Blood Nation charged with running a criminal enterprise in Charlotte. He is charged with the 2013 murder of Kwamne Clyburn in a Charlotte park and of planning the lake-home hit on Doug and Debbie London last October. A 51-page federal indictment says the couple was killed to keep the husband from testifying against three gang members who attempted to rob the Londons' mattress store last May. Cureton was wounded by Doug London during the attempt. In all, the indictment accuses Cureton of 10 crimes; 6 carry a potential death penalty. At the time of the FBI raid, he was being held on an attempted robbery charge. He has pleaded not guilty to all counts. In separate filings, Cureton and his attorney, Chiege Okwara of Charlotte, say the charges should be thrown out because of violations of Cureton's due process, protection from unlawful search and seizures, and attorney-client confidentiality. Okwara alleges that the documents taken and read by the FBI included legal strategy and advice. She says investigators have used the information to broaden their probe and to interview new witnesses. During the search of Cureton's cell, the FBI also found a photo collage that included the images of presiding U.S. District Judge Frank Whitney and two other public figures, which led to the 3 being placed under protective watch. Afterward, Whitney stepped down from presiding over Cureton's case. He was replaced by Cogburn. In his letter, Cureton accused the FBI of releasing information about the cell search to the media, who then "plastered that knowledge" across the media, "slandering my name and image." Both the FBI and U.S. Attorney's Office declined to comment Tuesday. (source: WBTV.com) GEORGIA: Former justice calls for end to death penalty A former chief justice of Georgia's highest court on Tuesday strongly renounced the death penalty and called for its abolition. Norman Fletcher, who served 15 years on the Georgia Supreme Court, said the death penalty is "morally indefensible," "makes no business sense" and is not applied fairly and consistently. "Capital punishment must be permanently halted, without exception," Fletcher said. "It will not be easy, but it can and will be accomplished." Fletcher, now a Rome lawyer, retired from the state Supreme Court in 2005. Although considered one of the court's more liberal members, he cast numerous votes upholding death sentences. In more recent years, he has signed on to legal briefs urging courts to halt the executions of a number of condemned inmates. Fletcher made his remarks Tuesday evening at the Summerour Studio near Atlantic Station, where he received the Southern Center for Human Rights' Gideon's Promise Award for his role in helping create a statewide public defender system. In his acceptance speech, Fletcher said he was about to ???shock??? those attending the ceremony. Lawyers who once criticized his decisions upholding death sentences were justified, he said. "With wisdom gained over the past 10 years, I am now convinced there is absolutely no justification for continuing to impose the sentence of death in this country," Fletcher said. Since a nationwide moratorium on capital punishment was lifted in 1976, more than 150 people on death row have been exonerated. Fletcher added, "There can be no doubt that actually innocent persons have been executed in this country." Too often, Fletcher contended, budgetary issues, race and politics factor into the decision-making of whether to seek the death penalty. Fletcher cited the late U.S. Supreme Court Justice Harry Blackmun, who once said he could "no longer tinker with the machinery of death." Blackmun made this declaration before he retired from the high court in 1994. "It is time for us to quit the tinkering and totally abolish this barbaric system," Fletcher said. (source: Atlanta Journal-Constitution) MISSOURI----new execution date Missouri Sets June Execution Date for Richard Strong The Missouri Supreme Court has set a June execution date for a man convicted of fatally stabbing his girlfriend and her 2-year-old daughter in 2000. The court yesterday ordered 48-year-old Richard Strong to be executed June 9th for the deaths of Eva Washington and her daughter, Zandrea Thomas. The victims were found dead October 23rd, 2000, in Washington's apartment in the St. Louis suburb of St. Ann. Strong was convicted of 1st-degree murder in May 2003 and sentenced to death. The state Supreme Court affirmed the conviction and sentence in August 2004. (source: Associated Press) KANSAS: Get rid of death penalty I am a very concerned citizen opposed to Kansas continuing to support the death penalty. The cost of the death penalty to our society is financially astronomical. The possibility for multiple appeals, extra preparation and separate sentencing phases for capital cases increases the cost. In 2014 the Judicial Council Study found that defense and district court costs are 3 to 4 times higher for trials where the death penalty is sought. The impact of the death penalty on local communities resulted in increased costs to the county budgets and local taxes. The emotional cost cannot be calculated in terms of a dollar amount. Currently some of the survivors of the Boston bombing have reported that the potential for a string of appeals for Tsarnaev would keep attention on him for years causing them to relive the most painful days of their lives. Bryan Stevenson, Lawyer, Executive Director of the Equal Justice Initiative in Montgomery, Alabama and professor states that "the death penalty is not about whether people deserve to die for the crimes they commit," but rather "Do we deserve to kill?" Kansas wake up and abolish the death penalty for life without the possibility of parole. Maryon Habtemariam, Wichita (source: Letter to the Editor, The Kansan) NEBRASKA: Prosecutors Seek Death Penalty in Deaths of Boy, Mother Prosecutors plan to seek the death penalty for a Nebraska man charged with killing his mother, throwing his 5-year-old half brother in a river and leaving his 11-month-old half brother in a dumpster. Douglas County Attorney Don Kleine said Monday that several aggravating factors exist in the case against 25-year-old Roberto Martinez-Marinero. Authorities say Martinez-Marinero surrendered to police Thursday and said he'd stabbed his mother, 45-year-old Jesus Ismenia Marinero. The 25-year-old man also said he'd thrown Josue Ramirez-Marinero in the Elkhorn River and put Angel Ramirez-Marinero in the dumpster. Authorities found a body Monday that investigators believe is Josue. Angel was found bruised but alive Wednesday in the dumpster in La Vista. His mother's body was found Wednesday night in a southeast Omaha ditch. (source Associated Press) From rhalperi at smu.edu Wed May 13 10:49:02 2015 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Wed, 13 May 2015 10:49:02 -0500 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----OKLAHOMA Message-ID: May 13 OKLAHOMA: Cruel and Unusual----The botched execution of Clayton Lockett - and how capital punishment became so surreal On the morning of his execution, Clayton Lockett hid under the covers. Before a team of correctional officers came to get him at 5:06 a.m., he fashioned a noose out of his sheets. He pulled the blade out of a safety razor and made half-inch-long cuts on his arms. He swallowed a handful of pills that he'd been hoarding. And on April 29, 2014, when the team of officers knocked on the door of his cell in the Oklahoma State Penitentiary in McAlester, Oklahoma, Clayton Lockett - a 38-year-old convicted murderer - pulled a blanket over his head and refused to get up. The officers left and asked for permission to tase him. While they were gone, Lockett tried to jam the door. They came back, forced their way in, tased him, and dragged him out. 11 hours later, at about 5:20 p.m., after a medical examination, X-rays, 8 hours in a holding cell, and a shower, Lockett was brought by a 5-member strap-down team into the death chamber. It was a small, clinical-looking room with white walls and a polished floor that reflected the lights overhead. A gurney stood in the center of the room; above it hung a microphone for Lockett's final words. One of the walls in the chamber had a pair of baseball-size holes through which IV lines could pass into the chemical room, a small space where 3 executioners would administer the drugs that would kill him. The executioners had been driven to the prison earlier in the day, and had put on hoods as they approached. They would remain out of sight until after Lockett was dead. There had never been a question of Lockett's guilt. 15 years earlier, on June 3, 1999, he had stood in a ravine and aimed a 12-gauge shotgun at Stephanie Neiman, a 19-year-old who had graduated from high school 2 weeks earlier. Lockett and 2 accomplices had beaten one of Neiman's friends and raped another. Lockett told Neiman multiple times that he would kill her if she didn't promise to keep quiet. He warned her 1 last time, but she insisted she would go to the police. He pulled the trigger. The shot sent her spinning to the ground. The gun jammed; he cleared it and fired at her again. Then one of Lockett's accomplices buried Neiman alive in a shallow grave, the dirt puffing up as she struggled to breathe, and they left her to die. Lockett was arrested 3 days later, a Sunday. Mark Gibson, the district attorney who would prosecute him, went to the jail that night because Lockett wanted to give a statement. Lockett smoked a cigarette and showed no remorse as he confessed. Gibson thought he saw a twinkle in the young man's eye, as though he was relishing the attention, and came away believing that Lockett was pure evil. In the execution chamber, Lockett was belted to the gurney. To his left, beige blinds covered the windows to the viewing area. Soon, shadows would be visible as the seats on the other side filled up. There was so much media interest in his execution that the prison had had to draw names to decide which reporters could attend. A clock on the wall read 5:26. The execution was scheduled to begin at 6 p.m. Lockett could expect to be dead within about 45 minutes. Since the mid-1990s, when lethal injection replaced electrocution as America's favored method of execution, states have found drug combinations that they trust to quickly and painlessly end a life. They often use 3 drugs. The 1st is an anesthetic, to render the prisoner unconscious. The 2nd is a paralytic. The 3rd, potassium chloride, stops the heart. What many people don't realize, however, is that choosing the specific drugs and doses involves as much guesswork as expertise. In many cases, the person responsible for selecting the drugs has no medical training. Sometimes that person is a lawyer - a state attorney general or an attorney for the prison. These officials base their confidence that a certain drug will work largely on the fact that it has seemed to work in the past. So naturally, they prefer not to experiment with new drugs. In recent years, however, they have been forced to do so. The problems began at a pharmaceutical plant in Rocky Mount, North Carolina. The Food and Drug Administration discovered that some of the drugs made there were contaminated and in April 2010 sent the manufacturer, Hospira, a warning letter. Hospira stopped producing, among other drugs, a barbiturate called sodium thiopental. No other company was approved by the FDA to make sodium thiopental, which was the anesthetic of choice for almost all of the states that carried out executions. (The death penalty is legal in 32 states; 17 of them have performed an execution in the past 5 years.) With sodium thiopental suddenly unavailable, states scrambled to find alternatives. In June of that year, officials in Georgia discovered a work-around: a small-time businessman in London named Mehdi Alavi, who sold wholesale drugs through a company called Dream Pharma, would ship sodium thiopental to them. Georgia bought some from him, and then Arkansas did too. With Hospira offline, Alavi had the U.S. execution market cornered. Arizona bought sodium thiopental from him in late September and used it the next month to execute a convicted murderer named Jeffrey Landrigan. California placed an order as well. Maya Foa, an anti-death-penalty advocate based in London, saw Dream Pharma mentioned in court documents related to Landrigan's execution and decided to pay a visit. At the company???s address, she found a small building with peeling white paint and a placard that read Elgone Driving Academy. Inside she found 2 desks and, in the back of the room, a single cabinet. That was it: Dream Pharma. Alavi imported execution drugs from elsewhere in Europe and shipped them to the United States, using that cupboard in a driving school as his base of operations. The judges seemed to be passing the buck back and forth while Clayton Lockett and Charles Warner waited to die. Reprieve, the human-rights organization where Foa worked, wrote to the British government, arguing that supplying drugs for executions violated British law, since the death penalty is illegal in Europe. The government balked. Stopping the shipment of a drug would hamper free trade and could be harmful to patients. Foa responded that the "patient" argument was erroneous - there was no trade of sodium thiopental between the U.S. and the U.K. for medicinal purposes. It was all for executions. This time, the government agreed. England announced tighter export restrictions, which effectively banned the sale of the drug for executions. Foa then persuaded the European Commission to follow suit by amending its torture regulation. U.S. states trying to carry out the death penalty were now blocked from buying drugs not just from England, but from all of Europe. So they looked even farther afield. In late 2010, a company in Mumbai, Kayem Pharmaceuticals, received an e-mail from the Nebraska Department of Correctional Services. Officials there wanted an anesthetic that Kayem made mostly for clients in Angola: sodium thiopental. Kayem sold Nebraska 500 vials, enough for more than 80 executions. Soon after, Foa's boss wrote the company to explain how Nebraska planned to use its product. When South Dakota officials tried to place an order, Kayem jacked up the price 900 percent, to $20 a vial, hoping the cost would dissuade them. It didn't. South Dakota bought 500 vials. Kayem stopped selling the drug to the U.S. immediately after that. Nebraska also turned to a middleman named Chris Harris, who contacted another company, called Naari, that made sodium thiopental in India. When Nebraska prison officials later announced that they'd obtained sodium thiopental from Naari, the firm's CEO was livid. He wrote to the chief justice of the Nebraska supreme court saying he'd been duped: Naari had supplied Harris with vials of the drug only because Harris had offered to get it registered for future sale in Zambia, where there is a huge need for cheap surgical drugs. The CEO wrote that Harris was "not authorised to sell the product" to Nebraska and that Naari was "deeply opposed to the use of the medicines in executions." He demanded that the vials be returned. They were not. In Oklahoma, with sodium thiopental increasingly difficult to get and an execution scheduled for December 2010, officials decided they could no longer avoid finding a substitute. They settled on another powerful barbiturate that was more easily available: a short-term therapy for insomnia called pentobarbital, made in the U.S. by a Copenhagen-based company called Lundbeck. According to state officials, pentobarbital was ideal "for humane euthanasia in animals." Oklahoma used the new drug in the execution of John David Duty. It worked. Oklahoma had found its solution just in time: the federal Drug Enforcement Administration was about to start raiding prisons. Since Hospira had been the only FDA-approved supplier of sodium thiopental, states that had imported it had done so illegally. Prisons had become, in effect, drug smugglers, and while the FDA may have been willing to look the other way, the DEA was not. In March 2011, agents seized Georgia's supply of sodium thiopental. In April, they seized Tennessee's, Kentucky's, South Carolina's, and Alabama's. Meanwhile, as other states followed Oklahoma's lead and shifted to pentobarbital, pressure mounted on Lundbeck, the drug's manufacturer, to block prisons from buying it. Reprieve issued press releases, the Danish media picked up the story, The Lancet published an open letter urging the company to stop supplying executions, and shareholders threatened to divest. Maya Foa knew that pharmaceutical companies like Lundbeck had no interest in supplying executions - the fact that their drugs are used to kill people makes for terrible publicity. But what could Lundbeck do about it? Foa researched the American pharmaceutical industry and learned about controls that a manufacturer can put in place to restrict a drug???s distribution if, for example, new side effects come to light or the company wants to prevent off-label uses. She met with Lundbeck's senior executives to present an idea: Why not put distribution controls on pentobarbital, and prevent middlemen from selling it to prisons? "We can't do that," one of Lundbeck's communications officers told her. But as he began to explain his objections, the CEO interrupted. "Why not?" The room fell silent. 7 months after pentobarbital was first used in an execution, Lundbeck instituted distribution controls. Departments of corrections could no longer get their 2nd-choice anesthetic. At 5:30, half an hour before Lockett's execution was to begin, a young reporter named Katie Fretland rode in a prison van with other witnesses. They were taken to the death-row law library to wait. Fretland heard a low thrumming fill the halls, the sound of inmates banging on their cell doors in tribute to the condemned. Fretland had arrived in McAlester just that day, but Oklahoma was something of a 2nd home to her. She'd first come in 2012, a few years out of college, after landing a 14-week temp job with the Associated Press. The AP had asked her to cover the execution of Timothy Stemple, a Tulsa man convicted of killing his wife. Fretland tried to find out where the state would get the execution drugs, but she quickly ran into a roadblock: Oklahoma had passed a law less than a year earlier that made nearly every aspect of executions a state secret, including where officials obtained the drugs. Fretland decided to follow the money. She had a source who worked at the prison, and she asked him how the state's Department of Corrections would pay for the drugs. He said it would use petty cash. She couldn't believe it. Could the department do that - use an account with no public oversight to buy execution drugs? She filed a series of records requests and kept asking questions. She found petty-cash purchases of pentobarbital totaling more than $50,000. Pentobarbital was by now no longer available from Lundbeck, but Fretland learned that compounding pharmacies were copying execution drugs and selling them to prisons. Compounding pharmacies exist to fill niche needs - for example, making a version of a drug for a patient who is allergic to an additive in the mass-market product. Part drug company, part pharmacy, they operate in a gray area with little oversight. (In April 2013, after a deadly meningitis outbreak was traced to a compounding pharmacy in Massachusetts, FDA officials announced that they had inspected about 30 compounding pharmacies and found unsanitary conditions in all but one of them.) Fretland kept filing records requests, and accumulated reams of documents. Her AP job ended, but she couldn't leave the story alone. She crashed with friends while continuing to interview pharmacists and former wardens, trying to put together a picture of Oklahoma's frantic pursuit of execution drugs. She turned up e-mails from early 2011 in which state officials discussed how they should respond to their peers in Texas, who had asked for help addressing the drug shortage. An Oklahoma assistant attorney general wrote to a colleague, "I propose we help if TX promises to take a dive in the [University of Oklahoma - University of Texas football] game for the next 4 years." His colleague suggested that Texas should provide tickets for "Team Pentobarbital (you, me, Martha, the Warden, Mike Oakley, plus anyone else we can think of who is deserving) to the 2011 OU-Texas game plus an on-field presentation of a commemorative plaque at halftime recognizing Oklahoma's on-going contributions to propping up the Texas system of capital punishment." He added, "And throw in lifetime passes for the North Dallas Tollway, Highway 121 and the Bush Turnpike. That would be a good deal." Fretland also learned that in some executions, the prisoner had died of an overdose of the 1st drug, the anesthetic, and that the executioners had then disposed of the other 2 drugs by injecting them into the corpse. Georgia had used pentobarbital from an undisclosed source in a June 2011 execution, and Fretland found e-mails from the next month proving that Oklahoma officials knew that the inmate had remained conscious for longer than he was supposed to and may have experienced severe pain. But a month after that e-mail exchange, they spent $10,400 of petty cash to buy pentobarbital. They made another purchase a year later, this time spending $40,000. In March 2014, Fretland published her findings in The Colorado Independent. She editorialized just once. "Banter about exchanging lethal injection help for football tickets and other favors," she wrote, "raises questions about how seriously Oklahoma officials take the death penalty." A month later, Fretland came to McAlester to watch Clayton Lockett's execution. A little before 6, she and the other witnesses were taken down a long hallway. She turned a corner into the viewing area, where 2 tiered rows of metal folding chairs faced the death chamber. Fretland took her seat along with 11 other reporters, 2 of Lockett's lawyers, and an assortment of Oklahoma officials. Stephanie Neiman's family would sit in a separate room for the victim???s relatives. Blinds covered the windows to the death chamber, so Fretland couldn't see what was going on inside. She sat down, and waited. About 2 months earlier, Mike Oakley, the general counsel for the Oklahoma Department of Corrections, had returned from vacation to find the department in a near-frenzy. Before he'd left, the department had ordered pentobarbital from a compounding pharmacy for the executions of Clayton Lockett and Charles Warner, a 46-year-old man convicted in 2003 of raping and killing his roommate's 11-month-old baby. But compounding pharmacies had come under pressure to stop selling drugs for executions, and Oklahoma's supplier had backed out. With the executions scheduled for March 20 and March 27, one of Oakley's deputies began driving around the state, walking into pharmacies and asking for pentobarbital, without success. Oakley didn't know why the task of finding drugs for executions fell largely to him: he had no medical training. But he wanted to help his colleagues - especially the warden, whom he considered conscientious and hardworking - because he knew how much strain carrying out a death sentence put on them. He had gone into corrections, 25 years earlier, because Oklahoma was doing interesting work in mediation between victims and offenders. Now he was about to retire, and he found himself, as his swan song, developing a new execution cocktail. Oakley had to report on his progress to Robert Patton, the director of the Oklahoma Department of Corrections, first thing in the morning and again before he went home each day. The attorney general's office called Oakley multiple times a day, and Patton himself was getting pressure from the governor's office. Both the attorney general, Scott Pruitt, and Governor Mary Fallin had elections coming up, and there were rumors that a Tea Party candidate might outflank Fallin on the right. Oakley believed they were worried about looking soft on crime. In mid-March, Pruitt had to make the embarrassing admission, as part of a brief to the state's court of criminal appeals, that Oklahoma didn't have all the necessary drugs, and Lockett's and Warner's executions had to be delayed. Fewer and fewer medical experts were willing to advise Oakley, even unofficially. But he had professional contacts he'd met through the National Institute of Corrections, and he asked them for advice. He and members of the attorney general's staff also looked at expert testimony related to executions in Florida. In October 2013, Florida had used a sedative called midazolam in the execution of William Happ. Florida officials had determined that it was "the most humane and dignified way to do the procedure." Doctors sometimes administer midazolam during anesthesia, but usually just to relax the patient, and in combination with a drug that blocks pain. In a high enough dose, it should render the patient unconscious - but some experts argue that, unlike sodium thiopental and pentobarbital, midazolam cannot produce the deep, coma-like state needed to guarantee he feels no pain. William Happ shook his head, blinked, and opened his mouth during his execution. Witnesses had no way of knowing whether he was in pain, but he appeared to remain conscious longer than offenders given sodium thiopental or pentobarbital. Ohio used midazolam in the execution of Dennis McGuire a few months later, and witnesses reported that McGuire snorted, heaved, clenched one of his fists, and gasped for air. Oakley asked his counterpart in Ohio about the state's experience with midazolam. The media had exaggerated the problems, he was told. Yes, the new drug took a little longer to put a person to sleep, but it wasn't as bad as everyone was saying. Midazolam was also relatively easy to obtain: multiple U.S. companies made it. Oakley's wife had just had a kidney stone removed, and 1 of the drugs she'd been given was midazolam. Both Oakley and the attorney general's office recommended that the state use it. On April 23, 2014, 6 days before Lockett's execution, Mike Oakley retired. April 23 would, by coincidence, prove to be a decisive day for the Oklahoma judicial system, for Clayton Lockett, and for his legal team, including Dave Autry. Autry is a soft-spoken man of 56 with a ponytail that hangs halfway down his back. He seems to subsist on tobacco and caffeine - 24-ounce mini-mart coffee cups and jumbo cans of Red Bull clutter his office. Autry had represented Lockett for 11 years, since shortly after Lockett exhausted his state appeals. He felt just about ready, after nearly 30 years, to leave the high stakes and emotional toll of death-row work to younger lawyers. Clayton Lockett would be his 2nd-to-last death-row client. As time winds down, a death-penalty lawyer has one goal: keep the client alive as long as possible. In October 2013, Autry's co-counsel, Dean Sanderford, and an attorney for Charles Warner had petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court to review their cases, a last-chance effort to argue that constitutional errors had been made during trial or sentencing. They knew the Court was unlikely to review either case. They also knew from experience that as soon as the Supreme Court declined to hear the cases, Oklahoma would set execution dates. The lawyers needed a plan they could put in motion the instant the Court decided. The simplest strategy would have been an Eighth Amendment challenge. But they couldn't make a convincing case that the drugs Oklahoma officials planned to use would lead to cruel and unusual punishment, because the state's secrecy law kept them from getting any information about where the drugs were coming from. In that lack of information, however, perhaps they could find an opportunity. The lawyers could argue that the secrecy law denied their clients "access to the courts" and was therefore unconstitutional. As they prepared to make this case, Oklahoma executed Michael Lee Wilson, a 38-year-old charged with beating a co-worker to death. After the pentobarbital was injected, Wilson said, "I feel my whole body burning." In January 2014, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear the cases. Lockett's and Warner's lawyers joined forces to challenge Oklahoma's secrecy law, and they requested a stay of execution for the prisoners until the challenge was decided. The case began ping-ponging around the Oklahoma justice system. A state judge in Oklahoma City, Patricia Parrish, heard the challenge but said she didn't have the authority to grant a stay, so the legal team appealed to the Oklahoma supreme court. The supreme court transferred the stay request to the state's court of criminal appeals; the court of criminal appeals asked for supplemental briefs. By that point Lockett's execution was days away. In their supplemental brief, the lawyers for Lockett and Warner argued that any of these courts had the authority to grant a stay. The government filed an opposing brief arguing that none of the courts did. But it was in this brief, down on page 8, that Attorney General Pruitt made the stunning admission that the state did not have all the drugs it needed for the executions. 2 days before Lockett was scheduled to die, he and Warner got a 1-month reprieve so that the state could find drugs. A minor victory. Lockett's execution was rescheduled for April 22, Warner's for April 29. The same day, Katie Fretland published her bombshell article exposing disturbing details about how the state handled executions. A week later, on March 26, Judge Parrish decided the challenge to the secrecy law in Lockett and Warner's favor. The law was indeed unconstitutional. "I do not think this is even a close call," she said. She still believed she lacked the authority to grant a stay, but her ruling gave Lockett and Warner another chance: their lawyers could now ask the state for information about the drugs, and perhaps find the basis for a cruel-and-unusual-punishment lawsuit. Right away, Oklahoma announced that it would appeal. Doing so put an automatic hold on Parrish's decision. By the time the appeal was resolved, Lockett and Warner would likely be dead. ?The case began ping-ponging again. The inmates' legal team went to the court of criminal appeals to ask for a stay, but the judges ruled that the case didn't belong in their court. The lawyers then turned to the Oklahoma supreme court, which told the court of criminal appeals that it did, in fact, have jurisdiction. The court of criminal appeals disagreed and again denied the stay. To Autry and the other lawyers, the judges seemed to be passing the buck back and forth while Clayton Lockett and Charles Warner waited to die. Finally, on April 21, 1 day before Lockett's execution, a miracle: the Oklahoma supreme court, divided 5-4, granted a stay. The justices made clear that they intended to seriously contemplate the issues. The ruling seemed likely to put the executions off for a long time and give Lockett and Warner a chance of actually winning the case. Since the case challenged state law, Oklahoma couldn't take it to the U.S. Supreme Court. No court in the country could overturn the ruling. Autry called Lockett's stepmother and drove out to Del City to give Lockett's favorite aunt the news in person. It was an emotional evening, one of the rare moments in a death-penalty case this far along when you get to celebrate. At the prison the next morning, Lockett was moved out of the isolation unit where the condemned spend their final days, and sent back to a regular cell. That same day, a shocking reversal: Governor Mary Fallin stepped in. She issued an executive order saying she did not recognize the Oklahoma supreme court's authority to grant the stay. "The execution for Clayton Derrell Lockett," she announced, "is therefore scheduled for April 29, 2014" - just 1 week away, and the same night as Charles Warner's execution. Autry had never heard of a governor doing something like that. Was it even legal? Could a governor just do away with a ruling by the state supreme court? The next day things got even worse: a state representative filed articles of impeachment against the 5 justices who had voted for the stay. The Oklahoma supreme court bowed to the pressure. 2 days after saying that it would need a long and proper debate in order to determine the constitutionality of the secrecy law, the court issued a decision: the law was fine. The stay was lifted. The national media went into a frenzy. It looked as though the state's judicial system had collapsed. "Execution Case Roils Oklahoma Courts," The New York Times declared; other publications quoted the attorney general calling the events a "constitutional crisis." Reporters descended on McAlester. It seemed as though everyone with even a fleeting interest in the Oklahoma justice system had come to the penitentiary. Everyone except Governor Fallin. On the night of the executions, she was headed to the Chesapeake Energy Arena, to watch Kevin Durant and the Oklahoma City Thunder in Game 5 of the NBA conference quarterfinals. At 5:27 p.m., a paramedic approached the gurney. Like the three executioners, she would remain anonymous. Before the blinds opened, she would retreat into the chemical room while a doctor and the prison???s warden stayed with Lockett in the death chamber. But first she had a job to do: prepare the drugs and medical equipment, and get an IV into Lockett. (Those who participated in the execution either did not respond to requests for interviews or could not be reached. Court records provide a detailed account of what happened.) The paramedic later told investigators that she'd felt incredible pressure since she'd walked into the room an hour earlier. She'd never participated in an execution that used midazolam. She'd never participated in 2 executions in 1 night - not many people in the world had. And she knew the media were watching. To make matters worse, the equipment was all wrong: the saline was packed in bags instead of syringes, the drugs were in syringes that looked smaller than she was used to, and the tubing for the IV was the wrong kind. But she tried to focus on doing her job and getting everything set up on time. She would be paid $600 for the 2 executions. The paramedic stuck a needle into a vein in Lockett???s left arm. A few drops of blood moved up the catheter - "flashback." A good sign. It meant the needle was in the vein. But she'd forgotten tape to hold the IV in place. She asked someone to bring it to her, but the IV slipped out before she could secure it. Lockett's arm started to bleed, so she put pressure on it and tried again. This time, she didn't get flashback. Then she tried a brachial vein, near Lockett's biceps. No luck there. By now, she'd tried to place an IV 3 times. She???d been taught that if you can't find a vein after the 3rd attempt, you ask someone else to step in. So she asked the doctor to help. The doctor, Johnny Zellmer, was a last-minute substitute. (Zellmer, whose name was revealed in a lawsuit following the execution and in multiple press reports, has not denied his involvement. He did not respond to requests for comment.) He was a local family-medicine and emergency-room physician who'd participated in just 1 previous execution. Zellmer had arguably violated his profession's oath to "never do harm" the moment he stepped into the death chamber. Indeed, the American Medical Association's code of ethics states that physicians should not participate in executions, even in a supervisory capacity. But Zellmer thought his job would be limited to checking the offender for consciousness and pronouncing the time of death. He wasn't expecting to actually do anything to Lockett. The paramedic's request for help put him in the position of no longer just observing the execution but actively facilitating it. She was clearly struggling, though. He scanned Lockett's body and didn't see any good veins. Then Lockett turned his head, and the paramedic saw a vein in his neck pop up. She pointed it out to Zellmer. "Get me a needle for the jugular," he said. This was an odd choice. IVs in the neck are painful, and also hard to place. On the arms and legs, you can use a tourniquet to bring the veins up. You cannot do that on the neck, because a tourniquet on the neck is effectively a noose, and while this was an execution, it was not a hanging. As Zellmer tried to get the needle into the jugular, the paramedic stuck Lockett 3 more times on his right arm, failing each time. Zellmer got the needle into Lockett's neck and saw flashback, but then saw blood spread under the skin - he thought the needle might have gone all the way through the vein. Zellmer decided to try a subclavian line, in a vein running beneath Lockett's collarbone. The paramedic brought him a central-venous catheterization kit, and Zellmer numbed Lockett's chest with lidocaine. The paramedic tried 2 different veins on Lockett's right foot; both attempts failed. Zellmer kept trying to get the needle into Lockett's subclavian vein. He finally saw a little flashback, then lost the vein and couldn't get the needle back in. After repeatedly sticking Lockett's chest, he decided to try the femoral vein, in Lockett's groin. The paramedic went to get a longer needle. As the warden, Anita Trammell, watched the doctor and the paramedic work on Lockett, she felt a sliver of pride for the inmate. He'd now been stuck with needles more than a dozen times. She knew he was in pain, but she thought he was taking it like a man. Trammell tried to make conversation to help calm him. She knew he had been a drug user. "What was your drug of choice?" she asked him. "Ice." "I thought that was a white man's drug," she said, and he laughed. The paramedic came back and said she had no needles longer than an inch and a quarter. That presented a problem. The femoral vein lies deeper in the body than other veins, so they would ideally use a needle at least twice that length. There were longer needles inside a 2nd central-venous catheterization kit, like the one they'd just used on Lockett's chest, but neither Zellmer nor the paramedic thought of it. Zellmer asked for an IO-infusion needle. IO stands for "intraosseous" - into the bone. It is, in effect, a power drill, used to bore a hole through bone and into the marrow, and therefore doesn't require finding a vein. The prison had no IO needle. Zellmer had only the absurdly short 1 1/4-inch needle. "Well," he told the paramedic, "we'll just have to make it work." Lockett's prison scrubs and underwear were cut away. Zellmer stuck the needle into Lockett's femoral vein and saw flashback on the first try. Finally, after almost an hour, they had an IV. Right away, the paramedic noticed a potential warning sign. Saline should have been flowing easily through the IV, but it flowed only when she propped up the line. Instead of starting over, though, she taped the IV in place. 2 IVs are typically used to administer the drugs, but with the execution running way behind schedule, the doctor and the paramedic decided they would proceed with just one. Warden Trammell asked Lockett whether he needed anything. "I was gonna see if I could get my mouth wiped off," he said. She got a Kleenex and wiped it for him. Finally, a sheet was draped over Lockett, covering him up to his chest. The execution could begin. Lockett???s closest family members were about two hours away. His stepmother, LaDonna Hollins, had made the drive to the prison countless times. During her final visit, she and Lockett had sat looking at each other and crying. "I do not want you to be at the execution," she later recalled him saying, "because I do not know the outcome. I do not think it's gonna be very good. Because the drugs that they use have not been tested." Lockett knew that Michael Lee Wilson had said "I feel my whole body burning" when the state executed him earlier that year. Lockett was scared. "Do me one favor," Hollins told him, according to an article in the German magazine Der Spiegel. "As long as you can talk on that gurney: Talk. Let the world know how they are executing people here in Oklahoma." After that visit, she heard that the prison had refused Lockett's request for a last meal - chateaubriand, fried shrimp, baked potato, garlic toast, and a whole Kentucky bourbon pie - because it exceeded the $15 limit. Hollins called the prison and said she'd pay for it, or even drive the meal down herself, but she wasn't allowed to. She didn't think Lockett could be spared after what he'd done, but she didn't think he should suffer anymore, either. So she did what she'd always done: try, however she could, to offer him some small comfort. Lockett had first shown up on her doorstep in Southern California at the age of 3, crying and soaked in urine. His mother had put him on a bus all the way from Oklahoma to live with his father. There'd been no notice. Hollins testified in court that when Lockett was a young child, she saw his half brother, who was about 5 years older, lying on top of him, the 2 boys looking strange together. Then a call from the school. Lockett was in the infirmary. He'd come in crying and complaining of pain around his anus. Another memory: Lockett following his father, John, from room to room as he got ready for work, and then following him out of the house, into the street. Lockett in tears, certain that his father would never return. Once, as a birthday present for his brother John Jr., the boys' mother agreed to talk with them on the phone. Lockett waited for his turn with anticipation - he was now 4, and hadn't heard his mother's voice since she had put him on the bus. But she took offense when John Jr. referred to Hollins as "Mama LaDonna," and hung up before Lockett got to talk with her. John Sr. disciplined Lockett and his other children with everything from belts to 2-by-4s. Hollins tried to protect the boy, but she wasn't exempt from John Sr.'s violent temper either; he broke her arm twice. John Sr. taught his children to steal - groceries sometimes, televisions other times - and punished them only for getting caught. Hollins remembers John Sr. blowing marijuana smoke up Lockett's nose and sitting him down to watch porn when Lockett was a child. "Boy," he said, "you need to tear that pussy up." That's what he told Lockett he was going to do to Hollins. By the time Lockett was in middle school, his father and Hollins had brought him back to Oklahoma. To his 8th-grade teacher - a woman whose son, Mark Gibson, would later prosecute him - he stood out as smart and likable. Lockett brightened around small children. He babysat younger family members, liked to cook for them, and carried them around on his back. He had a girlfriend whose baby had Down syndrome, and he was the only person who could always make the little girl smile. But he also spent a lot of time trying to act tough, and racked up charges including burglary and intimidating a witness. At 16, he was sentenced as an adult and sent to the Oklahoma State Penitentiary. With no one to protect him, he was raped almost immediately by 3 other inmates. When Lockett got out, at age 20, he wanted to be feared. He wanted everyone to know that if they crossed him, they'd pay. So, a few years later, when a guy named Bobby Bornt seemed to be holding out on a $40 debt for marijuana and a tattoo, Lockett got his cousin and a friend and a shotgun and went to see him. That same night, by terrible coincidence, Stephanie Neiman and a friend drove to Bornt's house in Neiman's new Chevy pickup truck, which had a Tasmanian Devil sticker and vanity plates that read Tazzz. Neiman was an only child whose parents had instilled in her a strong sense of right and wrong. She was admired by her classmates and by school administrators for her kindness and loyalty, and because of what she had overcome - she was considered "intellectually challenged" but had played saxophone in the school band and earned her diploma. Those who worked with her at the school believe she wasn't able to understand how serious the situation was that night, or what the consequences might be. Neiman and Bornt had known each other since they were young children; they'd been in the same YMCA day care. When the girls arrived at Bornt's house, Lockett and the others were already there, attacking Bornt. Neiman reacted in a way that unsettled Lockett: she seemed unafraid. He told her to hand over the keys to her truck. She said no - the truck belonged to her. Lockett and his accomplices beat up Bornt, raped Neiman's friend, and bound all 3 victims. Then Lockett led the group into Bornt's and Neiman's trucks and out of town, north into Kay County, up on the border with Kansas. The men threatened to kill the 3 victims if they reported the night's crimes to the police. Bornt and Neiman's friend swore they wouldn't, and Lockett later let them go. But Neiman refused. Her parents had taught her to tell the truth. So when Lockett asked whether she would go to the police, she said yes. Lockett asked her a final time. Then he raised the gun and fired. 23 minutes behind schedule, the blinds to the death chamber opened. Warden Trammell stood facing the witnesses. She asked Lockett whether he had any last words. "No." "Let the execution begin." Just behind Lockett's head, in the chemical room, 1 of the 3 executioners pushed the plunger on a syringe full of midazolam. The sedative went into the tubing, traveling 132 inches through the hole in the wall, into the death chamber, under the sheet, and into Clayton Lockett's groin. But not all of it went straight into his bloodstream. Somehow, the IV dislodged, and midazolam was pumped into Lockett's tissue instead of his vein. Some of the drug would make its way into his bloodstream, but the smaller dose would be less effective. Minutes passed. Lockett remained alert. He pursed his lips and blinked. He licked his lips. To Katie Fretland, he looked confused. Several more minutes passed. Lockett turned his head and looked toward the witnesses. He looked back up. Finally, he closed his eyes. In the chemical room, the executioners counted time on a stopwatch. Five minutes after they pushed the midazolam into the line, they flipped a switch and a light bulb went on in the death chamber, signaling that it was time to check whether Lockett was unconscious. Zellmer got up and checked Lockett. He was still conscious. The light went off. 2 minutes later, the light came on again - a signal to check Lockett a second time. The doctor blew in Lockett's eyes, rubbed his sternum, and pinched him. This time, he determined that Lockett was unconscious. The executioners injected a syringe full of vecuronium bromide, a paralytic, into the line. When properly administered, vecuronium bromide blocks the signals that the nervous system sends to the muscles, turning the body into a vehicle the brain no longer controls. It's as if the wire that connects them has been severed and signals can no longer pass - including the signal that says breathe. An incompletely sedated person under a paralytic might look serene, because his face muscles are paralyzed. But he's suffocating: when he tries to expand his chest and draw breath, nothing happens. The Animal Welfare Act has banned the use of paralytics without anesthesia in the euthanasia of animals. To anti-death-penalty advocates, the fact that these drugs are used in executions is revealing. If the sedative worked, why would you need to paralyze someone? They argue that the paralytic prevents us from seeing the offender's distress, so that the procedure appears clinical and painless - even if it's not. One of Lockett's executioners would later recall noticing something strange: the plunger was hard to push. He had no way of knowing that he might be injecting fluid into tissue, though, so he simply pushed harder. He heard what sounded like a moan come from the chamber. Zellmer watched Lockett, oblivious to the fact that, under the sheet, the IV was not in place. In the chemical room, the executioners administered the 3rd drug, potassium chloride. At 6:36, Katie Fretland saw Lockett move. During Lockett's trial and his early years on death row, he showed no remorse. In his letters, he posed as a member of a far-reaching criminal network. "Im an assassin - point blank!" he wrote to one friend. "You honestly think that my boys is gone let a nigga as valuable me go to the penn forever? Fucc No!" He was a terror, hiding homemade weapons in his cell and once throwing urine and excrement at a guard - anything he could do to show his disdain for authority. But in letters to his father, now also in prison, Lockett still yearned for a bond. He told his father about a girlfriend on the outside. Dad I can send her to visit you, keep me informed on how you're doing ... Dad it's a few people on my team that will be sending me money. I'm not going to be needing all that, I just really want a tube and some canteen and Im cool. Dad, I know you aint got too many people in your corner so I know you'll need some money. Give me a few months to get my stable in order and I can start sending you some ends through my girl. Gradually, the weight of his crime began to overwhelm him. He talked often with Autry, his lawyer, about what he'd done to Neiman's parents, taking away their only child. A couple of years in, he tried to kill himself. After that, he took to all the prison self-improvement pastimes: reading, painting, philosophy. Autry lent him books, and Lockett became the most well-read client the attorney had ever had. Still, there was a hollowness to Lockett's new persona, as though he had gone from posing as a gangbanger to posing as a self-educated prison sophisticate. When the time came for a clemency hearing before the pardon-and-parole board - one of his last chances for survival - Lockett declined to show up. Instead, he gave Autry a letter to read to Neiman's family. "It would be disingenuous of me to tell you that I woke up one day and suddenly felt remorse," he wrote. "Or that I found some arcane bible verse that miraculously inspired me to change. The truth is not so simple as that." He told them that for him, remorse had been slow, but debilitating. "I want you to know that if by me relinquishing my life you find solace in my death & can one day find the strength to forgive me then I am okay with this." Right up to the very end, Lockett pretended he actually had some control. To Warden Trammell, it looked as though Lockett was trying to communicate something. He kicked his right leg. He began to breathe heavily. He clenched his teeth. He rolled his head. Then he tried to speak. My God, Trammell thought. He's coming out of this. Lockett lurched up against the restraints. While the witnesses looked on, he started writhing as if trying to free himself, to get up off the gurney. He struggled violently, twisting his whole body. Autry, sitting in the viewing area, couldn't believe it; next to him, Dean Sanderford, Lockett's other lawyer, began to cry. Lockett got his whole head up off the gurney, as far as the restraints would let him go. He kept trying to speak but couldn't form the words, and he rolled his head back and forth. Zellmer watched the monitor. The potassium chloride was supposed to stop Lockett's heart immediately, by disrupting the electrical charge that causes the heart muscles to contract. But although Lockett's heart was slowing, it kept beating. The normal resting heart rate for an adult is between 60 and 100 beats per minute. Lockett's dropped into the 20s. From the waves on the screen, it looked like his heart muscles were starting to fire erratically. The doctor thought Lockett might be starting to seize. But he still felt uncertain of his role, and hesitated to intervene. >From the chemical room, the paramedic heard someone say, "He's trying to get off the table!" Finally Lockett managed to speak: "Man." Zellmer had seen enough. He came to the gurney and lifted the sheet. Underneath, he saw a protrusion almost the size of a tennis ball on Lockett???s groin. >From the viewing area, Katie Fretland could see the doctor's face for the 1st time, and his expression was clear: Oh, fuck. Another witness saw Lockett open his eyes and look right at the doctor, like something out of a horror movie. The warden glanced under the sheet and noticed what looked like blood and clear liquid pooled around Lockett's groin. She looked up and addressed the witnesses: "We're going to lower the blinds, temporarily." >From the chemical room, the paramedic heard someone say, "He's trying to get off the table!" She came into the death chamber as the doctor was trying to figure out how to finish the execution. "I need to get another IV in the left femoral," Zellmer told her. She swabbed Lockett's groin with a sterile pad. "Take deep breaths," the paramedic told Lockett, in case he could hear her, while Zellmer pushed the short needle back into Lockett's groin. Blood squirted all over Zellmer, so much of it that it soaked his jacket. "You've hit the artery," the paramedic said. "It'll be all right," Zellmer told her. "We'll go ahead and get the drugs." Did he intend to put drugs in an artery? The paramedic didn't want to countermand the doctor's authority, but that made no sense. "We've got to get the vein," she said. The doctor pulled out the needle. Lockett mumbled incoherently. His heart rate dropped into the teens as more of the potassium chloride that had been pumped into his groin seeped into his bloodstream. Eventually, the doctor and the paramedic stopped what they were doing. The warden asked whether it would be possible to resuscitate Lockett. Zellmer said he could start CPR, but that in order to save him, they'd have to take him to an emergency room. This further confused the paramedic. He's dying, she thought. Isn't that why we're here? Stephanie Neiman's family was in shock. After the blinds came down, prison staff took them to a rec room and tried to console them. While Neiman's mother, Susie, wept, someone from the state attorney general's office tried to explain what had happened, something about Lockett's heart and a vein exploding. Susie said she wanted to go into the chamber and touch Lockett; otherwise she couldn't know for sure that her daughter's killer was dead. Fretland and the other reporters felt almost as stunned. In the viewing area, a black telephone she hadn't noticed before started ringing. Robert Patton, the Oklahoma Department of Corrections director, picked it up and left the room, pulling the phone cord out into the hall and closing the door behind him. Warden Trammell was calling from the death chamber. Patton asked her, "Has enough drugs been administered to cause death?" He heard Trammell repeat the question. He heard the doctor say no. "Is there another vein available, and if so do you have another set of chemicals back there?" Again, Trammell repeated the question; again the doctor said no. "I wanna be real clear with this, Warden, and I want you to ask the doctor specifically. Has enough drugs entered the inmate's system to cause death?" A 3rd time, he heard Trammell repeat the question. A 3rd time, the answer was no. Patton hung up the phone and huddled in the hallway with the state secretary of safety and security and 2 members of the attorney general's office. Someone briefly floated the idea of using the drugs reserved for Charles Warner's execution. Patton spoke on the phone with the governor's general counsel, Steve Mullins, in Oklahoma City. Mullins asked Patton, "Do you want to stop the execution?" "Yes." "You have the authority to stop the execution," he told Patton. When they hung up, Mullins called the governor - the basketball game was now an hour from tip-off - to brief her. At 6:56, a call came in to the death chamber. Patton had instructions for the warden. He said something like "stand down," which Trammell didn't quite understand. "Do you mean to stop?" Yes, he said, stop the execution. "I believe the death penalty is an appropriate response and punishment to those who commit heinous crimes," Oklahoma Governor Mary Fallin said at a press conference the day after Lockett's execution. 10 minutes later, at 7:06 p.m., Clayton Lockett was declared dead. He had been dying amidst all the chaos, just very slowly and in apparent agony. The next day, Governor Fallin gave a press conference to remind everyone about Lockett's crimes, voice her support for the death penalty, and announce an investigation into what had gone wrong. Later in the week, a reporter asked President Obama about Lockett's execution. Obama called the events "deeply troubling." He maintained his support for the death penalty but added, "We do have to, as a society, ask ourselves some difficult and profound questions" about how it is applied. Mark Gibson, the prosecutor, doesn't consider what happened to Lockett a tragedy. "If there is ever somebody who deserved it, it was him," he says. 2 separate autopsies were conducted. The results of one suggested that Lockett's struggles against the restraints had been so violent that they'd caused blunt-impact injuries. Neither autopsy explained why it had taken the doctor and the paramedic so many tries to place an IV; there was nothing wrong with Lockett's veins. The pathologists also found that the amount of midazolam that had made it into his bloodstream should have been enough to render him fully unconscious. An attorney for Lockett's family, David Lane, filed a lawsuit in federal court against Governor Fallin, prison officials, and Zellmer, as well as the unidentified paramedic and executioners, 2 drug manufacturers, and 2 compounding pharmacies for violating the Eighth Amendment and standards of international law. Lane characterizes what happened to Lockett as "human experimentation." The named defendants have filed motions to dismiss, which, as of this writing, are still before the court. (The Oklahoma Department of Corrections declined to grant interviews for this article, citing the pending litigation.) Charles Warner's execution had been delayed that night, and it was delayed 2 more times while the state finished investigating Lockett's execution, and while officials tried to find more drugs. In July, Arizona used midazolam in the execution of Joseph Wood. He took nearly 2 hours to die, and witnesses reported that he gasped throughout. Lawyers for Warner and 3 other men on death row asked the U.S. Supreme Court to review Oklahoma's lethal-injection method. They also asked for a stay while the Court decided whether to take the case. On the night of Warner's execution, January 15, 2015, the Court still had not ruled on the stay request. The execution was delayed by an hour as the justices made their decision. They were 1 vote short of the 5 needed to grant a stay. Witnesses said Warner didn't appear to be in any pain, but after the midazolam was administered, he said, "My body is on fire." He died in 18 minutes. The next week, even though Warner, the lead petitioner, was now dead, the Supreme Court decided to consider the challenge to Oklahoma's lethal-injection method. Oral arguments were scheduled for April 29, the 1-year anniversary of Lockett's death. Warner's co-complainants have been granted stays until the Court decides the case or Oklahoma changes its execution method. Then - U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder recommended that all states stop executions, at least until the Court issues its ruling. That decision is expected in June. (source: Jeffrey Stern, The Atlantic) From rhalperi at smu.edu Wed May 13 10:49:46 2015 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Wed, 13 May 2015 10:49:46 -0500 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----ORE., USA Message-ID: May 13 OREGON: Mom accused of murdering her 2-year-old daughter and slashing her 13-year-old child's throat in motel smiles in court as defense claims she's 'lost her mind' Jessica Smith, 41, allegedly murdered 2-year-old daughter Isabella Smith in an Oregon hotel room on July 29 She also allegedly slashed the throat and wrists of eldest daughter, 13 She was under court order to return the girls to estranged husband Greg Smith the day they were discovered in the hotel room Her lawyers claim she suffered a 'disordered mental state' at the time She's on trial murdering her 2-year-old daughter and allegedly attempting to kill her eldest child as part of a custody dispute, but Jessica Smith gave a smile to the cameras as she appeared in court on Tuesday. The Oregon mom, 41, is accused of dosing up her 2-year-old daughter Isabella on over-the-counter antihistamines in a Canon Beach hotel room on July 31 and then drowning the girl in the bath, before slashing the throat and wrists of her 13-year-old daughter Alana and fleeing. Alana - who survived the alleged attack and was found by a cleaner who called police - told investigators her mother had cut her with a razor blade. Smith has pleaded not guilty to charges of aggravated murder and attempted aggravated murder, and defense team claim she suffered a 'disordered mental state' at the time. Because of the mental illness the defense claim Smith suffers from, her lawyers say the prosecution should discount the death penalty, according to Oregon Live. 'The death penalty should be categorically barred by the Eighth Amendment, and certainly abolished for persons suffering from severe mental illness at the time of the offense,' wrote Lynne B. Morgan, one of Smith's defense lawyers. In January the prosecution said they had not decided whether to push for the death penalty. Then in March they said the defense had provided any evidence as to Smith's supposed mental illness. Smith went missing after the alleged attack on her daughters. Police found both girls in a bed in n Room 3302 of the Surfsand Resort on August 1. She was then found in her car 2 days later off a remote coastal logging road and arrested. According to police affadavits seen by Oregon Live, Alana told medics that her mother had drowned her sister and slit her throat and wrists with a razor blade, as she was being flown to Portland's Doernbecher Children's Hospital. A detective also claims the youngster told him her mother used a numbing agent on her neck. Smith and her husband had separated in April. The daughters allegedly did not want to return to their father's custody, so the violence was, according to a court affidavit was a way to 'get out of it'. She was in the middle of a bitter divorce with husband Greg Smith at the time, and was supposed to hand her children over to him that day. KPTV reported Smith's husband, Greg Smith, 'filed to end their marriage on June 30'. She then filed a restraining order against him on July 17. Smith was under court order to return the girls to him the day they were discovered in the hotel room. Smith has pleaded not guilty to the murder of Isabella and has denied slashing the neck and wrist of Alana. The judge said the trial will now begin on June 28. Greg Smith requested a mental evaluation for Jessica Smith from the court after she missed a June 23 court hearing, reports Oregon Live. He had received strange text messages from his estranged wife that concerned him. It is not known if Jessica Smith was suffering from a psychological issue. Smith's brother Nathan Judd revealed to KPTV that she visited him in southern Medford, Oregon, last year, bringing her 2 daughters along and seemed in good spirits. Judd said Smith was 'super happy and outgoing, all smiles' but 'sensed a lot of fear' in her as well. She admitted to struggling with the divorce and asked for a place to keep her pets. 'I can't imagine that my sister would ever do something like that,' Judd said of the murder charges. 'She had a heart of gold, and growing up, she never harmed anyone or anything and never spoke of such a thing.' Police began hunting for Jessica Smith after her two children were found by housekeeping at the Surfsand Resort, Oregonlive.com reported. 'Housekeeping at the hotel had found a 13-year-old child that had critical cuts and a deceased infant,' Schermerhorn said in a release. The 13-year-old, later identified as Alana Smith, was flown to a hospital, he said. Police earlier said Smith may be in 'a Gold 2007 Chevy Suburban with WA license plate APX3141 associated with the incident.' 'Our hearts go out to the family and it's always hard when there's children involved,' Schermerhorn said in a Friday press conference. Schermerhorn told reporters Smith checked into the Surfsand Resort on July 30, and the 2 girls were discovered Friday morning at 9:40am. There were no signs of forced entry into the hotel room, he said. Schermerhorn said he could not provide a time of death for the baby girl. Alana went into surgery, he told reporters. The attack on Alana Smith is being ruled an attempted homicide. 'We don't know at this time what [weapons were used],' Schermerhorn said. (source: Daily Mail) USA: Beyond the death penalty After the defense and the prosecution had rested their cases in the penalty phase of the federal trial to either kill or imprison Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, a panel of death penalty abolitionists gathered at Old South Church in Boston. Old South Church stands at the finish line of the Boston Marathon and is less than 100 yards east of the detonation point of the 1st pressure cooker bomb, the one placed by Tamerlan Tsarnaev. The 2nd bomb, the one placed by Dzhokhar and which detonated 12 seconds later, lies one block farther west. I arrived a half-hour early for the panel discussion, in case seating was a problem, but I needn't have worried. The only immediate concern I had was how I was going to see anything. It must be some cost-saving measure in churches that they only use 40-watt bulbs, or perhaps it is to do with the atmospherics. I managed to find myself an altar boy seat off to one side of where the panel would sit so I would at least be close. To warm myself up for the talk I sketched the table and plethora of media microphones. You have to love working in ballpoint for making you decisive. By the time I was done, the chapel had filled, and the speakers took their seats. If anyone in the world had the right to vengeance via state-sanctioned murder, it is this panel of speakers. New Hampshire state representative Robert Renny Cushing chaired the discussion. His father, Robert Cushing, was shot to death on his own front doorstep in 1988. Julia Rodriguez's brother Greg died in the World Trade Center attacks. Bob Curley's son Jeffrey was abducted and killed in 1997. And Bud Welch's daughter Julie died in the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995. Bud Welch spoke first. Bud's daughter was 23 years old and working as a linguist in the Murrah Federal Building in April of 1995. "The bombing happened on a Wednesday morning and her body was not found until Saturday morning," he said. She had just visited the front desk to meet a Mexican man who spoke no English, and was walking back to her desk with him when the bomb exploded. "If it had happened a few seconds later she would have been back in her department again." All of her co-workers in the back of the building survived the blast. "I have thought about those few seconds a lot," he said. After "self-medicating" himself with alcohol for almost a year Bud visited the bomb site as he had every day since she had died, and thought, "I have to do something different because what I am doing isn't working." At first Bud's need for revenge fueled him. In the days after the bombing he hoped that someone would shoot Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols dead. "On a Monday morning, at 7 a.m. on June 11, 2001, in Terre Haute, Indiana, we took Tim McVeigh from his cage," he said, "and we killed him." In the months and years since the attack, Bud's opinion of the death penalty has changed. He believed that the attack on the Federal Building had been driven by "revenge and hate." He wanted to send his vengeance in a different direction. "Shortly afterwards, I started speaking out against the death penalty," he said. Terry Nichols will spend the rest of his life in prison. Next to speak was Bob Curley. Bob's son was 10 years old and playing in the front yard of his grandmother's home in 1997 when Sal Sicari and Charles Jaynes abducted him. "2 weeks prior they had stolen his bicycle. On that day they drove by and said, 'Jeff, come with us. We are going to get you a new bicycle.' He got in the car with them," he said, looking down at his hands clasped on the table. The 2 men then attempted to coerce Jeff into having sex with them by offering money and a new bike. "But my Jeff knew right from wrong." Mr. Curley said. At least 1 of the men sexually assaulted Jeffrey before they suffocated him with a gasoline soaked rag, placing his body in a concrete-filled plastic container dumping it in a river in Southern Maine. Police divers found his body 6 days later. "Given what happened to Jeffrey, I honestly don't know if I could feel any other way than to be in favor of the death penalty," he said, gazing at the assembled crowd with eyes like hardened flint. Mr. Curley became a staunch advocate for the death penalty, leading the fight in Massachusetts to bring it back. As years went by, though, Mr. Curley began to realize that he felt pressured to be in favor of the death penalty because of his son's death, and that he felt obligated by society to want to kill the men who had done this. "So much anger," he said, "but all the time thinking that maybe it (death penalty) wasn't all it was cracked up to be." Both Sicari and Jaynes were convicted of the murder of Jeffrey. Sicari is now serving life without parole, while Jaynes is serving life with the possibility of parole after 23 years. Next to speak was Julia Rodriguez. Julia said it was her first time ever talking publicly about her brother's death. Her talk was halting and distracted at times by memories.. "There is just so much pain, and it is impossible to find answers," she said. After the attacks Julia joined other family members of 9/11 victims in opposing the death penalty for Zacarias Moussaoui, the only person convicted in connection with the attacks. Moussaoui is serving a life sentence without the possibility of parole at the same Federal Supermax prison in Colorado that Dzhokhar may go to. "The death penalty is seen as an easy answer," she said, "but it is harmful to us to be complicit in a conscious act of violence and death." State Rep. Cushing was the last to speak to the small gathering. Cushing lost his father in June of 1988 when Robert McLaughlin, an off-duty police officer, and his wife, Susan, bent on avenging an earlier incident, shot him at his front door with a shotgun checked out of the police evidence locker. 10 years earlier, Cushing's father had witnessed Officer McLaughlin assault an elderly woman while on duty. Cushing said he had always been staunchly against the death penalty. He recounted an incident in a local grocery store after his father had been killed. "An old family friend said to me, 'I hope they fry the bastards.'" His friend, who had known him for years, assumed that he would change his opinion on capital punishment because of his father's murder. "But I realized that if I changed my position, that would only compound the problem," he said. "If we let those who kill turn us into murderers, evil triumphs and we are all worse off." Robert and Susan McLaughlin were convicted of the murder of Robert Cushing and are serving sentences of life imprisonment without parole. "Sometimes people will think you must be a psycho or a saint, that there must be something off with you if you don't want to see this person killed," he said. In 2004, Cushing founded Murder Victims' Families for Human Rights, an organization of family members of murder victims and family members of the executed who oppose the death penalty in all cases. There was no dissent in the room, just a final call from the audience to continue the protest demonstration outside the courthouse where Dzhokhar Tsarnaev's fate will be decided. (source: Richard Johnson, Washington Post) ****************** 4 Christian Denominations With the Most Conservative Stance on Death Penalty Laws governing whether a person should be put to death for committing a serious crime vary widely from one state to the next in the United States. Alongside the differing laws, Christian denominations have expressed various viewpoints on the issue as well. Below are 4 faiths that trend toward the most conservative stances on the death penalty: 1. Assemblies of God The Assemblies of God leaves the stance on the death penalty up to individual believers, but cites both Old Testament and New Testament permissions for capital punishment. Within the Assemblies of God, there is a call for worshippers to balance the sacredness of life with the need for repentance. The church states, "These truths must be balanced with the obligation of government to protect its citizens, helping them to live quiet and peaceful lives." 2. Southern Baptists Several sects of the Baptist faith, including the Southern Baptist Convention, have weighed in on the death penalty. Leaders within the SBC have asserted the death penalty should only be used for proven cases of capital crime, as outlined in this SBC resolution, justly, swiftly, and fairly. The SBC refers to Romans 13:4 among other verses for justification of capital punishment. "For government is God's servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, because it does not carry the sword for no reason. For government is God's servant, an avenger that brings wrath on the one who does wrong," said the verse from the Holman Christian Standard Bible, the version linked from the SBC website. 3. Mormons The only Christian denomination to punt on the issue, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints' official position on capital punishment is that it is "a matter to be decided solely by the prescribed processes of civil law" and that it "neither promotes nor opposes capital punishment." 4. Evangelicals While the National Association of Evangelical is not itself a denomination, it claims that it is a "body of believers made up of over 40 denominations and thousands of individual churches, organizations, universities and individuals." Since 1973, the NAE has taken a position of instituting the death penalty for use as a deterent for "heinous crimes" and a standard as to not diminish the atrocity of said crimes. (source: Newsmax) ****************** The death penalty paradox: Will it really bring relief? Soon after police arrested the killer who blasted his father with a shotgun, in front of his mother, in the doorway of their New Hampshire home, Renny Cushing ran into an old family friend at the neighborhood grocery. "I hope they fry the bastard, so you and your mother can get some peace," the friend told Cushing, who understood the friend was "just trying to give me some comfort." Most of us simply assume that families of murder victims want the death penalty, even need it, Cushing said, to find comfort or peace or that overused cliche, "closure," which really doesn't exist. And most of us, he said, assume that families of the murdered who oppose the death penalty are either saints or misguided or perhaps deficient: maybe they didn't love their dead mother or father or child enough to crusade for justice. But Cushing, who not only lost his father but also a brother-in-law to murder, doesn't see it that way. "A ritualized killing by public employees is not going to bring back anyone who's murdered," he said. Very likely it will leave the victim's family not better off, but worse. That's what he's learned after 25 years of working with families of the murdered. Call it the death penalty paradox: the executions survivors want - particularly in the first weeks and months after the murders - can turn out not to ease their grief but keep them wrapped up, entwined, even entrapped by the minute particulars of the killer's life - and fate. Cushing spoke of all this Monday at a Boston forum during the death penalty phase in the trial of Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev. It also coincided with testimony for the defense by Helen Prejean, the Roman Catholic nun and death penalty opponent who visited Tsarnaev multiple times in jail. Although she told reporters she could not speak outside of court until after the verdict, Prejean has repeatedly said before - and detailed in her classic book, "Dead Man Walking" - what Cushing said: that executions typically fail to bring about what many hope for: a sense of justice. Instead, at a time when families need each other most, executions can divide brothers and sisters and husbands and wives between those who favor death, and those who don't. They can turn families into unwitting pawns for politicians pushing a tough-on-crime agenda. They can also, as the parents of 8-year-old Marathon victim Martin Richard have said, delay a family's ability to put the killer out of mind as death appeal after death appeal keeps him on TV and in the news, a death row celebrity. Also at Monday's forum was Robert Curley of Cambridge. His 10-year-old son Jeffrey's horrific 1997 kidnapping and murder became a rallying cry for Massachusetts politicians hoping to whip up outrage and reinstate the death penalty. Curley said he got swept up in the furor as well. He told me how he'd imagine slipping a straight-edged razor past metal detectors and courtroom officers, then leaping over the banister and slaughtering his son's killers before anyone could stop him. He said he felt an obligation to favor the death penalty since everyone around him assumed, like Renny Cushing's neighbor, that he had to - for his little boy. People would come up to me on the street, total strangers, and want to talk to about the death penalty." It got pretty angry, crazy, out of control, Curley said, "like they wanted the death penalty for somebody who just spit on the sidewalk." When Curley began to think differently about executions - mostly because of injustices he witnessed in the criminal system - he was nervous about admitting it publicly. The pressure was huge. Was he disrespecting Jeffrey? Was he letting people down? Bud Welch, whose 23-year-old daughter Julie Marie was killed in the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995, talked about similar pressures Monday. "How the court system's cure-all was to get the death penalty for Terry Nichols and Timothy McVeigh (the bombers). How that was going to solve everything for me and the other family members. But I remember very clearly June 11, 2001. In Terre Haute, Indiana, when we took Tim McVeigh from his cage and killed him, what I learned was that I was re-victimized all over again. It didn't solve anything. I struggled for many months after that and I guess my strong opposition to the death penalty is what it does and does not do for victim's families, what it does to us as human beings." After a year of rage and "self-medicating with alcohol," as Welch told me, "I decided I had to change my life and speak of tolerance and forgiveness. The death penalty is all about revenge and hate. And revenge and hate is why Julie and 167 other people are dead." Forums like Monday's are nothing new. They often are scheduled around death penalty trials, like Tsarnaev's. Welch, Curley, Cushing, and Prejean have spoken at many. I first met Prejean at a college near Boston months after Susan Sarandon played Prejean in the 1995 movie, "Dead Man Walking," which made Prejean famous. That day Prejean spoke about the death penalty as a cancer that sickens everyone around it. The "strap down teams" at death penalty prisons who rehearse the killing drill: shackling the condemned in wrist and leg irons, walking him to the death chamber, tackling and subduing him should he resist. The guards retrieve the dead prisoner's used soap and toothbrush from his cell to give to his family. One guard told Prejean it all became too much. He could not eat or sleep. Eventually, he quit his job. Prejean also talked about the families who truly believed execution would relieve or at least diminish their anguish. Vernon Harvey, the stepfather of an 18-year-old who was raped and stabbed to death, watched Faith Hathaway's killer die in the electric chair. But he felt little relief, and said the murderer didn't suffer enough. A no-nonsense military man, Harvey then became a death penalty crusader, keeping vigils at every execution at the Louisiana State Penitentiary even as he grew sickly and needed a walker. But witnessing more deaths neither provided that elusive relief nor lessened his increasing anger. Instead, Prejean said, anger seemed to be what sustained him in his crushing grief. His wife and grown children became alienated from Harvey, who died of a heart attack 10 years after he watched Faith's killer die. "We're doing these killings for the politicians while they're home asleep in their beds," Prejean told me then. "We're selling to families the idea that a 2nd, state-sanctioned murder can somehow fix the murder of the one they loved. We're telling them that executions are right and just and will help them heal. But none of it," said Prejean, "is true." (source: Margery Eagan, cruxnow.com) ******************** The choice: Justice or mercy For many years, a verse in the Book of Deuteronomy has been my guide. It reports that God instructed Moses and his followers to seek justice, only justice. Now I am convinced mercy should sometimes trump justice. In America, and in many other countries, justice requires government to protect the right of even the worst citizens to due process of legal proceedings. It also gives presidents the authority to cancel a death penalty or grant freedom from prosecution or imprisonment. President Gerald Ford used this authority, wisely I believe, to free Richard Nixon from prosecution for his role in the Watergate scandal. Mercy may have been one of Ford's reasons. 20 years ago, Timothy McVeigh was accused of killing 168 innocent people in the Oklahoma City bombing. Attorney Stephen Jones of Enid, Oklahoma, my longtime friend, agreed to be the court-appointed attorney to defend McVeigh's constitutional rights. For Jones, it was a courageous and costly decision. Although McVeigh was convicted and put to death, anti-McVeigh passions caused Jones' law practice to drop to near zero for months. On 2 occasions, Jones was my assistant and leader of my congressional staff on Capitol Hill. When President Nixon faced impeachment in the House of Representatives in 1974 for his role in the Watergate scandal, I sought support for a motion to substitute censure instead of impeachment. I had worked closely with Nixon through the years and believed removal from office was too severe a punishment. Censure is a public ordeal in which the accused is charged with dereliction of duty while standing alone in the well of the House chamber. That punishment, I believed, should suffice in Nixon's case. Whether on or off my staff, Jones' loyalty never slackened. At my request, he left his law practice in Oklahoma for 10 days to help me organize support for censure. Our effort was gaining strength when Nixon publicly admitted his abuse of the FBI for partisan purposes. It was the "smoking gun" his critics were seeking, and it shot down the drive for censure. Jones, now 74, came on the national scene again on April 13 when Time magazine published his 2-page plea for mercy for Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, born in Chechnya, Russia, who pleaded guilty to participation in the Boston Marathon bombing that occurred 3 years ago. The bombing killed 6 people and maimed severely scores of others. In a gunfire exchange with police, the youth's older brother was killed. Tsarnaev, then 18, hid for several hours in a covered boat before his arrest. He scribbled a note on the boat cover. In it, he explained why he and his brother did the bombing. It was their pathetic revenge for the killing of many fellow Muslims by U.S. government forces in recent years. In his Time article, Jones wrote: "Judy Clarke and her competent team face the greatest challenge of their illustrious careers: saving their 21-year-old client's life from the death penalty. ... Any lawyer who undertakes a similar brief must be willing to accept the emotional, personal and financial risks in so doing. But the Constitution requires that commitment of us. There are too many timid lawyers and neglected clients. Clarke and her team honor our profession by their willingness to zealously represent Tsarnaev." Jones cited Clarence Darrow's successful defense of youthful Richard Loeb and Nathan Leopold nearly a century ago in Chicago. Darrow's plea freed the pair from execution for committing the ghoulish, senseless murder of a fellow student. Noting that mercy has long outranked justice, Jones wrote that a single dissenting vote on the jury considering the death penalty will save young Tsarnnaev's life. As this article is being written, the jury is still pondering whether the young bomber will live or die. Perhaps at least 1 member reads Time magazine thoroughly. (source: Opinion; Former U.S Rep. Paul Findley of Jacksonville served in Congress 1961-83. He is the author of bestseller "They Dare to Speak Out" and 5 other books----myjournalcourier.com) **************** Death Penalty for Bomber? To the Editor: Re "Bomber Expressed Sympathy, Jury Told" (news article, May 12): I have heard that sweet Louisiana drawl of Sister Helen Prejean, the prominent death penalty opponent and the author of "Dead Man Walking," who testified that Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the convicted Boston Marathon bomber, should not be sentenced to death. I know that it deeply reflects her faith in God and in the value of human life - even for those like him who are guilty of heinous crimes. She is an example of why nuns are to be feared: They speak truth to power - in the church and in government - with faith, conviction and commitment. These are blessed and dangerous women! DAVID E. PASINSKI Fayetteville, N.Y. The writer is a former priest. (source: Letter to the Editor, New York Times) ****************** Will Aurora shooting trial serve as referendum on death penalty in Colorado?----The James Holmes trial is taking place against a backdrop of increasing ambivalence about the death penalty in America. Colorado, where the trial is taking place, has executed 1 person since 1976. When the James Holmes trial comes to a close later this summer, jurors will first have to decide whether the Aurora shooting perpetrator - who killed 12 and wounded 70 when he opened fire in a crowded movie theater - is innocent by reason of insanity, a defense many experts say is a long shot in a case this horrific. If jurors find him guilty, they'll then have to determine whether Mr. Holmes should get the death penalty, as requested by prosecutors, or life without parole. Meanwhile, jurors in another national death-penalty case will begin deliberations today as to whether Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, who was found guilty last month of all 30 counts against him in the Boston Marathon bombing case, should be put to death. Those 2 high-profile cases are taking place against a backdrop of increasing ambivalence about the death penalty in America, where national support has dropped from close to 80 % in the 1990s to 56 percent today. That ambivalence is particularly apparent in the states where the trials are taking place. The verdicts - particularly if life sentences are returned in such high-profile cases - could end up offering significant insight into shifting views on the penalty. "Both death-penalty supporters and death-penalty opponents are very interested in what will happen in these 2 trials," says Robert Dunham, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, a national nonprofit that compiles data and analysis related to the death penalty. Mr. Dunham emphasizes that both cases are extreme offenses that aren't typical of capital cases, and which makes extrapolating general conclusions from them challenging. But they also both have mitigating circumstances the juries will have to consider. "The offenses are clearly among the worst, but the circumstances surrounding the offenses are troublesome," says Mr. Dunham. "You can imagine juries in both cases returning either verdict." In Massachusetts, the death penalty has been abolished since 1984 (not a factor in the bombing trial since it's a federal case) and polls have shown a majority of Boston residents favor life without parole for Mr. Tsarnaev. In Colorado, just one person has been put to death since the death penalty was reinstated nationally in 1976, and three inmates are on death row. Democratic Gov. John Hickenlooper granted a temporary reprieve to one of those inmates in 2013, citing his concerns with the death penalty - a decision that came back to haunt him in the 2014 election, where he was ultimately reelected. "It is a penalty that has been used very infrequently; it is a penalty which the people of Colorado do have very mixed feelings about," says Karen Steinhauser, a former prosecutor and Colorado defense attorney. Still, Ms. Steinhauser emphasizes that the decision in this case will ultimately be about James Holmes and the evidence jurors are presented with. "The issue is going to be first of all, if we get to the death penalty phase, and whether the jury decides unanimously that death is the appropriate sentence," Steinhauser says. "Without regard to what the governor has done, without regard to whether other people have or have not been executed. The issue for jurors in this trial right now is to decide whether this is the appropriate sentence, given that Colorado still has the death penalty." The prosecutor in the Holmes trial, Arapahoe County District Attorney George Brauchler, has been adamant that death is the correct sentence, telling Coloradans that "justice is death" at a hearing 2 years ago. Mr. Brauchler rejected an offer by Holmes's lawyers to avoid a trial by agreeing to plead guilty in exchange for life without parole. And some of the victims and their family members in the Aurora shooting have said they think death is the only acceptable punishment. But Dan Recht, a prominent Denver defense attorney, notes that decision has meant greatly prolonging the legal process and spending millions of public money, and will take an emotional toll on jurors, witnesses, and victims. He cites the parents of 8-year-old Boston Marathon bombing victim Martin Richard, who have urged that Tsarnaev be given life without parole. "When you have victims' families urging life in prison without parole and not the death penalty, that's significant, and shows I believe a shift in how people view the death penalty," says Mr. Recht. In the Holmes trial, the mitigating factors involve mental illness. Even if the jury ignores Holmes's insanity defense, virtually everyone agrees he suffers from mental illness - a factor that further affects how Americans view the death penalty. The most recent national poll, conducted late last year, shows Americans opposing the death penalty for people with mental illness by a 2-to-1 margin. "Holmes's case raises very serious issues of mental health and the question of whether a person who is so extremely mentally ill should be the subject of the death penalty," says Dunham. Given the constraints on jury selection, neither jury - and particularly the one in Boston - is actually reflective of the conscience of the community, Dunham says. All of which could make a life-imprisonment verdict, if it happens in either case, particularly noteworthy. "If [Holmes] isn't given the death penalty, I believe that will hasten the day in Colorado when the death penalty is abolished," says Recht. But no matter what the verdict in the Holmes case is, he believes that day will eventually come. "In Colorado, the death penalty's death is a foregone conclusion," he says - whether by legislature, court decision, or ballot initiative. Still, polling in the state suggests a large majority of Coloradans (69 % in a poll 2 years ago) support the death penalty, and Hickenlooper took extreme criticism over his decision to grant a reprieve to inmate Nathan Dunlap, the death row inmate who killed 4 employees at a Chuck E. Cheese restaurant. It was a factor that nearly cost him reelection. When he announced his decision to seek the death penalty, Brauchler said his office had polled more than 800 people connected to the shooting. With Hickenlooper's decision that no death-row inmate will be executed during his governorship, Colorado has joined Washington, Oregon, and Pennsylvania as states that have capital punishment on the books but have some sort of governor-imposed moratorium. "Historically, Coloradans are not viewed as vindictive people, and they don???t have a reputation for blood lust in prosecutions," says Dunham. Nationally, opinion of the death penalty has been affected by increasingly publicized concerns about innocence, fairness, reliability, and cost of imposing the death penalty, he says - all of which could play into the decisions of jurors even when they support capital punishment. "What makes both Aurora and Boston interesting for observers to watch is that they both have compelling reasons for death verdicts, and they both have compelling reasons for life verdicts," says Dunham. (source: Christian Science Monitor) From rhalperi at smu.edu Wed May 13 10:50:34 2015 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Wed, 13 May 2015 10:50:34 -0500 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide Message-ID: May 13 RUSSIA: Russian State Duma refuses to institute capital punishment for terrorism Russia's State Duma has rejected in the 1st reading on Tuesday the initiative of member of the Liberal Democratic Party faction Roman Khudyakov on instituting capital punishment for terrorism. The lawmaker suggested making relevant amendments to articles 78, 83, 87, 88 and 205 of the Russian Criminal Code. In his opinion, "there's a considerable gap in the criminal legislation between the degree of social danger of the crime committed and the punishment for it." "More than 1/2 of citizens support the institution of the death penalty for terrorism, while the criminal legislation doesn't envisage capital punishment for it," Khudyakov said, ITAR TASS reports. However, the State Duma Committee on Civil, Criminal, Arbitration and Procedural Legislation spoke against the amendments. The committee concluded that the concept of the initiative ran counter to the current legislation and Russia's international commitments, specifically, Protocol No.6 to the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms concerning the Abolition of the Death Penalty. (source: Russia.Az) MALAYSIA: Sabah's death row inmates in prison since the 1990s----Sabah Prison Director says this is due to executions being called off for some reason or other. It has been quiet for quite a while since the last execution was carried out in Sabah. Those in death row have been languishing in prison since the 1990s as a result of executions being called off for some reason or other. Sabah Prison Director Abdul Basir, while confirming this, attributed the virtual "moratorium" on death sentences to the need "to allow inmates to exhaust all their legal remedies before executions can be carried out". Prison Department Director-General Zulkifli Omar however chipped in that Malaysia has not stopped executing hardcore criminals at least, both local and foreign, but they may not have been publicised as in Indonesia recently. "Like Indonesia, we will not succumb to foreign pressure. Foreigners are not exempt from the death penalty." He disclosed, without giving any breakdown, that currently there were 1,043 death row inmates nationwide. "We don't have offhand the number of foreigners in death row but there have been executions of foreigners." Their comments come in the wake of Suhakam's Roundtable Discussion in Kota Kinabalu since Monday on the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (CAT) which Malaysia has refused to sign for more than 2 decades. Malaysia, continued Zulkifli, has for example the mandatory death penalty by hanging for drug trafficking in contrast to Indonesia's execution by firing squad. "Capital punishment is mandatory for murder, terrorism-related offences, robbery with firearms and firearms possession, kidnapping and ransom." "Ultimately, foreign nationals would come to know of our laws (on the death penalty) and respect them." Abdul Basir, resuming, disclosed that death sentences in Sabah would not be carried out unless they received the consent and signature of the Governor. "When it comes to death sentences, there are several steps to be carried out including finally the Governor's consent and signature." Moderator Commisioner Aishah Bidin raised the issue of many death row inmates in Sabah being subject to long periods of incarceration, causing mental torture. "Anytime, a prison officer could come in and tell them that their time has come." "The right to life is the highest form of right and the decision to kill a criminal because of the lives taken would not make the government any better." Suhakam Vice Chairman Khaw Lake Tee feels that the government should sign CAT without waiting to amend the laws on the death penalty. "They keep saying that we have the penalty in our books and we need to amend them before signing CAT. It's not necessary." "The government has been giving the same excuse each time when the death penalty is raised. CAT is one of nine core international treaties." The participants at the roundtable which came from government, enforcement agencies, NGOs and individuals, also discussed torture, caning, whipping and other methods of punishment like community service. (source: Free Malaysia Today) PAKSITAN: 3 More To Be Hanged In Machh Jail The Balochistan Home Department issued the black warrants of 3 condemned prisoners in Central Jail Machh. Sources in the Home Department told that the black warrants of condemned prisoners were sent to the Machh jail administration on Monday for execution. The condemned prisoners include Muhammad Musa, Ali Gul and Akhtar Muhammad. The Jail Superintendent had been asked to fix the date for execution of the condemned prisoners within 7 days. Superintendent Machh Jail Ishaq Zehri told DawnNews that Akhtar Muhammad from Killa Abdullah district would be executed on May 19, while Muhammad Musa and Ali Gul would be hanged on May 20. The mercy petitions of the prisoners were rejected by President Mamnoon Hussain previously. The condemned prisoners were convicted by anti-terrorism courts in Quetta for various murder cases. (source: thenewstribe.com) ************** Death row: Reply sought in plea for legal aid to Pakistanis held abroad Lahore High Court (LHC) on Tuesday granted time to the federal government until June 15 to reply to a petition seeking directions for the government to defend Pakistanis on death row in the Middle East. The judge observed that the court would start proceedings at the next hearing even if the government did not submit a reply. Barrister Sarah Belal, counsel for the Justice Project Pakistan (JPP), submitted that in December 2014, the court had directed the Ministry of Interior, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of Overseas Pakistanis and the Bureau of Immigration & Overseas Employment to submit para-wise replies to the issues raised in the petition but they had not abided by the court orders. She said 8,597 Pakistanis were imprisoned abroad. Of them, 4,357 are incarcerated in the Middle East alone, she said. Belal said, "Since October we have seen 23 executions of Pakistanis in Saudi Arabi. Other countries are making representations to the Gulf states for their prisoners, but our country is exhibiting a lackadaisical attitude towards the lives of its citizens abroad." The JPP had filed a petition in the LHC on behalf of the families of Pakistani migrant workers facing execution in the Middle East. The petition includes the families of those whose loved ones had been recently beheaded in Saudi Arabia. Belal said there had been longstanding concerns about the criminal justice system in the Middle East, falling short of international standards of fair trial - especially in death penalty cases. "Pakistani migrant workers imprisoned in the Middle East are at the mercy of local courts with no access to lawyers, impartial translators and counsellor assistance from the Pakistani diplomatic missions," she said. She said such Pakistanis faced punishments due to lack of understanding of the legal process, inability to communicate directly with the court and having no mechanisms of producing evidence from Pakistan in their defence. She requested the court to direct the government to defend Pakistanis languishing in Middle East jails. (source: Express Tribune) INDONESIA: Veloso's Indonesian lawyers meet with DOJ officials Mary Jane Veloso's lawyers from Indonesia met with Philippine Department of Justice (DOJ) officials on Tuesday to discuss her case. Her lawyers said they will do everything they can to have her death sentence lifted. One of her lawyers, Rudyantho, said he remains optimistic about the case of Veloso. "I come here to try to find out how to help Mary Jane... We try to do our best for Mary Jane," he said. According to Rudyantho, they also discussed how the charges against Veloso's alleged recruiters, Kristina Sergio and Julius Lacanilao, can be used to plead her case. "We just try to find out the real story, what happened in Kuala Lumpur when Sergio recruited her to Kuala Lumpur then send her to Indonesia," the lawyer said. "My target is how we can cancel the death penalty," he added. Veloso's lawyers will fly back to Indonesia on Thursday. Veloso was meted the death penalty in Indonesia for bringing in 2.6 kilograms of heroin from Malaysia in 2010. She was scheduled to be executed via firing squad at midnight on April 29 but was granted a last-minute reprieve by Indonesian authorities after Sergio turned herself over to Philippine police (source: ABS-CBNNews) ******************** Robert Ellis murder: Indonesian prosecutors call for 15 years' jail for wife ---- Prosecutors could have pushed for the death penalty but instead ask for 15 years with deductions for time already served The wife of the murdered British-Australian businessman Robert Ellis should be jailed for 15 years for orchestrating the hit, Indonesian prosecutors have argued. Noor Ellis admits she approached 5 men to take care of her problems with her husband in Bali. They ambushed him in his villa, slashed his throat and dumped his corpse in a ditch last October. Prosecutors could have pushed for the death penalty for premeditated murder. Ellis, known also as Julaikah Noor Aini, cried when the court heard the recommendation on Tuesday. Prosecutor Made Dipa Umbara said time already served since the crime should be deducted from a 15-year sentence. "The defendant's actions caused the victim's death," he said. Factors weighing in Ellis's favour were her regret, her admission and her previous lack of convictions, he said. Prosecutors also recommended 15 years for 2 of the men involved, Urbanus Yoh Ghogi and Yohanes Sirokudu. Robert Ellis, 60, was set upon in his kitchen by 5 men who slashed his throat "like killing a pig", police said at the time. His wife of 25 years admitted to hatching a plan to "teach him a lesson" after being denied a divorce. Police allege she paid about $15,000 to the men, who are on trial for the same charges. 2 maids are also on trial for their part, which included cleaning up the bloody kitchen. Ellis's defence will respond to the sentence recommendation next week. 1 of Ellis's sons, Peter, said on Twitter he was shocked by the recommendation. "How can a maximum of death sentence be reduced to 15 years?" he said. "Is this a joke? I feel sick." (source: The Guardian) SAUDI ARABIA----executions 3 Yemenis beheaded in Saudi, 83 executions in 2015 Saudi Arabia beheaded 3 Yemenis for drug trafficking Wednesday, bringing to 83 the number of executions in little more than 4 months, compared with 87 all of last year. The condemned men, Eisa Ali Ahmed Hajri, Mohammed Ali Saifi and Majid Gasim al-Ahdal, were convicted of trying to smuggle hashish into the kingdom, the interior ministry said in a statement carried by the official Saudi Press Agency. They were executed in Jazan province which borders Yemen. The ministry has cited deterrence as a reason for its use of the death penalty despite criticism from human rights watchdogs. London-based Amnesty International ranked Saudi Arabia among the world's top three executioners of 2014. On a visit to Riyadh this month, French President Francois Hollande said capital punishment "should be banned," and his country is campaigning around the world for its abolition. Drug trafficking, rape, murder, apostasy and armed robbery are all punishable by death under Saudi Arabia's strict version of Islamic Shariah law. (source: Agence France-Presse) IRAN: Increase in capital executions in Iran News regarding the number of capital executions in Iran continues to be of great concern. A few days ago, I published a collection of data on the executions in the country during the month of April in the "Cronache de Il Garantista". The data is collected thanks to the work of the NGO Hands Off Cain and unfortunately the list is extensive. Between April 16 and 20 only, at least 20 prisoners have been executed for crimes related to drugs dealing in various cities in Iran. Iran's Constitution is based on the Islamic law: "Islamic law is the essential source for all branches of law", among which social and civil legislation. Hanging is the preferred method to aply Sharia law in Iran. For the loop a strong rope or a steel wire is used, placed around the neck so as to crush the larynx, causing a prolonged death struggle with severe pains. A few days ago, also the United Nations condemned the practice. The reports presented by the Special Rapporteurs coordinated by Ahmed Shaheed to the United Nations in Geneva on May 8th, state: "The Iranian Government refuses to recognize the full extent of the executions that took place in the country, showing a callous disregard both for human dignity and for international law and human rights". Based on reports in our possession, no less than 98 prisoners were executed between April 9 and 26, with an average of 6 executions per day. This latest mount in executions brings the number of victims, from January 1st to today, at over 340, among whom 6 political prisoners and 7 women. (source: radicalparty.org) ENGLAND: Priti Patel refuses to say whether she wants to bring back death penalty----Priti Patel, the new employment minister, is pressed on her views on the death penalty after previously suggesting it would act as a deterrent to murderers and rapists Priti Patel, the new employment minister, has refused to say whether she still wants to bring back the death penalty as a deterrent to crime. In September 2011 Ms Patel told the BBC's Question Time programme that she would support the reintroduction of the death penalty because she believed it would act as a deterrent to crime. "I have said this before and I say this again: I do think that when we have a criminal justice system that continuously fails in the country and where we have seen murderers and rapists ... reoffend and do those crimes again and again I think that's appalling," she said. "On that basis alone I would support the reintroduction of capital punishment to serve as a deterrent." During an interview on Sky News about new employment figures, Miss Patel was pressed repeatedly about her views on the death penalty. She said her views were "not relevent" to the debate about employment figures, and that she had made the comments "a long time ago". She said: "I made a comment that it would only be appropriate when we have the most horrendous and heinous crimes. It is not something that is relevent to today's political debate or discourse at all. Michael Gove, the new Justice Secretary, also called for the return of the death penalty as a newspaper columnist. Mr Gove said he supported the return of the noose out of "respect for democracy", and because it would force the courts to act with "scrupulous fairness". Writing in the late nineties as a Times columnist, Mr Gove also strongly criticised the Stephen Lawrence inquiry for being marred by "McCarthyism" and bearing the "whiff of Salem". The inquiry accused the Metropolitan Police of institutionalised racism. Mr Gove has not repeated the comments in nearly 20 years. Priti Patel's exchanges on the death penalty in full Presenter: One thing that came up yesterday is both you and Michael Gove have both advocated bringing back the death penalty in the past. Is that something you want to do now? Priti Patel: I've been asked about this previously on a number of occassions. I made a comment that it would only be appropriate when we have the most horrendous and heinous crimes. It is not something that is relevent to today's political debate or discourse at all. I am very much focused in my job as employment minister supporting what we do when it comes to growing our economy and getting more people back into work. Presenter: It is appropriate to ask do you still believe it. Priti Patel: I've told you already, exactly when that comment was made a long time ago... Presenter: It wasn't that long ago, it was on Question Time. Priti Patel: I'll say it again it was made a long time ago and it is not relevant to today's debate. Presenter: But do you still believe it? Priti Patel: I said it back then, when I was asked a question. It is not relevant to today's political debate and the subject I am here to discuss with you. Presenter: But why are you not willing to say whether you believe something? Priti Patel: Because I am here to talk about employment today. (source: The Telegraph) AUSTRALIA: Palmer seeks end to death penalty help A bill to prevent police and intelligence officers from sharing information with foreign governments that leads to the death penalty will be introduced to parliament on May 25. Palmer United Party leader Clive Palmer has been given an opportunity to move his private member's bill by the lower house's selection committee. Under the bill, police or other officials could be jailed for directly or indirectly disclosing information to other countries that might lead to the death penalty. It follows the executions of Bali 9 ringleaders Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran. The Australian Federal Police gave information to Indonesian officials about the Bali 9, which led to their arrests for drug smuggling. (source: 9news.com.au) NIGERIA: Group Advocates Death Penalty For Corruption An Abuja-based nongovernmental organisation, Voice of the Voiceless has advocated that the federal government should attach death penalty as capital punishment for corruption in Nigeria. Speaking to journalists during a march against corruption yesterday in Abuja, the group's president, Comrade Oliver Ezeama, said they staged the campaign advocating for death penalty for corruption because it is destroying the nation speedily, saying they want it to be killed from its root instead of just being managed. Ezeama said the nation has tried to fight corruption through various methods in the past to no avail, adding that some set of people are busy feeding fat on proceeds of corruption to the detriment of the larger society. He said: "Look at other African countries progressing; countries that Nigeria started with; they are far ahead of us and we are still behind. All these countries that are far ahead of us do not have oil or natural resources as much as we do but they are all progressing. "These countries were able to catch up and overtake Nigeria because they embraced transparency; integrity and dignity while we have remained underdeveloped by corruption, with citizens living in penury and from hand to mouth. It is high time we see corruption as a very serious issue in this country; the menace is more serious than Boko Haram." According to him: "The nation has channeled a lot of energy into tackling or security challenge while corruption is killing the very essence of our nationhood. Boko Haram kills thousands while corruption kills millions every day. "Corruption is worse than HIV and even Ebola that is why we must develop anti-corruption policies as countries like China that stabilised their economy because of their strict action against corruption. That is why we are pushing for nothing less than death penalty because Nigerians are not scared of imprisonment, no matter the length of prison time meted out to them." (source: Leadership Nigeria) From rhalperi at smu.edu Wed May 13 14:11:46 2015 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Wed, 13 May 2015 14:11:46 -0500 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----OHIO, NEB. Message-ID: May 13 OHIO: The forgotten execution survivor In the current media focus on death penalty horrors, Romell Broom in Ohio, who survived a gruesome attempted execution in 2009, is still on Ohio's death row, seemingly forgotten after his 2-hour ordeal 6 years ago. After 30 years of protesting his innocence, Broom published his story 'Survivor on Death Row' in an attempt to raise public awareness of anomalies in his case. Ever since the 2-hour execution attempt (which the State deemed 'did not count' as 'the execution had not started yet') Broom has requested a DNA re-test. Judged at the time a 'near-enough' match to the crime, he has since discovered two non-identical DNA reports in his files, both bearing his name - one of which he had never seen before. Requests for a re-test and a retrial have so far gone unheard. 'Survivor on Death Row'----http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/380992 (source: CN) NEBRASKA: Religious leaders call for death penalty repeal; 'I hope we will choose to value life,' bishop says Local religious leaders on Wednesday called for repeal of the death penalty in Nebraska, saying it destroys the sanctity of human life and is aimed at retribution. "Public safety can be assured through other means," Omaha Archbishop George Lucas said during a news conference. 'And justice requires punishment, but does not require that those who have committed capital crimes be put to death." Nebraskans for Alternatives to the Death Penalty sponsored the news conference at the Omaha Press Club downtown. Speakers emphasized the sacredness of human life and power of redemption. "Jesus Christ did not lead a life of retribution," said the Rev. Brian Maas, bishop of the Nebraska Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. "I hope we will choose to value life and end the death penalty in Nebraska." The Very Rev. Craig Loya, dean at Trinity Cathedral in the Episcopal Diocese of Nebraska, said taking life "under any circumstance is tragic." Other religious leaders speaking included Dr. Dan Flanagan, Missouri River District Superintendent of the United Methodist Church, and the Rev. Robert Keefer of the Missouri River Valley Presbytery. Last month, by a 30-13 majority, Nebraska state senators voted to advance Legislative Bill 268, which would replace lethal injection with life in prison. For an issue that once divided reliably along partisan lines, a proposal to repeal capital punishment this time got 17 Republican votes. Now partisans on each side of the issue are preparing for a tough second round of debate, possibly beginning Friday. The most prominent death-penalty defender to emerge since the vote has been Gov. Pete Ricketts, who has said he would veto the legislation. The 30 votes the bill received in the 1st round match the number that would be needed to override a veto. In a recent interview on the death penalty, Ricketts targeted arguments that have helped sway some conservatives to the side of repeal. The governor said the death penalty is not significantly more expensive than life in prison in Nebraska, despite what studies have shown in other states. He said it costs about $50,000 a year to house an inmate, regardless of the sentence. During floor debate, several senators said they've come to oppose capital punishment because of their religious objections. The governor, who is Catholic, said he has concluded it's morally consistent to be against abortion and in favor of capital punishment. He has said, "We need to recognize there's a difference between innocent life and people who committed these heinous crimes." (source: omaha.com) From rhalperi at smu.edu Wed May 13 14:12:26 2015 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Wed, 13 May 2015 14:12:26 -0500 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide Message-ID: May 13 IRAQ: IS enforces death penalty against Maldivian recruit The militant organisation Islamic State has enforced the death penalty against a Maldivian recruit in Iraq. Haveeru reported today that the Maldivian was thrown off the top of a tall building last month. He was sentenced to death by an IS court, the newspaper reported, but the alleged offence is unclear. The Maldivian had traveled to IS-held territories in Syria in late 2014 and had gone to Iraq last month following a military offensive by the Iraqi army to recapture Tikrit. A number of Maldivians jihadis who traveled to fight in the Syrian civil war have been reported dead. Commissioner of Police Hussein Waheed in early January estimated over 50 Maldivians could be fighting in foreign wars. Most Maldivian jihadis are believed to have joined the al-Qaeda-affiliated Jabhat Al Nusra front in Syria. (source: Minivan News) From rhalperi at smu.edu Wed May 13 14:47:00 2015 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Wed, 13 May 2015 14:47:00 -0500 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----DELAWARE Message-ID: May 13 DELAWARE: Death Penalty Repeal Bill Fails to Clear House Committee A bill to abolish Delaware's death penalty has failed to clear a House committee after winning narrow passage in the Senate last month. After a 2 1/2 hour hearing Wednesday, members of the House Judiciary Committee voted 6-to-5 not to send the bill to the full House. Supporters of the bill argued that the death penalty is racially unfair, costly, morally wrong, and ineffective as a deterrent to crime. Opponents argued that capital punishment is justified as a form of punishment for 1st-degree murder. The chief House sponsor of the bill conceded in advance that it probably would not clear the committee, and that he plans to take the politically risky option of trying to suspend rules and bring the bill straight to the floor, perhaps as early as Thursday. (source: WBOC news) ******************* Committee votes down death penalty repeal----In 6-5 vote, House fails to release bill By a vote of 6 to 5, the House Judiciary Committee failed to release a bill that would have repealed the death penalty in Delaware. The 11-member committee is made up of 7 Democrats and 4 Republicans, and the vote came after nearly 1 hours of public testimony. The legislation would end capital punishment in Delaware, except for the 15 inmates already convicted and sentenced to death row. If passed, Delaware would become the 19th state without the death penalty. Senate Bill 40 was introduced March 18 by Sen. Karen Peterson, D-Stanton, and mirrors a 2013 bill she sponsored that passed the Senate 11-10. Last year's bill also died in committee. By an 11-9 vote, Senate Bill 40 was voted through the state Senate, April 2. (source: CapeGazette.com) From rhalperi at smu.edu Thu May 14 09:49:44 2015 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Thu, 14 May 2015 09:49:44 -0500 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----PENN., GA., FLA., OHIO, KY., OKLA., NEB., UTAH, ORE., WASH., USA Message-ID: May 14 PENNSYLVANIA: Jurors to mull death penalty, life term in murder case Jurors are expected to begin deliberations Thursday on whether a western Pennsylvania man convicted of killing his estranged girlfriend should be sentenced to death or to life in prison without possibility of parole. Jurors in Washington County took just 75 minutes Monday to convict 26-year-old Jordan Clemons of Pittsburgh of first-degree murder in the January 2012 slaying of 21-year-old Karissa Kunco in Mount Pleasant Township. Jurors heard testimony during the penalty phase that Clemons grew up in an abusive environment, and his lawyer also cited drug abuse, prior brain injuries and an older brother's death as mitigating factors. Prosecutors cited a protection from abuse order obtained by the victim as well as the defendant's previous criminal history. (source: Associated Press) GEORGIA: Former Chief Justice Of Georgia: Abolish The Death Penalty A former chief justice from Georgia decried capital punishment Tuesday, dubbing it "morally indefensible" and void of business sense. Norman Fletcher served on Georgia's Supreme Court from 1989-2005, and nearly 25 executions occurred in Georgia during his 15-year tenure. In that time, he voted to uphold numerous death sentences. But after receiving the Southern Center for Human Rights' Gideon's Promise Award for establishing Georgia's public defender program, Fletcher slammed the death penalty for being an unethical practice. "Capital punishment must be permanently halted, without exception," said Fletcher, who served as chief justice for 5 years. "With wisdom gained over the past 10 years, I am now convinced there is absolutely no justification for continuing to impose the sentence of death in this country." Arguing that many innocent people have been killed, Fletcher mentioned the racial disparities in who receives death sentences, as well as economic and political factors that determine if and when capital punishment is used. Since a national moratorium on capital punishment ended in 1976, the number of death row inmates has skyrocketed. As of January 1, there were 3,019 prisoners waiting to die. But Fletcher is far from the only one slamming death penalty for moral reasons. For instance, foreign manufacturers have stopped selling drugs used for lethal injections in the U.S., on the grounds that execution is unethical. Medical professionals and pharmacists are now prohibited from participating in executions, further impeding access to lethal injection drugs. And last February, Pennsylvania's governor suspended all executions, stating the "system is riddled with flaws, making it error prone, expensive, and anything but infallible." 18 states ban capital punishment altogether, while several others have imposed moratoria. As a result of national and international backlash, states are increasingly reliant on unregulated compounding pharmacies that sell non-FDA approved products. The shortage of lethal injection drugs is also pushing states to adopt alternative execution methods. Utah re-authorized the use of firing squads, and Oklahoma, which is embroiled in the lethal injection debate due to a botched execution, recently reinstated the use of the gas chamber. (source: Think Progress) FLORIDA----new death sentence Death sentence given in retired wildlife officer's murder A Florida circuit court sentenced a 24-year-old Geneva man to death Tuesday for his role in the beating death of a retired Florida wildlife enforcement officer. According to a statement from the state attorney's office out of Panama City, Florida, Circuit Court Judge Christopher Patterson sentenced Zachary Wood, of Geneva, to death following the recommendation of a Washington County jury. A jury convicted Wood of felony 1st-degree murder in late February in the death of James "Coon" Shores. The jury also found Wood guilty of burglary of a structure while armed with a gun and robbery with a gun. The statement said Assistant State Attorneys Larry Basford and Shalla Jefcoat proved to jurors that Wood and co-defendant Dillon Rafsky beat down, bound then executed the 66-year-old Shores after he found them on his property the evening of April 19, 2014. Wood and Rafsky had been driving around dirt roads in Alabama and Florida for more than a day before getting the stolen Jeep Cherokee they were driving stuck in the mud on Shores' family property. The statement also said Shores saw the vehicle and the 2 men and told them to leave telling them he would call the sheriff's office moments before he was attacked. The statement said Shores was beaten senselessly with the handle of a garden hoe, bound at the hands and feet and left face down in the grass. "They then poured a gasoline additive on his back and attempted to light him on fire," the statement said. "When that failed, one of the men took a 20-gauge shotgun from Shores' vehicle and shot him in the head." Shores was discovered later that night by his brother and a Washington County deputy who'd gone to Shore's house after his vehicle was found at the scene of a shooting with an Alabama state trooper. Wood had been arrested there after he and Rafsky were involved in an exchange of gunfire with the trooper. Both Wood and Rafsky were arrested in the area a short time later. Following Wood's conviction, jurors heard evidence as to aggravating and mitigating circumstances of the crime that would lead them to recommend to the judge a sentence of either life in prison or death. They recommended 12-0 that Wood be put to death. Patterson sentenced Wood to death for the murder charge and 100 years on both the robbery and burglary charges, to run concurrently with the murder penalty. (source: Dothan Eagle) OHIO: Ohio proposal would prohibit criminals with serious mental illness from being executed An Ohio proposal would ban the execution of killers who had a serious mental illness at the time they committed the offense. The measure introduced Wednesday was among the recommendations from a state task force that spent over 2 years studying Ohio's capital punishment law. Republican Sen. Bill Seitz of Cincinnati and Democratic Sen. Sandra Williams of Cleveland sponsored the bill. They say it wouldn't allow defendants to escape punishment. The senators say defendants still may be found guilty and imprisoned under their proposal. The measure would prohibit the execution of those who had mental illnesses such as schizophrenia or bi-polar disorder and were consequently significantly impaired in their ability to fully understand the crimes committed. Voluntary use of drugs or alcohol wouldn't constitute a serious mental illness. (source: Associated Press) KENTUCKY: Fayette County commonwealth's attorney appeals judge's decision to exclude death penalty Fayette County Commonwealth's Attorney Ray Larson has appealed a judge's decision to exclude the death penalty in a murder case scheduled for a June 1 trial. Last week, Fayette Circuit Judge Pamela Goodwine granted a defense motion to remove the death penalty from the jury's sentencing options in the upcoming trial of Trustin B. Jones and Robert Guernsey. Jones, 21, and Guernsey, 34, had faced the possibility of execution if convicted in the 2013 shooting death of Derek Pelphrey, 23, a student at Bluegrass Community and Technical College. Larson has asked Goodwine to reconsider her decision to take execution off the table. He also filed another motion that asks Goodwine for a stay or a temporary suspension of a trial in the Jones and Guernsey case until a higher court rules on the appeal. A hearing on that motion is scheduled for 1 p.m. Friday before Goodwine. "If she says she's not going to postpone the proceedings until the appellate court decides whether she can do what she did, then we would go to the Court of Appeals," Larson said Wednesday. "The attorney general would handle that part, and they would transfer it directly to the Kentucky Supreme Court for a writ of prohibition to keep her from having the trial until we get a ruling." Kim Green, as assistant public advocate for Jones, could not be reached immediately for comment about the motion to stay. In her order to exclude execution, Goodwine wrote that she had presided over more death-penalty cases than any other judge in Kentucky. But Goodwine wrote, "The death penalty is the ultimate punishment and should be reserved and sought in cases involving only the most egregious set of facts one could possibly imagine." (source: kentucky.com) OKLAHOMA: Did Oklahoma attorney general's office mislead Supreme Court on execution issue? Allegations of possible wrongdoing surface against the Oklahoma attorney general's office. According to nationally published reports, Scott Pruitt's office may have lied to the United States Supreme Court. The controversy stems from the ongoing debate over the availability of certain drugs used for executions. Pruitt has argued the state was forced to use the controversial drug midazolam because another execution drug called pentobarbital was no longer available. To support that argument, the AG's office filed a brief with the Supreme Court, which included a heavily redacted letter from a pharmacy in Texas. That pharmacy had manufactured pentobarbital for the state of Texas. Pruitt's office allegedly misrepresented that the letter had been sent to Oklahoma. An unredacted version of the letter shows that is not true. The letter was clearly sent to officials with the Texas Department of Criminal Justice and not to Oklahoma as the AG's office claimed. We contacted Woodlands Compounding Pharmacy in Texas and asked to talk to the letters author Jasper Lovoi. His attorney said without a doubt, they never sent the letter to Oklahoma. "I'm not gonna say that the AG is misrepresenting anything, but my client sent no letters to any agency in the state of Oklahoma," said attorney Jeremy Finch. In response, a spokesman for the Pruitt's office wrote, "As the Supreme Court is already aware, there was an inadvertent citation error in the state's brief. The citation error was noted in a brief to the court, and it was not an issue at oral argument. The district court's opinion contains the correct citation." "Furthermore, as referenced by some justices during oral argument, it is well-known that the availability of drugs to carry out the death penalty have been made unavailable as the result of guerrilla tactics by anti-death penalty advocates." "This should not be tolerated," said attorney Garvin Isaacs. "This is incomprehensible." Attorney Garvin Isaacs says whatever the cause of the misleading paperwork, allegations of wrongdoing against the attorney general undermine public confidence in the legal system, and if proved intentional would violate the AG's oath of office. "Nobody is above the law. Lawyers have a duty to be honest," said Isaacs. The attorney for Richard Glossip, the next inmate set to be executed by the state, also sent an email stating he does not believe this was a simple citation error. (source: KFOR news) NEBRASKA: Religious leaders, law enforcement weigh in on the death penalty State senators are moving closer to repealing the death penalty in Nebraska. A vote before the full Legislature could happen this week, and Wednesday, religious leaders and top law enforcement weighed in on the issue. "It's a very human feeling, but even the death of the offender can not bring forgiveness, it's not automatic," said Religious leaders took a stand, urging senators to pass LB 268, which would repeal the death penalty. "I think we have lots of evidence to show that the death penalty isn't effective in preventing crime or restoring justice to families or communities affected by violence," Archbishop George Lucas said. Douglas County Sheriff Tim Dunning said he won't stand by anything else. "There are some acts that are so heinous they can't be forgiven," Dunning said. "And for that the death penalty has to occur for those folks." Dunning doesn't think that a life sentence in prison promises punishment. "We'll be a few years down the line and maybe we should feel sorry for these people, let's drop the lifetime sentences," Dunning said. Dunning adds that the state judiciary system is the worst he's ever seen, saying it promotes a cycle of criminals like Nikko Jenkins. "Everyone's conservative when they're running for election, but when they get down on the floor it's show and tell," Dunning said. Lucas said the leaders support strong and clear justice, but don't think death does society any good. "We would like to think that we can stop in taking another life and still accomplish the ends of justice," Lucas said. The bill is scheduled to be considered again on Friday in the Legislature. The bill faces 2 more votes and threat of a veto by Gov. Pete Ricketts. (source: KETV news) UTAH: Utah death row inmate asks U.S. Supreme Court to hear appeal of '86 murder case "In doing so, the court eliminated [the defense attorneys'] obligation to make informed decisions, and to consult with one's client before deciding on a trial strategy," attorney Theodore Weckel wrote in his petition. "This is a particularly dangerous precedent, given that the case involves a death penalty case." The petition also asks the high court to consider whether the Utah court's 85-page opinion conflicts with the body of federal appeals court decisions which lay out the constitutional duties of defense attorneys to investigate claims of innocence and pursue a mental health defense when evidence of mental illness exists. Utah plans to file a response to the petition and has 30 days to do so. On Wednesday, however, Assistant Utah Attorney General Thomas Brunker, who handles death penalty cases, said he had not yet seen the petition and could not comment on its claims. (source: bayoubuzz.com) OREGON: Actor to speak at anti-death penalty event Oregonians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty will hold its annual social, dinner and program at 5 p.m. Friday June 12, at the Keizer Civic Center. This year???s keynote speaker will be Mike Farrell, a political and social activist best known for his portrayal of Army Capt. B.J. Hunnicutt in the TV-series "M*A*S*H" and Dr. Jim Hansen in the weekly NBC series "Providence." Farrell is president of Death Penalty Focus, a group seeking alternatives to the death penalty in California. OADP calls Oregon's death penalty a "fatally flawed public policy" that fails to deter crime, violence and murder and is expensive. Catholic teaching holds that modern means of incarceration make executions unnecessary. Also, on the program for the evening will be Danielle Fulfs, Outreach Coordinator for the Washington Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty. To register or for more information, go to www.oadp.org or call (503) 990-7060. (source: Catholic Sentinel) WASHINGTON: Man Convicted in Family Massacre Spared Death Penalty----Joseph McEnroe Sentenced to Life In Prison A Seattle jury on Wednesday spared the life of a man convicted of killing 6 members of his girlfriend's family, but sentenced Joseph McEnroe to spend the rest of his days in prison without the possibility of parole. McEnroe was convicted in March on 6 counts of aggravated 1st-degree murder the killings of his girlfriend's parents, her brother and sister-in-law, and that couple's 3- and 5-year-old children in Carnation, Washington, in 2007. Prosecutors pushed for the death penalty, but defense attorneys argued McEnroe was mentally ill. The jury could not come to a unanimous decision to sentence him to death, and he was sentenced to life in prison Wednesday, NBC station KING5 reported. McEnroe's former girlfriend, Michele Anderson is also charged in the killings and is awaiting trial. Prosecutors say she has admitted her involvement in the murders in the town 20 miles east of Seattle, which they said were the result of her family's having slighted her. According to court documents, McEnroe and Anderson were both armed when they went to the home of Anderson's parents, Judy and Wayne Anderson, on Christmas Eve. McEnroe fatally shot them both. Michele Anderson allegedly shot her brother, Scott Anderson, and his wife, Erica Anderson, several times, wounding them. McEnroe then fatally shot them both as well as their 2 children, 5-year-old Olivia and 3-year-old Nathan, according to court documents. McEnroe's lawyers argued that McEnroe was under the control of Anderson. Pam Mantle, Erica Anderson's mother, told reporters after the verdict that the pain of losing her family is still fresh. "I still go through it daily," she told reporters after the sentence was read Wednesday. "It hasn't changed in 7 1/2 years, for me. "He has no respect for anybody. He had no respect for the 2 people that were the kindest to him, which were Wayne and Judy, who took him in, and he shot them and threw them in the back yard," Mantle said. "I have nothing to say about him." (source: NBC news) USA: America's Deadliest Prosecutors----The last stubborn, bloodthirsty devotees of the death penalty. "I think we need to kill more people," Dale Cox, a prosecutor in Caddo Parish, Louisiana, said recently. He was responding to questions about the release of Glenn Ford, a man with Stage 4 lung cancer who spent nearly 3 decades on death row for a crime he did not commit. Cox acknowledged that the execution of an innocent person would be a "horrible injustice." Still, he maintained of the death penalty: "We need it more now than ever." Cox means what he says. He has personally secured half of the death sentences in Louisiana since 2010. Cox recently secured a death sentence against a father convicted of killing his infant son, despite the medical examiner's uncertainty that the death was a homicide. Rather than exercising caution in the face of doubt, Cox told the jury that, 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. The nation suffered more than 10,000 homicides last year, yet only 72 people received death sentences - the lowest number in the modern era of capital punishment. The numbers have been steadily declining for the better part of a decade. Most states are abandoning the practice in droves. Even in states that continue its use, capital prosecutions are being pursued in only a few isolated counties. What distinguishes these counties from neighbors that have mostly abolished the death penalty, in fact if not in law? Perhaps the biggest factor is the presence of a handful of disproportionately deadly prosecutors who represent the last, desperate gasps of a deeply flawed punishment regime. Most of their colleagues are wisely turning away from a practice that has revealed itself to be ineffective at deterring crime, obscenely expensive, inequitably administered, and not infrequently imposed upon the innocent. But America???s deadliest prosecutors continue to pursue death sentences with abandon, mitigating circumstances and flaws in the system be damned. Cox is one of them. Jeannette Gallagher of Maricopa County, Arizona, is another. She and two colleagues are responsible for more than one-third of the capital cases - 20 of 59 - that the Arizona Supreme Court reviewed statewide between 2007 and 2013. Gallagher recently sent a 19-year-old with depression to death row even though he had tried to commit suicide the day before the murder, sought treatment, and was turned away. She also obtained a death sentence against a 21-year-old man with a low IQ who was sexually abused as a child, addicted to drugs and alcohol from a young age, and suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder. She then sent a U.S. military veteran with paranoid schizophrenia to death row. Her response to these harrowing mitigating circumstances has not been to exercise restraint, but rather to accuse each of these defendants of simply faking his symptoms. The Arizona Supreme Court has found misconduct in three of her cases, labeling her behavior as "inappropriate," "very troubling," and "entirely unprofessional." She sent a U.S. military veteran with paranoid schizophrenia to death row. Gallagher's colleague in the district attorney's office, Juan Martinez, has a comparable record. He once likened a Jewish defense lawyer to "Adolf Hitler" and his "Big Lie," a tactic the Arizona Supreme Court deemed "reprehensible." One judge noted of Martinez: "You're at war, almost nuclear war, the minute you come up against him." The recent trial of Jodi Arias, a woman who claimed that she killed her boyfriend in self-defense, was a rare case in which Martinez failed to secure a death sentence. When defense counsel Jennifer Willmott asserted that the victim had been suicidal, he responded: "If Ms. Willmott and I were married, I certainly would say, I fucking want to kill myself." The Arizona Supreme Court has found his behavior, like Gallagher's, to constitute prosecutorial misconduct. Meanwhile, in Duval County, Florida, Bernie de la Rionda has personally obtained 10 death sentences since 2008. (He failed to secure the conviction of George Zimmerman, however, for chasing down and shooting teenager Trayvon Martin.) The Florida Supreme Court reversed three of those cases; one for law enforcement misconduct and 2 after concluding that death was too severe a punishment. That court also reversed an earlier death sentence because de la Rionda repeatedly harped about the defendant's sexual preferences and views on homosexuality, despite the trial court's warning that the evidence was irrelevant. Excessive charging in Duval County reaches all the way up to elected State Attorney Angela Corey. About one-quarter of Florida's death sentences come from Duval County even though it holds only 5 percent of the state's population. Stephen Harper, a law professor and former defense attorney, told the Florida Times-Union that Duval County has more death sentences than the much more populous Miami-Dade County due to "the simple fact ... that Angela Corey prosecutes cases that [Miami-Dade State Attorney] Katherine Rundle wouldn't touch." "Rundle's prosecutors were reluctant to put anyone on death row who had been repeatedly abused as a child," the Times-Union reported. "Corey hasn't shown the same restraint." Amicus: Making the Case A conversation with one of the lawyers who argued last month's big gay-rights case at the Supreme Court. Corey drew national attention when she transferred Cristian Fernandez, then a 13-year-old boy, from the juvenile system to adult court, where he faced up to a life sentence for the murder of his 2-year-old half brother. She did so despite his young age and the persistent sexual and physical abuse that Cristian endured as a child. Corey is also the prosecutor who sent Marissa Alexander, a woman with no criminal record, to jail for 20 years after she fired a warning shot at her horribly abusive husband that hit neither him nor anyone else. Not surprisingly, death sentences drop precipitously after these prosecutors leave office. Bob Macy sent 54 people to Oklahoma's death row before retiring in 2001. Over the past 5 years, Oklahoma County has had only 1 death sentence. Lynne Abraham secured 45 death sentences as the Philadelphia district attorney. Since she retired in 2010, the new district attorney has obtained only 3 death sentences. Joe Freeman Britt, dubbed the deadliest prosecutor in America, secured 42 death sentences during his tenure in Robeson County, North Carolina. Last year DNA evidence led North Carolina officials to release 2 intellectually disabled half brothers, Henry Lee McCollum and Leon Brown, each of whom served 30 years - with McCollum under a sentence of death - for a rape and murder they did not commit. Britt is the prosecutor who sent McCollum, a man with the mental age of a 9-year-old, to death row. Britt retired in the 1990s, and the county has imposed only 2 death sentences in the past decade. These drops underscore the degree to which prosecutors such as Dale Cox, Jeannette Gallagher, Juan Martinez, and Bernie de la Rionda are out of step with the times. 20 years ago, when support for capital punishment was at an all-time high, these prosecutors often touted their death sentences proudly, like medals of honor to display to a receptive public. Today the electorate is in a decidedly different mood. The curtain has been pulled back not just on our nation's deeply flawed application of the death penalty, but on broad swaths of the justice system. These prosecutors increasingly look irresponsible and reckless, wasteful of precious public resources, and decidedly lacking the humility or judgment required of public officials entrusted with life-and-death decisions. We can only hope that, unwittingly, their inability to temper their own bloodthirsty impulses will further illuminate the ugly truth about capital punishment, and hasten its demise once and for all. (source: Robert J. Smith is an assistant professor of law at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill----Slate.com) From rhalperi at smu.edu Thu May 14 09:50:30 2015 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Thu, 14 May 2015 09:50:30 -0500 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide Message-ID: May 14 CHINA: Kiwi drug accused Peter Gardner may know verdict in weeks A Kiwi accused of attempting to smuggle $18 million of methamphetamine out of China should know if he faces the death penalty within weeks. New Zealand-Australia dual citizen Peter Gardner claims he was duped after being arrested at Guangzhou international airport last November for carrying bags containing 30kg methamphetamine. His Australian travelling companion Kalynda Davis was arrested at the same time but later freed. Gardner, 26, potentially faces the death penalty, with law experts rating his chance of acquittal "slim". New Zealand human rights lawyer Craig Tuck, representing Gardner, said the trial had concluded and it could be a matter of weeks before a three-judge panel reached a verdict. "The verdict is expected in weeks not months but that is entirely in the hands of the judicial panel," Tuck said. If convicted, there would be a 10-day period to appeal, he said. (source: stuff.co.nz) INDONESIA: Budget 2015: Aid cut not linked to execution of Bali 9 ringleaders, Indonesia says Indonesia says it understands the reasons behind Australia's 40 per cent cut to its aid contribution and does not believe it is linked to strains in the relationship after the execution of Australian drug smugglers Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran. Indonesia says it understands the reasons behind Australia's 40 % cut to its aid contribution and does not believe it is linked to strains in the relationship. Australia cut aid across the board in Tuesday's budget, with Indonesia losing $220 million a year or about $1 billion over the forwards estimates. But Indonesia's foreign ministry spokesman Arrmanatha Nasir said he understood Treasurer Joe Hockey's reasons for cutting aid. Mr Nasir said it was not targeted at one country and did not think it was linked to the recent executions of Australian drug smugglers Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran, which led the Government to recall its ambassador to Indonesia. "3 points were made clear. First that aid given has been reduced [for] countries where they themselves provide aid," he said. "Aid is being reduced to countries where the potential economic growth for the future is bright. "Third, if I'm not mistaken, the focus is the Australian Government ... providing aid to the Pacific, which is the immediate region." Mr Nasir pointed out that Africa suffered bigger cuts and that Australia was still providing some aid to Indonesia, which he said was a sign Australia wanted to maintain relations between the countries. "That this is not directed to a single country and that has to be kept clear in our mind," he said. "And I think when compared to ... countries in Africa for example where the cuts were up to 70 %, you can see the commitment of Australia to Indonesia is still there, is still strong, and we look forward to continuing this strong partnership for the future." International relations lecturer at Binus University Don Marut said many in Indonesia could nonetheless see the cuts as a form of retaliation. "If the public in Indonesia still connect this budget cut with the death penalty of the 2 Bali 9 persons, then it makes sense," he said. "Because the timing is just close to the event and ... the Australian Foreign Minister, Julie Bishop, once said that Indonesia will get the consequences of this death penalty. "Because in the explanation we have now there is no mention about, for example, the economic situation in Australia." The ABC understands significant cuts were already being planned well before the executions. (source: radioaustralia.net) PAPUA NEW GUINEA: Death penalty has 'no place in a Christian country,' says Papua New Guinea's bishops Capital punishment has "no place in a Christian country, where true justice and mercy should prevail," the bishops of Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands said in a recent statement. "Pope John XXIII said that God's creative and is especially revealed at the moment of conception, at the beginning of a new human life," the bishops stated. "The life of every person must be respected from conception to natural death. Killing a killer violates the sanctity of every human life." (source: Catholic Culture) ZIMBABWE: 126 Zimbabwe laws marked for amendment The government has gazetted the General Laws Amendment Bill in a development that will see 126 Acts of parliament being revised in a far reaching move aimed at realigning the legislation with the country's Constitution that came into force in 2013. The Bill, which was gazetted on May 8, is a significant step towards the government's stated objective of bringing more than 400 laws into conformity with the Constitution. Major changes have been proposed in the Electoral Act; the interpretation Act; the Privileges, Immunities and Powers of Parliament as well as the Criminal Law (Codification and reform) Act. Changes in other laws update titles or names of institutions that changed from the old Constitution such as the Prisons and Correctional Service that was previously referred to as the Prisons Service and the Civil Service that was previously referred to as the Public Service. An amendment to the criminal law code, confirms the Constitutional position that a law may permit the death penalty to be imposed subject to certain restrictions; it cannot be imposed on women; it cannot also be mandatory but must allow a court's discretion and can only be imposed for murder committed in aggravating circumstances. "Accordingly, the section in the Criminal Law Code providing for the crime of murder is amended to provide that the death penalty for murder is competent only where the crime is committed in certain aggravating circumstances, and even then a court has a discretion to impose a sentence of imprisonment for life or a prison sentence of a least 20 years," adds the Bill. (source: chronicle.co.zw) IRAN----executions 10 Prisoners Executed in Iran During the past 4 days at least 10 people have been executed in Iran, according to the official Iranian sources. 1 of those executed was a woman convicted of drug related charges. 1 prisoner identified as "M. M." (44 year old) was hanged in the prison of edam2Rasht (Northern Iran) early Wednesday morning May 13, reported the Iranian state media. The prisoner was convicted of murder, said the report. Another prisoner who was hanged on Wednesday morning was "Kh. Ahmadi" (43) convicted of murder. Thi prisoner was hanged in the prison of Qazvin (Western Iran) according to the official website of the Judiciary in Qazvin province. 4 prisoners were hanged in the prison of Arak (Central Iran), and three prisoners were hanged in the prison of Hamedan (Western Iran), Tuesday morning May 12, reported the official websites of the Judiciary in the provinces of Markazi and Hamedan. All the prisoners were convicted of drug-related charges said the report. The 4 prisoners executed in Arak were identified as "Ali Y" , "Batool A." (woman), "Mansour G" and "Abolfazl M.", all convicted of drug related charges. None of the 3 prisoners executed in Hamedan were identified by name. The Iranian daily newspaper Khorasan reported about the execution of a prisoner with the initials "M. B." on Sunday May 11 in the Vakilabad prison of Mashhad (Northeastern Iran). The prisoner was convicted of murder said the report. (source: Iran Human Rights) NORTH KOREA: Revealed, North Korea's 20 crimes punishable by execution: Don't dare 'disrupt preparations for war' or commit an 'extraordinarily grave act of delinquency' More than 20 crimes including theft are punishable by death in North Korea Crimes split into two categories - mandatory and discretionary execution List emerged in wake of brutal anti-aircraft gun execution of the country's defence minister for falling asleep during a meeting Killed for falling asleep during meetings and answering back to Jong-Un Selling jewels on the black market, disrupting preparations for war and the 'extraordinarily grave act of delinquency' are among a long list of crimes punishable by death in North Korea. Under dictator Kim Jong-Un's oppressive rule, the country's residents can be executed for more than 20 different crimes, many of them ambiguous, without a fair trial. The practice of guilt by association is also used by the government to arrest not only those considered 'enemies of the state', but up to three generations of their families. The list has emerged in the wake of the brutal murder of the country's defence minister for falling asleep during military meetings and answering back to Kim. Hyon Yong-Chol, 66, who was named head of North Korea's military in 2012, was reported to have been executed in front of hundreds of bloodthirsty officials at a military camp in the capital Pyongyang on April 30. South Korea's National Intelligence Agency told politicians that Hyon was killed by an anti-aircraft gun at Kang Kon Military Academy - a method cited in various unconfirmed reports as being reserved for senior officials who the leadership wishes to make examples of. Thousands of executions have been carried out in North Korea since the 1950s, with the largest numbers in the 1990s and 2000s, according to the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH). The organisation, which represents more than 150 human rights across five continents, produced the list of crimes in a report after meeting with North Korean witnesses. Michelle Kissenkoetter, director of the FIDH Asia desk, told MailOnline: 'Many of the crimes that are punishable by death are very ambiguous. 'It's not very clear what can have you committed to execution. That lack of clarity is extremely concerning. 'The judicial system in North Korea is not transparent. Even if you are accused of a crime you are not given a fair trial.' Sokeel Park, director of research and strategy at Liberty in North Korea, an international NGO that works with North Korean defectors, said: 'There can be a huge divide between what is written in law and what happens in practice in North Korea. 'In fact it seems the law is applied in a more arbitrary and corrupt way in North Korea than any other country in the world. 'Ambiguity and arbitrariness is the rule, not the exception in North Korea, and particularly when it comes to power plays within the ruling elite, anything goes.' The crimes punishable by death are split into two categories. At least nine are guaranteed to result in execution, including kidnapping, seizing state property and theft of private property. The punishment for making counterfeit money, illicitly selling the state's resources and escaping from prison are discretionary. In 2007, a law was passed allowing an execution if the authorities believe the crime is 'extremely serious'. Ms Kissenkoetter added: 'For most North Korean people we have spoken to, as long as you toe the party line, don't ask any questions and you keep your head down, you should be fine. WITNESS DESCRIPTION OF FAMILY'S EXECUTION FOR CANNIBALISM A witness said that during the famine, cases of cannibalism were common, especially of isolated children, including orphans. In 1995, an entire family was executed for eating a man they had killed. According to the witness, the entire family was executed to deter acts of cannibalism and the children, aged 9 and 12, were included. [source: International Federation for Human Rights ] 'However, in North Korea a simple accusation from a family member or someone you know can have you charged with a crime. 'FIDH is completely against the death penalty in any situation. We call on North Korea to end the death penalty.' Of the killing of North Korea's defence minister - just the latest in a long line of officials and aides to fall victim to the country's trigger-happy leader - she added: 'This is not only shocking and terrible but it's also a violation of international law.' Hyon is understood to have been arrested late last month and executed 3 days later without legal proceedings. Since Kim Jong-Un rose to power in 2011, he has purged more than 70 officials, according to Yonhap news agency. While he usually opts for firing squads using machine guns, there have been reports of officials being killed using mortar rounds at close range. It was initially reported he had his uncle, Jang Song Thaek, eaten alive by a pack of starving dogs, although it's now believed he was executed by a firing squad. Jang was detained on an array of charges, including treason and corruption. Kim had described his 67-year-old uncle - who was married to his father's sister - as a traitor, a womaniser and a 'despicable human scum'. It has also been alleged he ordered his own aunt, Kim Kyong Hui, Jang's wife, be poisoned. In an interview, one of the country's most senior officials to defect said Kim was responsible for the death of Ms Kim, 68. It's alleged she was killed after she complained about her husband's death. As well as disloyal aides, Kim also reportedly had an ex-girlfriend executed over claims that she had appeared in a porn film. South Korean newspapers said singer Hyon Song-wol and 11 other members of performing groups were accused of making videos of themselves having sex and selling the videos for distribution in China. Other band members as well as the families of the victims were made to watch the mass execution. Since the start of the year, 16 senior officials are thought to have been executed - included 2 at vice-minister level - for opposing or complaining about Kim's policies. In addition to the executions, in 2013 there were about 200,000 people, including children, in 6 main political labour camps Many do not know why they have been placed there and remain there until their deaths with no access to a lawyer, according to the FIDH. (source: Daily Mail) From rhalperi at smu.edu Thu May 14 15:48:43 2015 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Thu, 14 May 2015 15:48:43 -0500 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----PENN., KAN., USA Message-ID: May 14 PENNSYLVANIA: Lynne Abraham blasted in Slate article about death penalty According to a Slate piece about the lingering death penalty in America, select states and counties still practice the controversial crime-management strategy because of "the presence of a handful of disproportionately deadly prosecutors who represent the last, desperate gasps of a deeply flawed punishment regime." Among these particularly deadly prosecutors is Philadelphia Democratic mayoral candidate Lynne Abraham. Identified in a so-called "trinity of death," also including Florida's Bernie de la Rionda and Bob Macy of Oklahoma, Abraham is cited as having secured 45 death sentences during her tenure as the Philadelphia district attorney. In contrast, the city's current district attorney, Seth Williams, has secured 3 since Abraham's retirement in 2010. Abraham served as Philadelphia's district attorney from 1991 until 2010, a nearly 19-year tenure. If Abraham secured the same number of death sentences each year, that would equal about 2.4 death sentences per year. This is not the 1st time Abraham has been named as a deadly prosecutor. A 1995 New York Times piece, written a little over 4 years after she took office, called Abraham "The Deadliest D.A." She told the paper, "When it comes to the death penalty, I am passionate. I truly believe it is manifestly correct." On this roundup of what Slate refers to as "bloodthirsty devotees" of the death penalty, the website cites a New York Times piece from 2014 naming District Attorney Joe Freeman Britt of Robeson County, North Carolina, America's "Deadliest D.A." with 42 death sentences during his tenure. (source: philly.com) KANSAS: Judge allows admitted Jewish community shooter to represent himself A Missouri man who has admitted to killing 3 people at 2 Jewish sites in Overland Park last year was allowed on Thursday to fire his attorneys and will defend himself in his death penalty case. However, Johnson County District Court Judge Kelly Ryan ruled during a motions hearing Thursday that defense attorneys for Frazier Glenn Cross may help him with procedural aspects of the case, such as filing motions. Ryan said he had reservations about allowing Cross to represent himself in a death-penalty case. "I have no lawyer. I want to represent myself," Cross told the judge, adding that his defense attorneys "work for my enemy." "The United States government is my enemy," Cross said. Ryan said what Cross wanted to do "was not a good idea," and there is a "heightened need" for Cross to have legal representation. Defense attorneys will sit with Cross and can give him advance, but will not be allowed to make any arguments on his behalf. "The death penalty doesn't bother me," Cross said. "Hell, 6 months from now I'll probably climb up on the gurney and stick the needle in myself." Prosecutors informed the judge that if Cross, who is also known as Glenn Miller, wants to fire his lawyers the court should honor his request. Ryan said the August trial date will not be postponed, but did agree to provide Cross with access to a typewriter so he can file motions. Citing pretrial publicity, Cross intends to ask for a change of venue, which the judge will consider during a June 10 hearing. Cross is charged with capital murder in the April 13, 2014 shooting deaths of 69-year-old William Lewis Corporon, 14-year-old Reat Griffin Underwood and 53-year-old Terri LaManno in Overland Park. Cross told The Associated Press last month he plans to plead guilty to capital murder. The Aurora man says his chronic emphysema is getting worse and he doesn't think he has the strength to make it through a lengthy trial. This is Cross' 2nd set of attorneys. The 1st set and he had clashed over his defense and beliefs. (source: KCTV news) USA: Jesus' death convicts capital punishment, Baylor prof says in new book----Baptists remain divided over the use of the death penalty as the ultimate punishment for crime. On Good Friday, Christians around the world remember the day a government punished a convicted criminal with the death penalty. For many Christians - including some Baptists - Jesus' death inspires them to oppose the death penalty for others. Among them is Mark Osler, who as a law professor at Baylor University, wrote Jesus on Death Row: The Trial of Jesus and American Capital Punishment. A former federal prosecutor who won a case in the U.S. Supreme Court, he used his book to draw parallels between Jesus' conviction and the U.S. justice system. Osler played the prosecutor in a theatrical version of the book performed in 11 states. Osler, who now teaches at the University of St. Thomas School of Law, describes in his forthcoming book, Memoirs of Christ's Prosecutor, how he connected opposition to the death penalty to his faith while taking communion at Seventh and James Baptist Church in Waco, Texas. Earlier, he had read a newspaper account of an execution. "[The bread] in my hand represented the last meal of a man who knew he was about to be executed," he explains in the book's introduction. "There is something deeply ironic about the enthusiasm many Christians have for the death penalty," he writes in the book. "The central narrative of Christianity, after all, is about an unjust execution, and Christians proudly wear the execution device as a symbol of their faith." Osler grounded his opposition to the death penalty in biblical narratives - for instance, in John 8, "where Jesus stops a legal execution not by questioning the charge or the punishment, but the moral authority of the executioners," he noted by email. He also pointed to biblical narratives in the Sermon on Mount in which Jesus gave "a direct rejection of the 'eye for an eye' argument." "Finally, when Jesus teaches that if we visit those in prison, we visit him, he is expressly equating himself to those we wish to execute," Osler added. "Doesn't that mitigate against killing?" On the Tuesday of Holy Week this year, nearly 400 Christian leaders, theologians and pastors issued a public statement calling for the abolition of capital punishment in the United States. "Torture and execution is always a profound evil, made even more abhorrent when sanctioned by the government in the name of justice when other means of protecting society are available," the authors wrote. "All who reverence the sanctity of human life, created in the image of God, must never remain silent when firing squads, lethal injections, electric chairs and other instruments of death are viewed as morally acceptable." 'What did Jesus preach?' Nearly 2 dozen Baptists signed the Holy Week statement, including author Tony Campolo; Jonathan Davis at Urbanna Baptist Church in Urbanna, Va.; David Gushee at Mercer University; James Lamkin at Northside Drive Baptist Church in Atlanta, Ga.; Suzii Paynter, executive coordinator of the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship; Julie Pennington-Russell at First Baptist Church of Decatur, Ga.; Stephen Stacks at Greenwood Forest Baptist Church in Cary, N.C.; Raphael Warnock at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, Ga.; and author Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove at St. Johns Baptist Church in Durham, N.C. The pastor of the church Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal attends, William Coates at First Baptist Church of Gainesville, Ga., added his name to the statement. Coates and other Baptists earlier this year urged Deal to stay the execution of Kelly Gissendaner, who completed a prison-based seminary program created by the McAfee School of Theology at Mercer University and other seminaries. Winter weather prevented Gissendaner's February execution and concerns about lethal injection drugs stopped her rescheduled March execution. A new date has not yet been set. Justin Thornburgh, pastor of Emerson Avenue Baptist Church in Indianapolis also signed the Holy Week statement. Thornburgh said he focuses his comments on Jesus when talking with Christians who believe the Bible authorizes the death penalty. "What did Jesus preach? What is the essence of the gospel?" he asked. "My reading of it is that the essence of the gospel is redemption. Christ was killed by capital punishment, and what we have is that God triumphed over that with the resurrection. Statistical breakdown "I believe the message of Christ is a message of redemption and reconciliation as opposed to revenge," he stated. "The ethos of Christ is love, and Christ saw everyone as worthy of redemption." American Baptist Churches USA has officially condemned capital punishment on several occasions, passing resolutions calling for the abolition of the death penalty in 1958, 1966, 1980, 1982, 1992 and 2000. The resolutions highlight "the sacredness of life," "the fallibility of human agencies and legal justice," financial and racial inequality, and "the hope and possibility of all to come under the redeeming and transforming action of God." The resolutions also urge American Baptists to advocate for legal changes and to work to stop executions. Polling by the Public Religion Research Institute in September 2014 found that white evangelical Protestants remain the most likely religious demographic to support the the death penalty over life in prison for murderers. Favoring the death penalty by a 59 to 34 % margin, they outpace overall American opinion that supports life in prison by a 48 to 44 % margin. White Catholics favor life in prison by a 50 to 45 percent margin, while Black Protestants favor life in prison by a 68 to 25 % margin. 'Moral insanity' of death penalty opposition A 2000 resolution passed by the Southern Baptist Convention supported capital punishment, and top Southern Baptist leaders have reiterated that position. Last year, Southern Baptist Theological Seminary President Al Mohler wrote a CNN.com piece supporting capital punishment. He attacked the "moral insanity" of death penalty critics who "have successfully diverted attention from a murderer's heinous crimes and instead put the death penalty on trial." "I believe that Christians should hope, pray and strive for a society in which the death penalty, rightly and rarely applied, would make moral sense," he added. Although Mohler cited some Scripture in his column, author and anti-death penalty activist Shane Claiborne noted in a blog post that Mohler never mentioned Jesus. "If it weren't for Jesus, I might be pro-death too," Claiborne wrote. (source: Baptist News) From rhalperi at smu.edu Thu May 14 15:49:26 2015 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Thu, 14 May 2015 15:49:26 -0500 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide Message-ID: May 14 SAUDI ARABIA: Saudi Arabia prepares to hang opposition Shia cleric amid large protests Human rights activists worldwide are demanding clemency for cleric Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr, sentenced to death in Saudi Arabia for taking part in Shia Muslim minority protests in 2011. They warn the execution could inflame the whole of the Middle East. The Islamic Human Rights Commission (IHRC) an independent non-profit organization based in London, have asked the UN to intervene and prevent al-Nimr's execution. He is the most respected Shiite cleric in Saudi Arabia, where the majority of the approximately 18 million population are Sunni. In their address they say: "It is a severe blight on the reputation of this office if it is not able to work to protect the rights of individuals to free speech, to protest, to practise their religion, to a fair trial, to not be subjected to torture, and the right to life." Despite global condemnation the forthcoming execution has been largely ignored by Saudi Arabia's key allies - the UK and the US, nations that profess to upholding democratic values. The representative of Bahraini Shiite leader, Shaykh Ali Salman, told the ABNA news agency that US Secretary of State John Kerry was dismayed by the Saudi decision to execute Ayatollah al-Nimr. Allegedly, Kerry was informed about the Saudi decision during a meeting in Riyadh on May 6. "John Kerry expressed his surprise to President Barack Obama over the decision made by the House of Saud, and by their silence they gave the green light to Saudi Arabia to go ahead with the execution," the representative said. In London, where Shia Muslims staged a #FreeNimr rally, RT spoke to former Bahraini MP Jawad Fayruz. He said since Saudi Arabia is "mainly backed by the US and the United Kingdom," it could be just "1 word" from US or UK officials to reverse things and save al-Nimr???' life. "Our clear message is to Downing Street, to [PM] Cameron: you have the ability and you can do a lot of things," said Fayruz, explaining that the British prime minister could use his influence on Saudi Arabia and secure Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr's release. The lawmaker also said: "There's no independent judiciary system in Saudi Arabia" and the case of Sheikh al-Nimr is "politically oriented." This is especially due to the ongoing war against Yemen, where Shia Houthi rebels overthrew the president, a Saudi Arabian protege. Skeikh al-Nimr became a symbol of the 2011 insurrection when the Arab Spring came to Saudi Arabia. He led Shia Muslim street protests throughout the country, demanding constitutional changes, liberties and an end to anti-Shia discrimination in the kingdom. Sheikh al-Nimr was arrested on July 8, 2012 in disputed circumstances, after police tracked him down in the eastern province of Qatif and shot him in the leg during a shootout. The Sheikh's relatives insisted al-Nimr didn't own a gun, but the cleric was accused of terrorism and apostasy and put on trial in March 2013. Human rights activists shared concerns since the outset that al-Nimr was unlikely to get a fair trial. The arrest of Skeikh al-Nimr provoked even more disturbances in Saudi Arabia, as protesters demanded his immediate release, which led to an even greater escalation of violence between protesters and Saudi security forces. The arguably biased trial lasted until October 2014, with al-Nimr being sentenced to death for "disobeying the ruler," "inciting sectarian strife" and "encouraging, leading and participating in demonstrations." The sentence aroused the strongest condemnation from international human rights watchdogs. Joe Stork, the organization's deputy Middle East director, said: "Saudi Arabia's harsh treatment of a prominent Shia cleric is only adding to the existing sectarian discord and unrest," adding that if Saudi Arabia wants to gain stability in its eastern province, it should put an end to "systematic discrimination against Shia citizens." According to Said Boumedouha, deputy director of Amnesty International's Middle East and North Africa Programme, "the death sentence against Sheikh Nimr Baqir al-Nimr is part of a campaign by the authorities in Saudi Arabia to crush all dissent, including those defending the rights of the Kingdom's Shiite Muslim community." Shia Muslims around the world have been holding rallies and petitioning to prevent the execution. When Saudi Arabia announced al-Nimr will be executed on May 14, protests intensified and people took to the streets in Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, India and Iraq. In Iran, the regional superpower and the only country with a predominantly Shiite population in the Middle East, clerics and scholars staged a mass sit-in on Wednesday in the 2 holy cities of Qom and Mashhad, to express their solidarity with Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr. Iranian Shia Muslim clerics warned that Saudi Arabia is going to pay a heavy price if it dares to execute the religious leader, saying the execution could trigger "an earthquake" that would lead to the fall of the Saud dynasty. Last week, following the beheading of five foreigners, human rights groups condemned Saudi Arabia for a dramatic increase in public executions. 80 people have already been executed so far in 2015, compared to 88 during the whole of 2014. Despite mounting international criticism from foreign governments and human rights campaigners, Saudi Arabia has shown no willingness to end public executions. (source: rt.com) ********************** Why Saudi Arabia is poised to behead a dissident cleric and publicly display his corpse Saudi Arabia is set to behead a man and publicly display his headless body (a practice called "crucifixion" in Saudi law) - for nothing more than speaking his mind. Sheikh Nimr Baqir al-Nimr, an internationally respected Shia cleric, was sentenced to death for "disobeying the ruler," "inciting sectarian strife," and "encouraging, leading and participating in demonstrations." His actual crime: participating in nonviolent protests and calling for the fall of the house of Saud. It's not clear when the Saudis plan on executing al-Nimr: the country has a habit of both postponing executions and carrying them out without very much warning. But the case illustrates a basic fact about one of America's closest allies in the Middle East: its system of capital punishment is one of the cruelest on earth. Why is Saudi capital punishment so barbaric? In many ways, the story is less about religion than it is about Saudi Arabia's unusual politics; yes, Saudi Arabia has politics. At the heart of it is the relationship between the Saudi monarchy and the country's ultra-conservative clerical establishment - an arrangement that dates back to 1744. Saudi Arabia is a world leader in gruesome executions According to Amnesty International's latest figures, Saudi Arabia executed at least 90 people in 2014. That is more people than any other country except Iran and almost certainly China (human rights groups estimate China conducts hundreds or even thousands of annual executions). "Most death sentences in Saudi Arabia are carried out by beheading, often in public," Sevag Kechichian, Amnesty's Saudi Arabia specialist, writes. Sometimes the Saudi government defaces the corpses afterward. The Death Penalty Database found "reports that Saudis have exposed the body (with head sewn back on) of the condemned to public indignity, including crucifixion, after execution." Many of these people are executed for nonviolent crimes: in 2014, 42 of the 90 people executed were convicted on drug-related charges. Their trials generally didn't even come close to being fair. "Trials in death penalty cases are often held in secret. Defendants are rarely allowed formal representation by lawyers, and in many cases are not informed of the progress of legal proceedings against them," the Amnesty report found. "They may be convicted solely on the basis of 'confessions' obtained under duress or involving deception." Saudi Arabia's legal system is deeply theocratic. The interpretation of Sharia law that dominates the Saudi criminal system is extremely harsh, and is viewed with horror in much of the Middle East. Which raises an obvious question: if Saudi Arabia's barbaric system is such an outlier in its region, how exactly did it get so terrible in the first place? The politics behind Saudi Arabia's fundamentalism In 1744, when the place we now know as Saudi Arabia was divided among many fractious clans, a minor clan leader named Mohammed ibn al-Saud met Muhammad ibn al-Wahhab, a Sunni religious figure preaching an austere, puritanical interpretation of Islam. They struck an alliance: Wahhab would support the Saudi family as political rulers, and the Saudis would spread Wahhab's ultra-conservative doctrine and let him set religious code within their territory. Wahhabism, as Wahhab's doctrines came to be known, gave al-Saud a believing tax base and an ideological justification for uniting the peninsula under his rule. "Without Wahhabism," London School of Economics Professor Madawi al-Rasheed writes, "it is highly unlikely that ... [Saudi] leadership would have assumed much political significance." The Wahhabi movement played an integral role in the Saudi rise to power, and while much happened between then and now (including the al-Sauds' loss of power), the power-sharing Saudi-Wahhabi alliance remains the core of the state ideology to this day. That the punishments are medieval is the point Wahhabism is a sort of fundamentalist revivalism, emphasizing a return to what its ultra-conservative proponents see as the core and original Muslim values. As such, it takes a fairly literalist view of Islamic law - and is willing to use the force of the state to back that up. Punishments such as public beheadings are seen as barbaric by virtually the rest of the world - including the Muslim world. But in the Wahhabist view they are justified and, indeed, important, because they are perceived throwbacks to the Prophet Mohammed's 7th-century rule, and one of many ways in which the Wahhabists sought to turn back to clock to what they saw as a better era. That the punishments are medieval is the point. In this view, "the death penalty or stoning for adultery and fornication, flogging and amputation for stealing, and punishments of retribution are sanctioned by the Quran and are unchangeable," legal scholar Shahid M. Shahidullah explains. Wahhabist interpretation of "sharia law is the exclusive foundation of criminal justice" in Saudi Arabia. So the centuries-old political bargain between the Wahhabis and the ruling explains why the Saudi criminal code sanctions such brutal punishments. Why terrible Wahhabist punishments persist to this day In more recent generations, members of the Saudi royal family have been more likely to grow up exposed to outside ideas and educations, shaped by Western boarding schools and colleges as well as lots of time abroad. As that's happened, those individuals have drifted away from the country's Wahhabi roots. That has brought some modest reforms to the justice system. But it has not changed the underlying system. "Successive monarchs of the kingdom supported selective modernization of the kingdom in many areas, including law and justice," Shahidullah writes. "It is for this relatively liberal perspective of the Saudi ruling monarchy that a number of law and justice institutions have recently grown to establish strict procedural guidelines on the implementation of sharia law." And yet, the beheadings remain. There are two main reasons for this, both of which have far more to do with politics than religion. First, the Saudi royal family still believes it needs the support of the ultra-conservative clerical establishment to hold power, just as it did in the 1700s. And brutal punishments are a way of appeasing those clerics. Second, the Saudi royal family is a dictatorship that earnestly fears unrest, and uses executions as one of several tools to stifle dissent or grassroots organizing. "This situation puts Saudi Arabia at odds with the rest of the Arab world" That 1st point, though, may be the most important. The Saudi monarchy sees itself as stuck between a powerful, ultra-conservative clerical establishment on one side and the practical realities of running a modern country on the other. Public beheadings are a means for the Saudi rulers perpetuate Wahhabist control over religious matters, and thus preempt Wahhabist opposition to the monarchy's modest modernizations and pro-Western foreign policy. This tension has long defined the country: in 1979, religious extremists seized the Grand Mosque in Mecca, demanding the overthrow of the Saudi monarchy for betraying ultra-conservative Islamist ideals. The siege, which killed more than 200 people, led the Saudis to try to prevent future attacks by co-opting radical Islam where it could - to be more extremist than the extremists. In 1991, when elements of the Saudi clerical establishment practically revolted over the monarchy allowing US troops to temporarily base there, the monarchy again responded by co-opting the extremists, encouraging them to fund jihadists abroad rather than make trouble at home. Public beheadings are one way the Saudis do this. The monarchy has given little indication that it considers human rights a priority, so it has been seemingly quite willing to trade them away. In return, the religious establishment has rewarded the monarchy with loyalty that has been crucial to keeping the Saudis in power. "In every crisis the regime has faced since the founding of the modern Saudi state," Texas A&M's F. Gregory Gause writes, "the Wahhabi clerics holding high positions in the state religious hierarchy have rallied to the colors." Even when it comes to something like commercial law, where the haphazard nature of Sharia law does actual harm to the Saudi economy and thus the regime's coffers, the monarchy has been hesitant to try to reform the religious courts. "This situation puts Saudi Arabia at odds with the rest of the Arab world, where modernizing governments have steadily hemmed in religious courts," Dickinson College historian David Commins writes. "It appears as though the Saudi rulers lack the confidence to challenge directly the Wahhabi ulama, perhaps from a sense that the dynasty's claim to legitimacy is questionable." And don't expect an end to beheadings soon. The Wahhabi establishment, and its harsh vision of criminal law, are deeply embedded in the Saudi state, and seen by the monarchy as essential for keeping itself in power. The numbers bear that out: according to Amnesty, Saudi Arabia executed more people in 2014 than it had in any of the past 3 years. (source: vox.com) From rhalperi at smu.edu Fri May 15 09:42:25 2015 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Fri, 15 May 2015 09:42:25 -0500 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, PENN., FLA., KAN., NEB., USA Message-ID: May 15 TEXAS: Texas obtains new supply of pentobarbital for execution use The Texas Department of Criminal Justice has purchased a new supply of drugs that will allow the prison agency to at least carry out 2 executions scheduled for June, officials said Thursday. Derrick Dewayne Charles' lethal injection on Tuesday only left Texas with enough pentobarbital to accommodate the execution of inmate Lester Bower set for June 3. Another prisoner, Gregory Russeau, is scheduled to die June 15. Department of Criminal Justice spokesman Jason Clark wouldn't say how much of the powerful sedative has been obtained or identify the source. "The drugs were purchased from a licensed pharmacy that has the ability to compound," he said. "We continue to explore all options including the continued use of pentobarbital or alternate drugs to use in the lethal injection process." Many death penalty states have turned to compounding pharmacies for execution drugs as traditional manufacturers, bowing to pressure from capital punishment opponents, have refused to sell their products to corrections departments in states that carry out executions. A Texas judge last year, ruling in a lawsuit from attorneys for some condemned inmates, ordered the state to identify its lethal drug provider. That order is on hold while the ruling is under appeal. Charles' execution for a triple slaying in Houston nearly 13 years ago was carried out the same day the Texas Senate passed a measure that would allow the identity of the state's lethal drug supplier to remain confidential. Texas House members are considering a similar measure. The office of Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton has said that execution drug manufacturers won't sell to the state without total confidentiality. Suppliers who have reported being threatened by death penalty opponents say they won't take the risk. Last year, The Associated Press reported Texas officials have offered scant evidence to support their claim that compounding pharmacies supplying execution drugs would be in danger of violence if their identities were made public. The AP has found no evidence of any investigations in Texas into threats against such pharmacies. Texas carries out the death penalty more than any other state, and Charles' punishment was the 7th in the state this year and 525th since executions resumed in 1982. All of the Texas executions have been by injection, including the last 43 using pentobarbital as the lone drug. Bower is set to die next month for the fatal 1983 shootings of 4 men at an airplane hangar on a North Texas ranch. Russeau faces execution for the slaying of a 75-year-old East Texas man during a robbery in 2001. (source: Associated Press) PENNSYLVANIA----new death sentence Jury Sentences Man Convicted In Girlfriend's Murder To Death Penalty A jury has sentenced the man convicted of 1st-degree murder in the 2012 stabbing death of his estranged girlfriend in Washington County to the death penalty. Earlier this week, Jordan Clemons was convicted in the death of Karissa Kunco and leaving her body in the woods. Closing arguments were held Thursday morning, and the jury then deliberated over whether or not to sentence Clemons to death. During closing arguments, prosecutor Chad Schneider told the jury, "Not all killings are murder, not all murders deserve the death penalty. This one does. Sometimes life in prison is just not enough." Defense attorney Brian Gorman countered that his history of abuse by his father should be taken into consideration. "Death is for the worst of the worst. You saw the man who raised him. That's what he went home to every day. Jordan is not the worst of the worst," Gorman said. During the penalty phase, Robert Clemons told the jury that the anger his son had welled up inside of him was the result of physical beatings by him due to his own addiction to drugs and alcohol. 1 of the aggravating factors the jurors had to consider is whether Clemons has a significant, violent criminal history. Prosecutors detailed Clemons' juvenile arrest for punching a teacher in Delaware County in 2006, as well as convictions for 2 armed robberies in Canonsburg in 2009. Another aggravating factor is the murder happened while the victim was under a Protection from Abuse order against him. The defense offered mitigating circumstances hoping to spare Jordan's life including: He was under extreme mental distress at the time, his capacity to understand the criminality of the act was impaired, his age at the time (22) as well as evidence of an abusive childhood, a brain injury from playing football, a drug history and the loss of his brother in 2011. (source: CBS news) FLORIDA: Avalos will have brain scanned A man accused of killing his wife, neighbor and a Bradenton pastor will undergo medical testing to determine whether he has any mental health issues or brain defects. Andres Avalos appeared in court Thursday for a status conference in which Assistant Public Defender Franklin Roberts asked that his client be granted transportation for a positron emission tomography, or PET scan. A PET scan is an imaging test doctors use to determine how organs and tissues function. Roberts said the results of the test may be used to show mitigating factors - circumstances that could result in a lesser sentence - should this case reach the penalty phase. Avalos is charged with 3 counts of 1st-degree murder for the Dec. 4 deaths of his wife, Amber Avalos, neighbor Denise Potter and Bayshore Baptist Church pastor James "Tripp" Battle. Prosecutors have advised that they will seek the death penalty if Avalos is convicted. If found guilty by a trial jury, the case would advance to the penalty phase during which arguments will be presented by the state for the death penalty and by the defense for life in prison. The jury would make a recommendation, but the ultimate decision would be made by the judge. "This is an attempt to discover mitigating factors in this case," Roberts said. "I have been assisted by 2 doctors, both of whom tell me Mr. Avalos suffers from a mental disease or defect." Roberts said there are also several witness statements regarding actions of Avalos that could be interpreted as exhibition of mental illness. "I'm also aware of drug use of Mr. Avalos - serious drug use - which I am concerned could have caused some cognitive dysfunctions," Roberts said. Assistant State Attorney Art Brown did not object to the PET scan, but did ask to be notified should the findings be used in an insanity defense. Michelle Hall, attorney for the Manatee County Sheriff's Office, did present some concerns regarding Avalos' transport to a medical facility. It was determined that Roberts could choose which facility will conduct the test, but that the Sheriff???s Office will determine the date of the testing. Neither Roberts nor Avalos will be made aware in advance of that date. Hall advised that 29 members of the SWAT unit will be required for safe transport of Avalos between the Manatee County jail and medical testing facility. "There is always the risk of retaliation," Hall said. "There is the risk of escape, and there is gang affiliation involved." While this triple slaying is not believed to be gang-related, Avalos does have a known history of gang activity. It will be more than a year before Avalos stands trial. While Brown said the state would be prepared early next year, Roberts said he would need until summer 2016. Circuit Judge Peter Dubensky set the case for the 2-week trial period in July 18, 2016. By setting the trial 14 months from now, Dubensky said there should be no reason for it to be postponed. A status conference will be held in December to make sure the state and defense are on track for the July 2016 trial date. (source: Herald-Tribune) KANSAS: Former NC Klan leader tells Kansas judge he wants to die A former Ku Klux Klan leader from North Carolina said Thursday that he doesn't care if a jury sentences him to death for allegedly killing three people last year outside Jewish facilities in Overland Park, Kansas. F. Glenn Miller Jr. fired his attorneys during a court hearing Thursday, apparently to give him a forum in court to espouse the anti-Semitic beliefs that may have fueled the deadly shooting spree. Miller demanded that he be allowed to represent himself, despite the advice of his lawyers and a reminder from the judge handling the case that he could be executed if found guilty. "It's my life, and I'll do as I please," he said during a hearing Thursday in Johnson County District Court. "The death penalty don't bother me." In fact, Miller, who is 74 and in ill health, said that after he has the chance to make his case, "I'll climb up on the gurney and stick the needle in myself." Miller, also known as Frazier Glenn Cross Jr., was living with his family on a Johnston County farm when he founded an organization called the Carolina Knights of the Ku Klux Klan in 1980. The group changed names, eventually becoming the White Patriot Party as it turned into more of a paramilitary group. Miller organized rallies and ran for public office in North Carolina in the 1980s to advocate for an "all-white independent Southern republic." Now Miller is charged with capital murder for the shooting deaths of William Corporon and his 14-year-old grandson, Reat Underwood, on April 13, 2014, outside the Jewish Community Center. Minutes later, he allegedly killed Terri LaManno, 53, outside the Village Shalom care center. All 3 were Christians. He also is charged with 3 counts of attempted 1st-degree murder, aggravated assault and discharging a firearm into an occupied building. Miller's trial is scheduled to begin Aug. 17. Thursday's hearing was meant to take up some of the pretrial motions filed by the three experienced death penalty litigators appointed to represent him. At the start of the hearing, Johnson County District Attorney Steve Howe discussed plea negotiations that have taken place. Miller's lawyers have made offers twice for him to plead guilty and be sentenced to life in prison if the state would take the death penalty off the table, Howe said. The state declined both times, most recently on May 6, Howe said. Defense attorney Mark Manna then said Miller wished to speak. When District Judge Kelly Ryan indicated he wasn't going to allow it, Miller then blurted that he wanted to fire his legal team. Howe said that based on prior court rulings, refusing a defendant's request to represent himself could lead to a conviction being overturned on appeal. Ryan called a recess to allow Miller and his lawyers to confer. Back in court, Manna said Miller wanted to act as his own attorney. Ryan started advising Miller that he would be held to the same standards of conduct and rules of trial as a licensed lawyer. Miller kept interrupting the judge. "Can I get out a statement here without you interrupting me?" Ryan asked. The judge warned Miller that if he acted up during court proceedings he would be removed from the courtroom and his attorneys would be reappointed. Miller said he would behave. When the judge asked Miller if he felt competent to represent himself, Miller said he was. "My IQ is probably higher than yours," he told the judge. After questioning Miller, the judge said that he found Miller's decision was made knowingly and intelligently and he would allow it. He asked Miller's former attorneys if they would agree to act as "standby counsel" to assist Miller. Manna said they would do that. But Miller will be responsible for filing written motions, making courtroom arguments and arranging to call his own experts and witnesses, the judge said. Miller noted that one witness he plans to call is actor Mel Gibson. (source: newsobserver.com) NEBRASKA: Governor Says Nebraska Has Ordered New Death Penalty Drugs Nebraska's Republican governor is taking new steps to resume executions in a state that hasn't imposed the death penalty since 1997, as lawmakers look seriously at abolishing capital punishment. Gov. Pete Ricketts said Thursday evening that state officials have bought all 3 drugs required to carry out executions. Nebraska lost its ability to execute prisoners when its supply of sodium thiopental, a required lethal injection drug, expired in December 2013. The announcement comes 1 day before lawmakers are scheduled to debate a death penalty repeal measure that has gained more support than usual. The bill won 1st-round approval with a veto-proof majority in April, but 2 more votes are required before it goes to Ricketts, a death-penalty supporter. Some opponents have argued that Nebraska should abolish capital punishment because it has only wasted money and created a false promise for victims' families. The state hasn't executed anyone since 1997, and some prisoners have been on death row for decades. Nebraska has only carried out 4 executions since 1973, partly because of repeated legal challenges. Ricketts and his corrections director, Scott Frakes, said the state now possesses 1 of the 3 lethal injection drugs that state law requires for executions and will receive the other 2 in the near future. Nebraska Attorney General Doug Peterson has said 3 of Nebraska's 11 death-row inmates have exhausted all of their appeals. "The functionality of the death penalty in Nebraska has been a management issue that I have promised to resolve," Ricketts said. Ricketts said the department has already obtained potassium chloride, a drug that stops the heart, and has bought the other 2 drugs - sodium thiopental and pancuronium bromide - from a distributor in West Bengal, India. Sodium thiopental serves as an anesthetic, and pancuronium bromide is a muscle relaxant that induces paralysis. Ricketts spokesman Taylor Gage said the state ordered the drugs over the past few weeks from HarrisPharma, a distributor that has sold to state officials before. The last purchase was made this week. Defense attorneys for Nebraska's death-row inmates have raised legal questions about the company before. One lawyer argued that Chris Harris, the company's owner, sold drugs that were only meant to be used as testing samples, and was not authorized to do so. Because he was not allowed do so, the defense attorney argued that the drug was stolen property and Nebraska shouldn't be allowed to use it in executions. Nebraska Solicitor General Jim Smith, who handled previous death penalty cases, said those arguments were later rejected. The Nebraska Supreme Court ruled that the argument wasn't a valid challenge in a death penalty case under state law. (source: Associated Press) ******************* Faith leaders unite to fight against Nebraska death penalty Faith leaders gathered at the Omaha Press Club Wednesday morning to speak out against the death penalty and in favor of legislation to repeal it, LB268, introduced by state Sen. Ernie Chambers of Omaha. Religious leaders in attendance included Archbishop George J. Lucas of Omaha; Bishop Brian Maas of the Nebraska Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church; the Rev. Dr. Dan Flanagan, superintendent of the Missouri River District of the United Methodist Church; the Rev. Robert Keefer, stated clerk of the Missouri River Valley Presbytery; and the Rev. Craig Loya, dean and rector of Trinity Cathedral of the Episcopal Diocese of Nebraska. All spoke on behalf of their denominations and discussed the sacredness of human life and reconciliation. "Practically speaking, there are more-effective and less-expensive alternatives for punishing violent criminals and protecting our citizens," Loya said. "The death penalty does little or nothing to deter the crimes it punishes, and our criminal justice system frequently sentences to death individuals who are later proven innocent." According to a press release from the Nebraskans for Alternatives to the Death Penalty, since 1973 there have been 143 people in the United States who have been released from death row after a wrongful conviction. "As a priest, I oppose the death penalty because I believe that killing and retribution are always wrong," Loya said. "As a citizen, I oppose it because it is ineffective, expensive, often mistaken and used most often on the most disenfranchised among us." There are 11 people on death row in Nebraska. LB268 would repeal the death penalty in favor of life in prison. Legislators are expected to vote on the bill soon despite Gov. Pete Ricketts' opposition. Ricketts said he would veto the bill if it passes in the Legislature. "We call upon all governments, particularly today as the Nebraska Legislature considers doing away with the death penalty in Nebraska, because our value of human life and because of the possibility of redemption," Flanagan said. "We're hopeful," said Lucas, who also was representing the Nebraska Catholic Conference, which is the public policy arm of the state's 3 Catholic bishops. "I look forward to the day when repeal of the death penalty and the promise of a more just, compassionate and peaceful society can be one more reason that I am deeply proud to be a Nebraskan," Loya said. (source: Kearney Hub) USA: When the criminal justice system doesn't find justice Imagine that the lies of others led a jury to convict you of a serious crime you didn't commit, and it took nine years for the truth to set you free.. That's the predominant circumstance of people whose wrongful convictions have been tracked by the National Registry of Exonerations, which since 2012 has built an impressive database. Interestingly, in a society where infatuation with forensic science has propelled the hit "CSI" television franchise, dogged investigation rather than DNA has revealed most of these miscarriages of justice. The registry recently added a new graphic that's pretty interesting - it tracks exonerations by the year in which the person was wrongfully convicted. According to its May newsletter (which eventually will be posted online here), wrongful sexual-assault convictions evened out around 1983 and then dropped off after 1991, even as wrongful convictions on other charges increased. (Note: These are the tracked exoneration cases, not all cases, which is unknowable). >From the newsletter: "Most rape exonerations are based on post-conviction DNA evidence that proves the innocence of defendants who did not have the benefit of pre-trial DNA testing. After 1990, pre-trial DNA testing became increasingly common in America; by 2000 it was the rule across the country. Judging from the data, pre-trial DNA testing has reduced the rates of false convictions and exonerations for rape: Rape cases are 20% of exonerations for convictions before 2000, but only 9% of exonerations for convictions since 2000; and rape exonerations that have occurred since 2000 are overwhelmingly for convictions from before 2000." Separately, the Innocence Project reports that of 329 post-conviction exonerations based on DNA evidence, 297 involved sex-crime allegations, and 111 were homicide (again, often an overlap). So what does the Registry list as the contributing factors to wrongful convictions overall? It varies by type of crime, but witness perjury and official misconduct were each involved in more than 60% of wrongful murder convictions (cases often have multiple contributing factors, which is why the percentages exceed 100). Interestingly, false confessions were involved in one in five cases. The data don't measure this, but many recent exonerations of intellectually disabled defendants included coerced confessions, which suggests a focal point for reform (videorecording of such interviews, which many states are adopting, should help address that). Other data of interest: 91% of the exonerated are men; 47% are African American (who account for only 28% of total arrests nationwide) and 11% are Latino; 80% were convicted by juries and, remarkably, 12% pleaded guilty (which innocent defendants often do to avoid a harsher sentence). Nearly 1/2 - 45% - were convicted of murder, though it's likely that reflects the extra focus placed on reviewing cases that lead to extensive sentences, or the death penalty. The upshot of all this: The more we examine cases post-conviction, the more problems come to light. We need a fundamental change in how we approach trials and justice. With appellate courts deferring to lower courts on matters of fact even when the people's lives hang in the balance, and valuing procedure over justice when weighing the constitutional application of the death penalty, we have a system that focuses on process and winning more than finding truth and justice. (source: Scott Martelle, Los Angeles Times) ************************ Fathers Of 2 Murdered Children Weigh Tsarnaev's Possible Death Penalty Bud Welch and Bob Curley share 1 horrific fact in common: their children were murdered. Welch's daughter was 23 years old when she was killed in the Oklahoma City Bombing; Curley's son just 10 when he was killed. Today, both Welch and Curley are outspoken advocates against the death penalty. But they did not always share that view. "After she died I was so full of revenge...I wanted the bastard to fry," Welch said. But when his daughter's killer, Timothy McVeigh, was executed by the state in 2001, Welch found that the experience didn't ease his pain. "You can't go through the healing process when you're living with revenge," he said. "I know. I've tried it." Curley, too, had a similar change of heart, and an extremely public one: originally, he led the charge to reinstate the death penalty during the trial of his son's killer. He says now that, in his mind, those looking for closure in a death sentence will only be disappointed. "There's no such thing as closure," Curley said. "But you have to move on. You have to move on with your life." Welch and Curley spoke about their experiences and took calls from listeners - including Boston Marathon Bombing victim Karen Brassard, who believes Dzhokhar Tsarnaev should receive the death penalty for his crimes. (source: Associated Press) ************************ Life vs death: How much will it cost to keep Tsarnaev alive? On Wednesday, jurors wrapped up their 1st day of deliberations on a sentence for the Boston Marathon bomber. Experts said this trial has already cost taxpayers millions, and as for the cost of death row verses life in prison, we did the math, pored through research and spoke with 2 highly respected local legal minds and found an answer that might surprise you. If jurors decide on life in prison for Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, as we've reported, he'll likely end up at the federal Supermax in Florence, Colorado. So how much will it cost taxpayers? According to CNN, the Supermax costs approximately $32,000 a year, per prisoner. Tsarnaev is only 21 years old. Assuming he lives to be at least 78, the current average life expectancy, that's 57 years in prison. So it comes to $1.824 million to incarcerate Tsarnaev for life and that doesn't even account for inflation. Still, reports we sifted through and experts we spoke with point to that actually being far less than the cost of Tsarnaev sitting on death row. Criminal defense attorney Peter Elikann said 1 reason death row costs more is "because today there are many more constitutional safeguards built into the appeals process." And, he said, that can go on for decades. "There's a variety of expenses. It's not just the housing which is more expensive on death row. The trials themselves, every step of the way you have a right to numerous lawyers," he said. And Criminal defense attorney J.W. Carney agrees. He defended Whitey Bulger and told FOX25 that it cost the federal government several millions to carry out that trial, which was not a capital punishment case. "In federal court, a lawyer who is handling a death penalty appeal gets paid 50 percent more than someone who is pursuing an appeal in a life without parole type of case," Carney said. He went on to say, "Lawyers understand if they lose an appeal where life imprisonment is the end the client will still be living, but if you lose a death penalty case, your client is killed." Carney also says incarceration is much more expensive for someone who is awaiting the death penalty, than someone serving a life sentence. He pointed to research that found it's as much as $100,000 more per year. In Supermax, where Tsarnaev might wind up, he'll be in isolation 23 hours a day, and will require less supervision because he won't be able to mingle with other inmates. However, on death row, prisoners are afforded more rights and have more freedoms and that costs more money. (source: Atlanta Journal-Constitution) From rhalperi at smu.edu Fri May 15 09:44:00 2015 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Fri, 15 May 2015 09:44:00 -0500 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide Message-ID: May 15 EGYPT: Judge, lawyers rule out death sentence against Morsi----Verdicts are due on Saturday in the espionage and jailbreak cases brought against of the ousted Muslim Brotherhood president----Egypt's ex-president Morsi sentenced to 20 years in prison A Cairo criminal court set to rule on Saturday in the espionage and jailbreak trials of deposed president Mohamed Morsi will likely hand out jail terms to some defendants and exonerate others, a judge has said, ruling out death sentences against the accused. Judge Moataz Khafagy, head of a Cairo criminal appeals court, said that the court is not expected to adjourn the cases either, as it has had months for deliberation. Khafagy as well as lawyers, including those of the defendants, said death sentences were not very likely since the bench had not referred the cases to the Grand Mufti, the country's top religious authority who reviews all death penalty cases but whose rulings are not binding. "Normally a court refers sentences to the [Grand] Mufti then sets a date for the verdict, which did not happen in these 2 cases," he said. Morsi and 35 others are charged with conspiring with foreign powers - including the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, Lebanon's Hezbollah and Iran's Revolutionary Guards - to destabilise Egypt. In another case, the ex-president, along with 130 co-defendants, is accused of breaking out of jail. The case is rooted in the escape of more than 20,000 inmates from Egyptian prisons during the 2011 uprising, including Morsi and other Muslim Brotherhood members. Verdicts in both cases are due on Saturday, May 16. Presiding judge over both the espionage and jailbreak cases, Shaaban El-Shamy, said on Thursday that the court had looked at over 30,000 papers as evidence over the span of 26 months since the trials began. Shaheen said that the defendants have since received fair treatment, with the court enforcing international trial regulations, despite some of them - namely Morsi - refusing to acknowledge its legitimacy. In the 1st verdict against him in a 3rd case, Morsi was sentenced in April to 20 years in prison, as he was convicted of inciting violence, and ordering the arrest and torture of demonstrators during 2012 clashes while he was in office. The ruling was denounced by Amnesty International as "travesty of justice". Morsi, who came to power following the 2011 ouster of longtime autocrat Hosni Mubarak, was himself toppled after a year in office on the back of massive street protests. His Muslim Brotherhood group has been banned as a terrorist organisation and targeted in a sustained police crackdown that has seen thousands landed in jail. (source: Ahram Online) UNITED NATIONS: Ban Ki-moon's troubling leadership Recently, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon asked Indonesia to stop the planned executions of 9 convicted drug-related criminals, but to no avail. It was the 3rd time he had called on Indonesia to halt the execution plans. 8 of the convicts were eventually executed. In a press statement, he urged Jakarta to "urgently consider declaring a moratorium on capital punishment with a view toward abolition". In so doing, Ban was acting like other global politicians who call for a respect of human dignity without a correct understanding of the matter. There was a very clear misunderstanding implied in Ban's definition of what he called the "most serious crimes" in his statement. His rejection of drug-related offenses as being among these "most serious crimes" is a grave inaccuracy. The imposition of death sentences for only the "most serious crimes" - as the Covenant on Civil and Political Rights 1966 calls it - has not been defined to date. Article 6 (2) of the covenant has made no further stipulation regarding the criteria of such gross criminal acts. The UN Human Rights Council in Geneva has failed to provide any clarifying indication, and the world remains in a debate over the issue. Without well-defined criteria, any criminal act can fall in this category, including drug-related offenses that have critically hurt society. It is a fact, one hardly denied, that drug use and drug trafficking is destroying Indonesia's future generation. That's why the decision to enforce harsh punishments for drug crimes resonates powerfully in the Indonesian public. The UN may oppose the death penalty in all circumstances. But to continue to intervene in the Indonesian legal system is something that is hardly respectable coming from the highest international institutions, such as the office of the UN secretary-general. Ban's critique cemented his hypocrisy on that particular matter, since he didn't have the same condemnation of the death penalty in Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and China or a few states in the US. Thomas Weiss of New York University, an eminent author of several books on the UN, ranks Ban as the least effective secretary-general, tied with formal heads Trgyve Lie and Kurt Waldheim. The 8th since the UN's establishment in 1945, Ban is considered among the 2 UN top officials in terms of diplomatic failures. As Weiss puts it, the 3 have tarnished the UN in different ways. Despite his preference of handling things in private - what he calls "quiet diplomacy", his repetitive appeals on the death penalty in Indonesia demonstrates inconsistency. He is not nurturing private and intense conversation with President Joko 'Jokowi" Widodo in discussing his concerns. Instead, Ban has picked his own fight by humiliating and lecturing the Indonesian government on the issue. Ban's style is not just disrupting the independence and sovereignty of UN member states: He has made interference a tradition of his own making inside and outside the UN office. If Ban Ki-moon tried but struggled to make an impact in international affairs amid the situation of his own "redemption", there is not much we can rely upon. For several reasons, he has failed to show credibility in his leadership, which jeopardizes the effectiveness of the UN system as a whole. First, he is arbitrarily targeting countries that lack the ability to fire back. Second, he latches onto the death penalty issue because it's an easy sell to media that allows him to portray himself as a tough UN top official. Third, the bias of his policy judgement obscures the true reality of the death penalty debate, on which no authoritative intergovernmental consensus on the categories of offenses considered serious crimes punishable by death has formed. Fourth, Ban shows no confidence in Indonesia's legal system and ignores Indonesia's meaningful contribution to the UN. Lastly, Ban's actions overshadow the implementation of legal sovereignty among UN members; it can be used to justify reforms of the world body. For the record, this call was also echoed by President Jokowi during the commemoration of the recent Asian African Conference. He has failed to show credibility in his leadership, which jeopardizes the effectiveness of the UN system as a whole. (source: Opinion; Muhammad Takdir, Geneva, Switzerland; The writer is a policy analyst, based in Geneva----The Jakarta Post) SINGAPORE: Drug trafficker gets reprieve one day before execution----Ghanaian to apply for re-sentencing after more than 6 years on death row Just a day before he was set to be hanged for trafficking 2.6kg of cannabis, Ghanaian Chijioke Stephen Obioha agreed to a last-minute reprieve which may save his life. The 38-year-old, who was set to be executed today after being on death row for more than 6 years, finally said yes to being considered for re-sentencing. After legislative changes to the mandatory death penalty came into effect in 2013, judges can impose a life sentence for drug couriers who satisfy certain criteria. The Court of Appeal yesterday gave him a month to file the application. "I changed my mind because I want to live," said the burly man, who was flanked by guards in bulletproof vests. In the past, he had repeatedly rejected the re-sentencing option which was given to more than 30 prisoners on death row, claiming it amounted to accepting that his conviction was correct. Obioha, who said he came here in 2005 to try out for a football club, was arrested in April 2007 by anti-narcotics officers who found 14 blocks of vegetable matter in the bag he had with him. The officers escorted him to his rental flat and found another 14 blocks in various bags. In December 2008, after a 21-day trial, he was convicted of trafficking in 2.6kg of cannabis and given the then-mandatory death penalty. In August 2010, his appeal was dismissed. His petition for clemency was rejected last month. On Monday, his lawyers, who were discharged in February, were notified that he was seeking a stay of execution to allow further evidence to be introduced. On Tuesday, Mr Manoj Nandwani and Mr Peter Ong were re-appointed as his lawyers. The next day, they filed the motion. Obioha contended that the cannabis blocks were not checked for DNA, which would establish whether he had handled them. Deputy Public Prosecutor Ng Cheng Thiam argued that this was a red herring as Obioha was raising this for the 1st time and the trial judge had found sufficient evidence the drugs were in his possession. During yesterday's hearing, Obioha changed his mind about the re-sentencing option. This earned him a reprieve, while his request to introduce new evidence was rejected. (source: straitstimes.com) MALAYSIA: 30-year-old Nigerian woman gets death penalty for drug trafficking----The court said all evidence brought against her, which she failed to convincingly counter, proved that she is guilty of trafficking the banned substance. The Malaysian High Court has sentenced to death a 30-year-old Nigerian, Mary George Unazi for drug trafficking. The presiding judge, Datuk Ghazali Cha, gave Mary a death penalty on Thursday, May 14 for trafficking 765.9gm of metamphetamine at the KL International Airport (KLIA) on May 10th 2011. In his judgement, Justice Cha said all evidence brought against her, which she failed to convincingly counter, proved that she is guilty of trafficking the banned substance. Unazi was arrested at the baggage claim area at the international arrival hall of KLIA. She was charged under Section 39B(1)(a) of the Dangerous Drugs Act 1952 of Malaysia which carries a mandatory death penalty upon conviction. (source: pulse.ng) IRAN----executions 7 prisoners hanged in Shiraz In a prison in the southern city of Shiraz, Iranian regime's henchmen secretly hanged seven prisoners on Sunday and Tuesday. The executions took place in Adelabad Prison of Shiraz in 2 groups of 3 and 4 prisoners. The identity of none of the prisoners is known and no source or official of the Iranian regime has announced the executions. In the past several days, several executions have been carried out in a number of cities, including Qazvin where 1 man was executed and in the central prison of Mashhad where a young man was hanged. Moreover, 6 inmates were hanged in the Orumiyeh prison on May 6. To confront mounting protests by the Iranian people, the Iranian regime has resorted to executing people on illusionary pretexts in order to create terror and horror. Under the rule of mullahs, Iran is the foremost country in the number of executions per capita. In many cases executions have gone unreported by official sources and the names of those being executed have not been disclosed to the public. Since Hassan Rouhani has become the president, the number of executions has continuously escalated which has drawn condemnations from international agencies. UN human rights experts condemned the recent surge in executions in Iran, the majority of which are unreported. Last week, Dr. Ahmed Shaheed, the UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights Situation in Iran, and Christof Heyns, the UN Special Rapporteur on Summary or Arbitrary Executions, condemned the drastic increase in executions since the past few weeks. "When the Iranian government refuses to even acknowledge the full extent of executions which have occurred, it shows a callous disregard for both human dignity and international human rights law," Mr. Shaheed stressed. Between the 9th and the 26th of April as many as 98 prisoners are reported to have been executed at an average of 6 per day. "We are alarmed by the recent surge in the number of executions, which has occurred despite serious questions about fair trial standards," Mr. Heyns noted. (source: NCR-Iran) SUDAN: South Sudanese Church Leaders Jailed Sudanese authorities have arrested 2 South Sudanese pastors who are now facing the death penalty. According to Morning Star News, Sudan's National Intelligence and Security Services have charged Reverends Yat Michael and Peter Yein Reith with undermining the country's constitutional system and waging war against the state; both charges carry a death sentence. However, the charges appear to be based solely on the pastors' nationality, race and faith, which are not well respected in a nation that President Omar al-Bashir has pledged will eventually become fully Arabic and Islamic. Violating international human rights agreements, the whereabouts of the detained pastors were unknown for months until they were transferred from Khartoum's police station to a clandestine NISS detention facility and then finally to Omdurman Prison. Both pastors have begun a hunger strike to protest their incarcerations. According to Amnesty International, holding the pastors incommunicado violated the Interim Constitution of Sudan, the African Charter on Human and People's Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, all of which are binding on Sudan. In general, arrests of Christians in Sudan have increased since the secession of South Sudan in July 2011 when Bashir vowed to adopt a stricter version of sharia. Since 2012, Sudan has expelled foreign Christians and bulldozed churches on the pretext that the buildings belonged to South Sudanese. NISS agents have threatened South Sudanese Christians who do not leave Sudan, or who fail to cooperate with NISS in its efforts to ferret out other South Sudanese Christians. Sudan has been designated a "Country of Particular Concern" by the U.S. State Department since 1999 and the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom recently recommended that Sudan retain that designation. Sudan ranked sixth on Open Doors' 2015 World Watch List of countries where Christians face the most persecution. (source: Worthy News) SURINAME: Suriname abolishes the death penalty On 13 April 2015 the criminal code in Suriname came into effect, which effectively abolishes the death penalty in that country. According to reports that ICDP received, the penal code was published in the National Gazette (Staatsblad) on 13 April after President Desi Bouterse signed it on 30 March. The new criminal code does not include provisions for the capital punishment. (source: icomdp.org) From rhalperi at smu.edu Fri May 15 13:47:44 2015 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Fri, 15 May 2015 13:47:44 -0500 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, OHIO, TENN., KAN., NEB. Message-ID: May 15 TEXAS: Dallas Case Has Appeals Court Looking At Mental Capacity & The Death Penalty The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals ruled that a Dallas County judge has the right to hold a hearing to figure out whether an accused murderer has the mental capacity to face the death penalty. When the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that executing the intellectually disabled is unconstitutional it was up to the states to pass new laws - Texas never did. Now comes the case of Tyrone Allen, who is accused of capital murder. Allen is accused of shooting and killing his pregnant girlfriend, Breshuana Jackson, and shooting a police officer during a high-speed chase before surrendering after a 4-hour standoff. Allen is also listed in the Texas sex offender list for 2 convictions of indecency with a child by exposure, 1 in 2000 and 1 in 2001. He was sentenced to a year in prison on both occasions. Prosecutors want the now 28-year-old Dallas man put to death. Defense lawyers want a judge to decide, before the trial, whether Allen is "intellectually disabled and thus immune from the death penalty." Legal analyst Ed Klein says it's clear the case is a long way from being decided. "Surely someone's going to take it up on appeal, to question whether or not what the legislature has passed is constitutional or protects the defendants rights properly." Klein says the legislature has sidestepped the question of mental capacity and the death penalty for more than 10 years. "It appears that the Court of Criminal Appeals is saying, 'Look, you're going to have finish the case first and then bring it up and we'll decide whether or not what you did was constitutional perhaps. Or, you have to wait until the legislature passes some statutes to give you guidance.'" Lawyers claim Allen's IQ is too low to qualify for the death penalty. Prosecutors say it's a question for the jury to decide, if indeed he is convicted. No hearing date in Allen's case has been set. (source: CBS news) OHIO: Mentally ill murderers would avoid death penalty under new Ohio Senate bill New bipartisan legislation in the Ohio Senate seeks to prohibit the death penalty for murderers diagnosed with a serious mental illness. Under Senate Bill 162, the death penalty could not be imposed on a murderer with an illness such as schizophrenia or bipolar disorder that "significantly impaired" his or her ability to exercise rational judgment, follow the law, or appreciate the nature of their crime. The rule would apply even in cases where the defendant was found competent to stand trial and didn't meet the standard to be found not guilty by reason of insanity. The bill would further allow murderers already on death row to seek resentencing if they can prove they have a serious mental illness. Those inmates would have 1 year after the bill becomes law to file such a petition. The proposal was one of more than 50 recommendations made last year by an Ohio Supreme Court task force studying reforms to the state's capital punishment system. Republican Sen. Bill Seitz of Cincinnati - who served on the task force - and Democratic Sen. Sandra Williams of Cleveland are sponsoring the bill. (source: cleveland.com) TENNESSEE----death row inmate dies Longest-serving Tennessee death row inmate dies The man who was the longest-serving inmate on Tennessee's death row died Wednesday of natural causes. Donald Strouth, 56, was pronounced dead Wednesday evening at a Nashville hospital, according to a news release from the Department of Correction. Strouth had been on death row since 1978 for the murder of a second-hand store owner in Kingsport. He knocked out and slashed the throat of Jimmy Keegan in a robbery, leaving his body behind in his store, where his wife later found him. Strouth was 1 of more than 30 inmates challenging the state's single-drug lethal injection protocol in a pending Davidson County Chancery Court case. More inmates died of natural causes on death row between 2004 and 2014 than were executed, and that trend continues. The last execution was in 2009. David Miller, who was sentenced to death in 1982, is now the longest-serving inmate. Miller, who also is involved in the legal challenge to the death penalty, killed a disabled woman with a fire poker in 1981 in Knox County. (source: The Tennessean) KANSAS: Death Penalty Expert Weighs In On Alleged JCC Shooter's Desire To Represent Himself A Johnson County judge agreed Thursday to let accused Jewish Community Center shooter Frazier Glenn Cross Jr. represent himself in court, a decision that could have far-reaching implications as the state pursues its capital case. Cross, a known anti-Semite who has bragged to the media about killing 3 people last spring at 2 Overland Park Jewish sites, has repeatedly told Judge Thomas Kelly Ryan he doesn't trust his lawyers and wants them fired. Before Thursday, Ryan had ignored Cross' frequent requests. But after District Attorney Stephen Howe pointed out that not allowing Cross to represent himself could be grounds for an appeal, Ryan relented. Still, the judge warned Cross he would be held to the same high standards as attorneys who have the expertise that could help him avoid the death penalty. "These kinds of cases drive judges crazy," says Robert Dunham, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center in Washington, D.C. "They drive judges crazy because the judges don't want the cases to be reversed, and they also want the defendants to get fair trials." Ryan made his decision after asking Cross dozens of questions to assess his understanding of the situation. "There are dangers, literally, of representing yourself," Ryan warned Cross. Cross kept interrupting the judge. "You're not going to talk me out of representing myself," he told Ryan. Dunham called it "a terrible situation" for a judge, who has to weigh his instinct that a capital defendant is not capable of providing meaningful representation for himself against the right the U.S. Supreme Court has granted allowing self-representation in some cases. The court previously found Cross competent to stand trial, but as Dunham points out, the test for legal competency falls short of a full mental health workup. "That person will say they understand what the judge is saying, but they're going to proceed with self-representation. They're going to fire their lawyer because that person isn't going to do what it is they want done," Dunham says. Dunham litigated capital cases in Pennsylvania for 2 decades, mostly at the appellate level, before assuming his current role. He says Cross' behavior in court - he's known for outbursts that have almost led to his removal - has raised red flags that could be used to overturn a conviction. "Is this person really mentally competent to stand trial? Are these kinds of racist outbursts a product of dementia, a product of mental illness?" Dunham says, adding it's impossible to know without a full mental health history on Cross. Cross' anti-Semitic beliefs date back to at least the 1970s. He was arrested in the 1980s with other Ku Klux Klan leaders and turned state's evidence in a plea deal. He got the name Cross while in the federal witness protection program. His surname before that was Miller, and both names have been used in court. Dunham says it's not often a defendant will adamantly refuse legal help, but it happens with surprising frequency in capital cases where the defendant is emotionally disturbed. "If you have someone who has a mentally ill delusion about the way the world works, and his lawyer is not going to run a crazy defense based on that delusion, the person will become very frustrated with their lawyer," Dunham says. Cross demonstrated his lack of legal knowledge almost immediately when Ryan asked him to respond to a motion his lawyers had filed requesting a change of venue. The motion called for either a venue study regarding the suitability of Johnson County as a trial location or for further arguments. "Isn't there such a thing as self-evident?" Cross asked the judge. "The amount of TV and newspaper I've gotten?" Cross conceded he'd brought some of that attention on himself, arranging interviews with the Kansas City Star and the Associated Press. Ryan told Cross no, he couldn't argue it was "self-evident" why a change of venue should be granted. Ryan said they would take up the motion at Cross' next court appearance June 10, at which he said he hoped Cross would present a better argument. "I hate to say I presume anything," Ryan told Cross before asking him a question about juror questionnaires, a thousand of which will be mailed out this summer once the prosecution and the defense hammer out what exactly will be on them. Ryan instructed the district attorney to send a list of questions to Cross at the Johnson County Jail. He again rejected an earlier request Cross made for a computer but said he could possibly get a typewriter in his jail cell. The trial is set for mid-August. (source: KCUR news) NEBRASKA: Debate to repeal death penalty begins The Nebraska Legislature began its Friday morning with what could be four hours of second-round debate on a bill to replace the death penalty with a life sentence. "It's dark in the chamber and that is as it should be," said Sen. Dave Bloomfield of Hoskins, who said he would change his vote from the 1st round and vote to retain the death penalty. Death penalty supporter Sen. Beau McCoy highlighted a recent case in Douglas County in which prosecutors say they will ask for the death penalty. A man is charged with killing his mother, throwing his 5-year-old half brother in a river and leaving his 11-month-old half brother in a dumpster. McCoy introduced an amendment that would allow the people of Nebraska to vote in May 2016 on whether they support the death penalty. Omaha Sen. Bob Krist asked senators to tone down the details of gruesome Nebraska death penalty cases, as were brought up in the 1st round of debate. Children often visit the Capitol and sit in the balconies to watch the Legislature as it debates. But McCoy said senators weren't called here to "talk about nice things." He said if needed, he would ask Speaker Galen Hadley to "clear the galleries" so senators could speak freely. Omaha Sen. Ernie Chambers, who introduced the bill (LB268), questioned Gov. Pete Ricketts' late afternoon announcement Thursday that he had purchased the 3 drugs necessary to carry out the death penalty. "Nebraska has not procured these drugs," he said. "No company in America produces sodium thiopental. There is none that will be exported by European countries." The governor is going to have to show where these drugs come from, he said. "So the timing of this announcement is very problematic," he said. The governor and Attorney General Doug Peterson hoped that they could mislead members of the Legislature into thinking the drugs were here and that the Nebraska Supreme Court will issue death warrants, he said. "But I guarantee you that is not going to happen," he said. "When you implement something like this you unleash a whole new series of appeals that will start at the state level, go through the federal level." On Friday, the ACLU of Nebraska filed an open records request to determine if the state's recent acquisition of drugs to be used in lethal injection was lawful. A 2013 Federal Circuit Court ruling determined lethal injection drugs are subject to U.S. Food and Drug Administration oversight and importation rules and that states must obtain such drugs legally through licensed, inspected dealers. The sodium thiopental, used to knock out the inmate, and pancuronium bromide, to cause paralysis, were ordered from Harris Pharma, Ricketts said Thursday. Harris Pharma has previously sold drugs to Nebraska that were unable to be used. 3 of Nebraska's 11 death-row inmates have exhausted all of their appeals. There hasn't been an execution since 1997. Nebraska went to lethal injection after the state Supreme Court ruled in 2008 that the electric chair amounted to unconstitutionally cruel and unusual punishment. (source: Lincoln Journal Star) ****************** Day after drug-purchase announcement, filibuster underway on death penalty repeal Nebraska lawmakers took another step toward repealing the death penalty Friday, less than 24 hours after the state secured the needed drugs to carry out lethal injection. Senators voted 30-16 to advance to the final round on a bill that would replace lethal injection with life in prison. The vote came after death penalty supporters conducted a 4-hour filibuster in an effort to block the legislation. Senators voted 34-14 to cut off debate. "We must deliver a punishment that makes it crystal clear how much we respect the innocent lives," said Sen. Beau McCoy of Omaha, who led the filibuster. Gov. Pete Ricketts, who supports the death penalty, added another dimension to the debate Thursday night when he announced the state has purchased the drugs necessary to carry out an execution. 2 of the 3 drugs in Nebraska's lethal injection protocol had expired. The newly purchased drugs will be imported from India. Sen. Ernie Chambers of Omaha, who introduced the repeal bill, said they will trigger a new round of appeals over how they were manufactured and obtained. "The timing of this announcement is very problematic," Chambers said. "They do not have the drugs." The governor's spokesman said the drugs will be tested by an independent laboratory for purity upon their arrival in Nebraska. Attorney General Doug Peterson has said 3 of the 11 death row inmates have exhausted their appeals. Lawmakers voted 30-13 after 1st-round debate to advance Legislative Bill 268. 17 Republican senators joined with 12 Democrats and one Independent on the vote. Sens. Jerry Johnson of Wahoo and Dave Bloomfield of Hoskins said learning the state had purchased the drugs caused him to reconsider their earlier votes. Johnson voted for repeal and Bloomfield abstained on 1st round. Not since 1979 have Nebraska lawmakers voted to repeal capital punishment. But former Gov. Charles Thone vetoed the measure and an override vote failed. (source: omaha.com) From rhalperi at smu.edu Fri May 15 13:49:02 2015 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Fri, 15 May 2015 13:49:02 -0500 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide Message-ID: May 15 INDIA: SC upholds death sentence to couple for killing 7 of girl's family The Supreme Court Friday upheld the death sentence of a couple for exterminating all the 7 members of the girl's family, holding that the "couple indulged in such debased act of multiple murders driven by infatuation and exhibited no remorse". Upholding the death sentence of Shabnam and her paramour Salim, a bench of Chief Justice H.L.Dattu, Justice S.A. Bobde and Justice Arun Mishra said: "The accused persons' preparedness, active involvement, scheming execution and subsequent conduct reeks of calculated and motivated murders." Pronouncing the judgment, Chief Justice Dattu said: "The act of slaughtering a 10 month old child by strangulation in no chance reflects immature action but evidence for the lack of remorse, kindness and humanity. The crime is committed in the most cruel and inhuman manner which is extremely brutal, grotesque, diabolical and revolting." Therefore, the court said that the "instant case requires us to award a punishment that is graduated and proportioned to the crime... we have reached the inescapable conclusion that the extreme culpability of both the appellants - accused (Shabnam and Salim) makes them the most deserving for death penalty". On the intervening night of April 14/14, 2008, Shabnam had killed her mother, father, her elder brother, his wife, their 10-month old child, another brother and her minor niece. Holding that the accused girl was from an educated family and herself a teacher, the court said: "Such a deed would be sufficiently appalling were the perpetrator and the victims are uneducated and backward, but it gains a ghastly illumination from the descent, moral upbringing, and elegant respectful living of the educated family where the father and daughter are both teachers." Noting the disregard of the accused girl for the familial ties, the court said: "Not only did she forget her love for and duty towards her family, but also perpetrated the multiple homicide in her own house so as to fulfill her desire to be with the co-accused Salim and grab the property leaving no heir but herself." Here is a case, the court said, "where the daughter, (Shabnam), who has been brought up in an educated and independent environment by her family and was respectfully employed as a Shikshamitra (teacher) at the school, influenced by the love and lust of her paramour has committed this brutal parricide exterminating 7 lives including that of an innocent child". Both Shabnam and Salim hatched the conspiracy to liquidate all the family members of girl - who was also pregnant outside of wedlock by Salim - as they were opposed to their alliance. The accused girl first administered her family members with sedatives mixed in tea prepared by her and thereafter, bled them to death by "slitting the vital blood vessels in their throats". A trial court convicted and sentenced them to death in July 2008 and the decision was upheld by the Allahabad High Court on April 26, 2013. (source: Daijiworld.com) IRAN: West is ignoring soaring executions in Iran The West is sacrificing human rights abuses in Iran - which has executed 342 people so far this year - as it seeks to strike a nuclear deal with the regime, Soona Samsami, the representative of the National Council of Resistance of Iran in the United States warns. Mrs. Samsami said the Iranian regime was now on target to execute 1,000 men, women and minors in 2015, compared to 721 people in 2014. She added: "The executions have also been coupled with renewed repression against opponents of the regime, most notably targeting political activists and ethnic minorities. In fact, the UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights, Ahmad Shaheed, has noted that under the so-called 'moderate' Hassan Rouhani 'the overall situation has worsened'. "Many opposition activists have alleged that the regime uses its war on drugs as a cover to crack down on dissent. The regime levies charges against opponents under drug laws in an attempt to besmirch their credibility. "Former UN rapporteurs on Iran have documented examples of dissidents being executed as drug traffickers. Yet, the regime receives millions in funding from the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) with no strings attached, while it carries out these barbaric executions. "The political climate of repression and censorship in Iran, coupled with lack of due process in the judiciary, create severe difficulties in finding the truth behind Iran???s executions." But the West was ignoring human rights violations in Iran as it strove to reach agreement on an end to Tehran's nuclear program. She wrote in online journal The Hill: "If the recent killings are any evidence of what a 'post-nuclear deal' Iran looks like as far as human rights are concerned, then it is safe to assume that, as morally unconscionable as it is, human rights in Iran will continue to be sacrificed at the altar of negotiations with Tehran. "Congress has a role to play to hold the clerics accountable for their rights violations. No sanctions relief is justified for a regime responsible for 120,000 political executions and imprisonment and torture of thousands more. "On April 29, Maryam Rajavi, NCRI's President-elect testified before House Foreign Affairs subcommittee on Terrorism, non-Proliferation, and Trade and asked Congress to address Tehran's nuclear threat and human rights abuses equally. "'Acquiring a nuclear arsenal, abusing human rights, and exporting fundamentalism and terrorism are indispensable features of the ruling theocracy', Mrs. Rajavi said, adding, 'Upholding human rights in Iran and forcing the regime to withdraw from Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Yemen, and Afghanistan offer a real yardstick to ascertain whether or not the regime has abandoned its nuclear weapons program. Anything short, however camouflaged or presented, amounts to self-delusion and acquiesces to the catastrophe of a nuclear-armed theocracy'. (source: NCR-Iran) INDONESIA: Lindsay Sandiford's drugs appeal case 'strong', lawyer says The lawyer for a British drugs smuggler on death row in Indonesia has said her final appeal case will have "strong grounds" for her acquittal. Lindsay Sandiford, 58, from Cheltenham, is facing death by firing squad but has a six month window to file her appeal. Craig Tuck told Victoria Derbyshire her defence would show she was a vulnerable drugs mule trafficked into Bali. He said Indonesian law also made allowances for trafficked persons in this situation to be acquitted. Sandiford has been in jail since 2012 after arriving in Bali from Thailand carrying drugs with a street value of 1.6m pounds. 'Personal factors' Mr Tuck said: "Lindsay is a vulnerable person, she's had mental health issues, she's had all sorts of personal factors and features which are relevant to the case that need to be put into the mix of what exploitation occurred - that is going to take some months. "That creates an international legal position and the black letter law in Indonesia says if you are a trafficked person you must be acquitted. "On that basis, that defence has never been run, and needed to be looked at and we're making sure we get that position solid." Last month, 8 people were executed by firing squad in Indonesia. Sandiford's lawyer said she had escaped this fate as her appeal had not been filed. He said: "We have a 6 month window to file the appeal, now had she filed the appeal earlier its likely she would have been executed in the previous round of executions. "There's been 2 rounds of executions - she may have been on that list." 'Refusing help' Sandiford's campaigners have also made a fresh appeal calling for her case to get a fair hearing. They have also expressed concerns over the lack of funding support from the UK government. The government has said "it has been the policy of successive governments not to fund legal assistance for British Nationals". Campaigners also allude to the British Vice Consul to Bali, Alys Harahap who was suspended over an alleged relationship with a drugs lord who Sandiford alleges coerced her into smuggling drugs. Julian Ponder is currently in prison in Indonesia over drugs charges. The UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) has confirmed Harahap has been dismissed from her post. A FCO spokesman added: "Lindsay Sandiford is currently refusing consular assistance but we stand ready to visit her in prison if she changes her mind. "It is the long-standing policy of the UK to oppose the death penalty in all circumstances. "We have made representations to the Indonesian government on this matter repeatedly and at the highest levels, and will continue to do so." Mr Tuck said: "This appeal has one of the strongest grounds that I've seen in decades. "From start to finish the trial process and appeals process was a train wreck to some extent, I think she will get a fair deal from the Indonesian Supreme Court." (source: BBC news) From rhalperi at smu.edu Fri May 15 15:21:50 2015 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Fri, 15 May 2015 15:21:50 -0500 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----ALA., NEB., USA Message-ID: May 15 ALABAMA: Alabama bought lethal injection drugs on black market, feds seized them, report says A year ago, Alabama officials admitted for the 1st time that the state had run out of at least 1 of the 3 drugs it uses for lethal injections. Now we know why. Alabama, like several other states, had become so desperate for a supplier that it turned to the black market, the Atlantic reported in a story this week. The federal government did not approve and the Drug Enforcement Administration seized the drugs from several states. Those details are part of an extensive feature story the Atlantic published this week about the execution of Clayton Lockett in Oklahoma. More than just a recount of that execution, the story explains why so many states have struggled to obtain the sedatives needed for the lethal 3-drug cocktail. The problematic step in the lethal injection process has been the 1st of the 3 drugs - a sedative capable of putting inmates into a coma-like state of unconsciousness. Until 2010, states bought the sedative sodium thiopental from the U.S.-based pharmaceutical manufacturer Hospira. However, Hospira stopped making the drug that year after the Food and Drug Administration discovered that its plant in North Carolina had been producing contaminated drugs. Hospira was the only FDA-approved source of sodium thiopental, but several states desperate for other sources of the drug soon began to look elsewhere. At least 4 states bought the drug from a London-based company called Dream Pharma, but anti-death penalty advocates soon revealed that Dream Pharma was little more than a front for the black market. Far from being a pharmaceutical manufacturer, Dream Pharma had two desks and a cabinet in a small dilapidated building that belonged to a driving school, the Atlantic report says. After Dream Pharma closed, states turned to suppliers in Mumbai and elsewhere in India for sodium thiopental, which sold them the drug until they realized that it was being used for executions, at which point they stopped. It's not clear which source Alabama used, but after 2011, it didn't matter. "Since Hospira had been the only FDA-approved supplier of sodium thiopental, states that had imported it had done so illegally," the Atlantic reports. "Prisons had become, in effect, drug smugglers, and while the FDA may have been willing to look the other way, the DEA was not. In March 2011, agents seized Georgia's supply of sodium thiopental. In April, they seized Tennessee's, Kentucky's, South Carolina's, and Alabama's." After having their supplies of black market thiopental seized, some states experimented with another barbiturate called pentobarbital, but soon the manufacturer of that drug, the Danish pharmaceutical company Lundbeck, put restrictions on its distribution and use that prevented prisons from using it in executions. After Lundbeck put those restrictions in place, states turned to compounding pharmacies, which make small quantities of made-to-order drugs, often for patients with allergies or other special needs. Others began experimenting with the sedative midazolam, but in roughly one in four of those executions, the drug has failed to fully sedate the prisoners. In Alabama, the state has refused to disclose both what drugs it uses for lethal injections and their sources of supply, citing the potential for litigation. Several states have passed laws to make that information a state secret, even keeping from the defendants facing execution. In the last 2 years, Alabama lawmakers have attempted to pass such a secrecy bill. Last year, a bill that would have made the information secret, even out of reach of a court order by a judge, died in the Alabama Senate. This year, the Alabama House has again passed the secrecy bill and it is awaiting committee action in the Alabama Senate. (source: Opinion, Kyle Whitmire, al.com) NEBRASKA: 'Boys Don't Cry' Mom: Keep Nebraska's Death Penalty Nebraska moved closer Friday to repealing the death penalty, thanks to Republican and conservative lawmakers who argue it's a waste of taxpayer money, a failed government program, and cruel to victims' families who wait decades for an execution. The relatives of those killed by the 11 men on death row are divided about whether capital punishment should end in the Cornhusker State - the goal of a bill that cleared its 2nd hurdle with a 30-16 vote on Friday. The mother of Brandon Teena, the transgender murder victim whose story was the basis of the film "Boys Dont Cry," said life in prison without parole isn't enough for the man convicted of killing the 21-year-old and two other people in 1993. "I want him to die," Joann Brandon said of death-row inmate John Lotter. "It will bring some closure to me. It bothers me every day because I think about my daughter constantly and I don't see any justice being done for her. "He was sentenced to die. He should have died a long time ago." The cult leader who tortured and killed Miriam Thimm Kelle's brother in 1985 has been on death row even longer, but Kelle supports repeal. Her opposition to the death penalty stems in part from her religious beliefs - she's Mennonite - but Kelle also says the drawn-out legal process in executions in emotionally exhausting. "I lost another brother to a car accident. It was quick - you bury them and you grieve," she said. "With this, you have to re-grieve all the time. It's like picking off scabs continually." Nebraska hasn't executed anyone since 1997. Until this week, it didn't even have the drugs necessary for lethal injection. But on Thursday evening, Gov. Pete Ricketts announced that the state has obtained the three drugs - 2 of them from a supplier in India. Ricketts has vowed to veto any repeal legislation, but it appears the abolitionists have the 30 votes needed for an override, and possibly even the 33 votes to overcome any filibusters. It needs be passed 1 more time to get to Ricketts' desk. The movement is "pushing together an unlikely coalition of political allegiances," University of Nebraska law professor Eric Berger said. The measure was sponsored by Sen. Ernie Chambers, a firebrand Democrat and Nebraska's only black state legislator, who recently came under fire for comparing police officers to ISIS. He's made at least 3 dozen other attempts to end capital punishment in the state. The reason he may succeed this time is because Republican and conservative lawmakers have signed on. Some of them believe an anti-execution stance is consistent with pro-life policies. Another factor driving them is the expense of capital cases, which drag on through years of appeals. "Nebraska tends to be very cost-conscious," Berger said. "And there is growing sentiment here that capital punishment is a failed government program...It's something the state has proven inept at managing." Joann Brandon dismisses those complaints. "I think it's worth the money and time," she said of executions. She said her life was destroyed by her child's violent end; Teena was raped by 2 men who discovered he was transgender and then later killed for reporting the sexual assault to police. When Brandon heard about the repeal effort, she was "devastated," she said. "I'd like to tell them [legislators] what pills I have to take to get through the day, what this is doing to me personally, seeing him just sitting on death row," she said. Kelle said she was opposed to the death penalty even before self-proclaimed prophet Michael Wayne Ryan gruesomely murdered her brother James Thimm - sodomizing him a shovel handle, shooting off his fingers and skinning his leg before stomping him to death. But 30 years after his conviction, she's even more sure that an execution won't bring her peace. "We don't have to kill people," she said. (source: NBC news) USA: Dzhokhar Tsarnaev Gets Death Penalty in Boston Marathon Bombing Dzhokhar Tsarnaev sat stone-faced in a federal court here on Friday as a jury sentenced him to death for setting off bombs at the 2013 Boston Marathon that killed 3 people and injured hundreds more in the worst terrorist attack on American soil since Sept. 11, 2001. The jury of 7 women and 5 men, which last month convicted Mr. Tsarnaev, 21, of all 30 charges against him, 17 of which carry the death penalty, took more than 14 hours to reach its decision. In reaching its decision, the jury found that Mr. Tsarnaev had shown no remorse for actions, and it rejected the defense argument that his older brother, Tamerlan, had brainwashed him into joining in the bombings. It was the 1st time a federal jury had sentenced a terrorist to death in the post-Sept. 11 era, according to Kevin McNally, director of the Federal Death Penalty Resource Counsel Project, which coordinates the defense in capital punishment cases. Sister Helen Prejean at an anti-death penalty conference in Switzerland in 2010. On Monday, she testified for the defense in the death penalty case of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev. Prosecutors portrayed Mr. Tsarnaev, who immigrated to Cambridge, Mass., from the Russian Caucasus with his family in 2002, as a coldblooded, unrepentant jihadist who sought to kill innocent Americans in retaliation for the deaths of innocent Muslims in American-led wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The bombings transformed the marathon, a cherished rite of spring, from a sunny holiday on Boylston Street to a smoky battlefield scene, with shrapnel flying, bodies dismembered and blood saturating the sidewalks; 3 people were killed outright, while 17 people lost at least 1 leg. More than 240 others sustained serious injuries, some of them life-altering. "After all of the carnage and fear and terror that he has caused, the right decision is clear," a federal prosecutor, Steven Mellin, said in his closing argument. "The only sentence that will do justice in this case is a sentence of death." With death sentences, an appeal is all but inevitable, and the process generally takes years if not decades to play out. Of the 80 federal defendants sentenced to death since 1988, only 3, including Timothy J. McVeigh, the Oklahoma City bomber, have been executed. Most cases are still tied up in appeal. In the rest, the sentences were vacated or the defendants died or committed suicide. The Tsarnaev verdict goes against the grain in Massachusetts, which has no death penalty for state crimes and where polls showed that residents overwhelmingly favored life in prison for Mr. Tsarnaev. Many respondents said that life in prison for one so young would be a fate worse than death, and some worried that execution would make him a martyr. But the jurors in his case had to be "death qualified" - that is, they all had to be willing to impose the death penalty to serve on the jury. So in that sense, the jury was not representative of the state. Before they could decide that Mr. Tsarnaev should receive the death penalty, the jurors had to wade through a complicated, 24-page verdict slip. On it, they had to weigh the aggravating factors that would justify his death as well as the mitigating factors, presented by the defense, that would argue for him to live. Despite that complicated process, Judge George A. O'Toole Jr. of Federal District Court, who presided in the case, told jurors that their final decision should not be based on a numerical comparison of aggravating factors to mitigating factors. Rather, he said, they should use their individual judgment and internal moral compass. The final words that jurors heard before beginning deliberations on Wednesday were a blistering assessment from William Weinreb, the lead prosecutor, about why Mr. Tsarnaev should be executed and not simply locked up. "The callousness and indifference that allows you to destroy people's lives, to ignore their pain, to shrug off their heartbreak - that doesn't go away just because you're locked up in a prison cell," Mr. Weinreb told them. "It's what enables you to be a terrorist, and it's what insulates you from feelings of remorse." Life imprisonment, he added, is the minimum punishment authorized by law for these deaths - the 3 at the marathon and the death a few days later of an M.I.T. police officer. It is "a lesser punishment than death," he said, even though some argue that a lifetime in prison is worse. "Does he deserve the minimum punishment, or do these crimes, these 4 deaths, demand something more?" Mr. Weinreb asked the jury. "Please ask yourself that question when you go back to deliberate." The verdict is a rare defeat for Judy Clarke, the lead defense lawyer and renowned opponent of the death penalty. Ms. Clarke has represented a number of notorious defendants, including Theodore J. Kaczynski, the Unabomber; Eric Rudolph, the Olympic Park bomber; and Jared L. Loughner, who killed 6 people in an assassination attempt on Representative Gabrielle Giffords. Ms. Clarke's expertise is in negotiating deals in which her clients plead guilty in exchange for sentences of life in prison. But in this case, the government was determined to get a death sentence and rejected her overtures. (source: New York Times) From rhalperi at smu.edu Fri May 15 15:22:34 2015 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Fri, 15 May 2015 15:22:34 -0500 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide Message-ID: May 15 GLOBAL: Islam, justice and the death penalty Is it possible and necessary to have voices from Islam that are both against and for a moratorium on the death penalty? I think it is necessary, as what shapes discourse in the Muslim communities of Muslim-majority countries can influence policies in those countries. In Indonesia, for instance, an interpretation of sharia, promoting a moratorium on the death penalty has been raised, but it is unfavourable to many Muslim scholars. Amid the uproar concerning the death penalty for Indonesian migrant workers in Saudi Arabia, as well as that of drug convicts in Indonesia, opposing voices in the name of Islam are barely heard. Nahdlatul Ulama (NU), the largest Muslim organisation in Indonesia, considered moderate by many, condemned the death penalty for migrant workers in Saudi Arabia, yet supported the death penalty for drug convicts. But in general, the death penalty is a non-issue for Islamic organisations. First, this is maybe because death penalty cases in general scarcely touch the issue of Muslim identity politics - many so-called secular Muslims are on both sides of the debate. Second, capital punishment, along with corporal punishment, is prescribed in Islamic scripture so it is very difficult, though not impossible, to have a voice of Islam that is against the death penalty. However, 21st century Muslims should review the practices of the death penalty in Muslim-majority countries and this can be done even within the realm of Islamic teachings or sharia. Here are the premises. Sharia by many Muslims nowadays is reductively understood in terms of legalistic formulae. Sharia is associated with corporal and/or capital punishment, as if sharia is nothing but a penal code and punishments. Yet sharia literally means the way or path. In Koranic terminology, it means the path toward an objective representative of the supreme virtue of Islam, which is justice (some would add dignity of human beings and mercy and love for all creatures). Muslim scholars, ranging from reformists, rationalists, even literalists, would agree that the supreme value promoted by Islam when it comes to dealing with relationships among individuals and/or communities is justice, as explicitly stated and commanded by God many times in the Koran. The mercy that Islam would bring to the world is justice. Included in that unjust system are dictatorships that are still embraced by many Muslim-majority countries [...] Any action leading to injustice, in whatever name, including in the name of Islam, is therefore un-Islamic and should be opposed by Muslims. All Islamic legal opinions that are against justice are thus against the sharia of Islam. As God has commanded Muslims to be "bearers of witness with justice", as the Koran states, Muslims should share the notion once voiced by Martin Luther King Jr that "injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere". All unjust punishments should be an Islamic issue, including questions over the death penalty of Indonesian migrant workers and foreign and local drug convicts. Now, the question is how justice is manifested in punishment. The traditional fiqh (Islamic law and jurisprudence) is still lacking discussion of the philosophy of justice compared to advanced discourse in the secular realm, which has led to the concept of restorative justice, distinguished from retributive justice. The idea of qisas (an eye for an eye) is mostly understood as a deterrent and/or equal retaliation within retributive justice. Nevertheless, Muslim scholars advocating a moratorium on the death penalty are echoing these arguments: corporal punishment, stoning or the death penalty cannot be implemented within an unjust system of governance, judiciary, or an unequal society, given the fact that those punishments are irreversible. In this view, a just system is a prerequisite of such irreversible punishments. An unjust system is considered one of the shubuhat (ambiguities) based upon which the irreversible punishment must not be applied, as the Prophet Muhammad said. Included in that unjust system are dictatorships that are still embraced by many Muslim-majority countries, where the weak and poor are more likely to be punished than the wealthy and powerful. That is the argument posed by some NU leaders in criticising Saudi Arabia's death penalty for Indonesian migrant workers, given frequent reports of torture and other dehumanising practices by employers. With regard to restorative justice, Mutaz M Qafisheh from Hebron University in the International Journal of Criminal Justice Sciences wrote that Islamic jurisprudence had many alternatives to original punishments known in modern restorative justice systems, such as compensation (diya), conciliation (sulh) and pardon (afw). These mechanisms are stated in the Koran and were exemplified by the Prophet. Qafisheh also says that classical Muslim scholars had unique mechanisms derived from the wider principles of Islam that can be understood as restorative means, such as repentance (tawba), intercession (shafaa), surety (kafala) and expiation (kafara). He concludes: "By looking at the philosophy of penalty as detailed by Islamic jurisprudence [...] restorative justice does exist. It exists as the general rule. Retributive justice is the exception." That kind of reinterpreting of Islamic scripture should be advanced by today's Muslim scholars if Muslims want to be able to respond to the discourse of international human rights. Also, for the Muslims who are so obsessed with the rules textually prescribed in the scripture, we should consider the notion that God's revelation is not only in the text (ayat qauliyyah) but exists also in the universe (ayat kauniyyah), in the way human beings behave. Modern sociology and criminology should be juxtaposed and mirrored with traditional fiqh by Muslim jurists in their interpretations of the scripture. (source: Opinion, Azis Anwar Fachruddin; The writer is a graduate student at the Centre for Religious and Cross-cultural Studies at Gadjah Mada University, Yogyakarta----Asia News Network) From rhalperi at smu.edu Fri May 15 15:29:57 2015 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Fri, 15 May 2015 15:29:57 -0500 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----USA Message-ID: May 15 USA: Few federal inmates on death row have been actually put to death Now that a death sentence was given Friday to convicted Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, many Americans may be surprised to know he could live a relatively long time on federal death row. That's partly because only three people have been executed in the United States since the federal death penalty was reinstated in 1988 after a 16-year moratorium. Those three are: -- Timothy McVeigh for the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing that killed 168 people. -- Juan Raul Garza convicted of killing 3 people and running a marijuana drug ring in Texas. -- Louis Jones for the kidnapping and murder of 19-year-old Army Pvt. Tracie McBride. Before McVeigh's execution in 2001, the federal government had not put anyone to death since 1963. Juries have handed down the death sentence in federal cases 74 times since 1988, according to the Federal Death Penalty Resource Counsel Project. In federal capital cases, juries choose death rather than life in prison about 30% of the time. But when you take into account overturned convictions and vacated verdicts, the death sentence has only been applied 71 times in federal cases. A trial judge has the power to vacate a jury's death sentence in federal cases, said Robert Dunham, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center. Such overturning of a death sentence occurs when a judge agrees with an attorney's post-trial motion to throw out the death penalty, Dunham said. 3 federal inmates who were sentenced to death, died or committed suicide prior to the imposition of their sentence, the Federal Death Penalty Resource Counsel Project said. There are about 60 people on federal death row and more than 3,000 on death rows across the country in state prisons. 32 states have a death penalty. Massachusetts is 1 of the 18 states without a death penalty. It was abolished there in 1984. In a Boston Globe poll taken in September, 57% of Boston respondents supported a life sentence for Tsarnaev, and 35% favored the death penalty. According to Amnestyusa.org, 139 countries around the world have abolished the penalty in law or practice. In 2009, the overwhelming majority of all known executions took place in 5 countries: China, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Iraq and the United States. (source: CNN) ***************************** Death Penalty for Tsarnaev: Reaction to Verdict in Boston Marathon Attack Public officials said Friday that they hoped the death penalty for Dzhokhar Tsarnaev might bring closure to the families of the victims and help heal a city wounded by the Boston Marathon attack. Here are some statements of reaction. Mayor Marty Walsh of Boston I want to thank the jurors and the judiciary for their service to our community and our country. I hope this verdict provides a small amount of closure to the survivors, families, and all impacted by the violent and tragic events surrounding the 2013 Boston Marathon. We will forever remember and honor those who lost their lives and were affected by those senseless acts of violence on our City. Today, more than ever, we know that Boston is a City of hope, strength and resilience, that can overcome any challenge. Attorney General Loretta Lynch Dzhokhar Tsarnaev coldly and callously perpetrated a terrorist attack that injured hundreds of Americans and ultimately took the lives of three individuals: Krystle Marie Campbell, a 29-year-old native of Medford; Lingzi Lu, a 23-year-old Boston University graduate student from China; and Martin Richard, an 8-year-old boy from Dorchester who was watching the marathon with his family just a few feet from the second bomb. In the aftermath of the attack, Tsarnaev and his brother murdered Sean Collier, a 27-year-old patrol officer on the MIT campus, extinguishing a life dedicated to family and service. We know all too well that no verdict can heal the souls of those who lost loved ones, nor the minds and bodies of those who suffered life-changing injuries from this cowardly attack. But the ultimate penalty is a fitting punishment for this horrific crime and we hope that the completion of this prosecution will bring some measure of closure to the victims and their families. We thank the jurors for their service, the people of Boston for their vigilance, resilience and support and the law enforcement community in Boston and throughout the country for their important work. Chief John DiFava of the MIT police On behalf of the entire MIT Police Department, I would first like to offer my continued sympathy and support to the victims and their families. While the horror thy have endured can never be undone, I hope that the conclusion of the trial and the subsequent verdict can offer some kind of closure, no matter how small. I would also like to extended my deepest thanks and appreciation to the United States Attorney's Office and the prosecution team; the FBI and supporting law enforcement agencies, and the men and women of the jury who were confronted with an extremely difficult decision and performed admirably. We respect the judicial system in the United States and its well defined process. No verdict could erase the horrible tragedies that have occurred, and we respect the decision of the jury. Watertown, Massachusetts, police Tsarnaev was cornered in Watertown 4 days after the blasts. The members of the Watertown Police Department are pleased the jury has made a decision in the sentencing of the convicted marathon bomber. We understand the complexities of this decision and how difficult it has been for them to reach this final conclusion. The efforts and commitment of the jurors over the past 4 months are appreciated and we respect the outcome of their decision. The Watertown Police Department would also like to commend the hard work and determination of the prosecution team. We have witnessed first-hand the incredible amount of work, both in and out of the courtroom, they have endured preparing and presenting this case. We appreciate all their efforts and dedication. At this time the Watertown Police Department would also like to remember the victims, survivors and families of those affected by the events of this terrible tragedy. They will forever be in our thoughts and prayers. Col. Tim Alben, superintendent of the Massachusetts State Police On behalf of the Massachusetts State Police I want to extend our thanks and deepest respect to the the members of the jury in the Tsarnaev Case. For months, these men and women placed their lives on hold for the greater good of our community. They listened intently to the testimony, carefully evaluated the evidence and were committed to the immense responsibility of thoughtful and intensive deliberation. Today, the jury has spoken with a verdict to enact the death penalty. As with the guilty verdict several weeks ago, the collective thoughts of this department remain not with the defendant and the path he chose that resulted in today's verdict, but for the victims of his actions, their families and this greater community." (source: NBC News) From rhalperi at smu.edu Sat May 16 09:33:38 2015 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Sat, 16 May 2015 09:33:38 -0500 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----ALA., NEB., NEV., USA Message-ID: May 16 ALABAMA: Huntsville man who confessed to strangling wife and son has death penalty trial set A Huntsville man facing a possible death sentence in the killings of his wife and young son is set to go on trial Feb. 22, 2016. Madison County Circuit Judge Donna Pate today ordered the trial date for Stephen Marc Stone, 35. Stone is charged with capital murder in the February 2013 strangulation deaths of his wife, Krista Stone and their son, 7-year-old Zachary Stone, at the home they rented on Chicamauga Trail in south Huntsville. Pate set the date following a status conference with the parties this morning. Madison County District Attorney Rob Broussard has said the DA's office will seek the death penalty for Stone. Pate also ordered that prosecutors must -- 30 days before trial - turn over to the defense the "aggravators" the state will name in seeking the death penalty for Stone. Under Alabama law, in a death penalty case, the state has to argue to a jury what aggravating factors were involved in the crime to make the death penalty the appropriate punishment. Aggravators include the argument that the killing was especially heinous and cruel, involved 2 or more victims, involved the possibility of deaths many people and was committed during another offense, like a burglary. The judge also ordered that if defense attorneys Brian Clark and Larry Marsili hire an outside expert, including one to evaluate Stone's mental condition, they must provide prosecutors with any related reports 60 days before trial. The killings took place early on Feb. 24, 2013. Stone later told police he felt as if something had "broken" inside of him before the killings. During Stone's 2013 preliminary hearing, Huntsville Police Department investigator Michael Leftwich described what Stone told him about the killings and the circumstances that led him to turn himself in to police in Leeds, where his parents lived. Stone told Leftwich that he and Krista Stone were having a mild argument early on Feb. 24 over his failure to be home for a visit from his parents, when he decided to strangle her. She did nothing to provoke him, Stone told Leftwich. After strangling his wife, Stone then went to his son Zachary's room and strangled him. Leftwich testified. To ensure he was dead, Stone filled a bathtub and drowned the child. The bodies were found on the couple's bed, with the boy wrapped in towels. Stone has no criminal history, Leftwich testified, adding there was no history of any mental health issues reported by his family. Stone and his wife both worked at Crestwood Hospital and married a year after Krista Stone graduated high school. Leftwich testified the case began after the Leeds Police Department called Huntsville police to report that Stone had come into the Leeds police station and told officers that he killed his wife and son. Stone gave Leeds police the address, the names of the victims and even described which doors in the house were locked. Police and a HEMSI unit were dispatched and the bodies were found. Stone was transported back to Huntsville and gave a voluntary statement to Leftwich that the detective said was recorded on video. Stone told Leftwich that he was confused and something was broken inside of him Feb. 23. He spent the day driving around the state, including as far as Troy, and skipped a visit to Huntsville from his parents. Stone described returning late that night and killing his wife and son, Leftwich said. The couple had two daughers, who were 4 and 2 and the time. Leftwich asked Stone why he didn't hurt the 2 girls. Stone told him it was unnecessary, after killing Zachary he was "free." After the killings Stone told Leftwich he took a brief nap, watched TV and in the morning when the girls got up, he told them their mother and Zach were still resting. He took the girls to Hardee's for biscuits and then drove down to Leeds. He stopped at a Walmart in Leeds and asked a police sergeant for directions to the police station. After reaching his parents' house, Stone said he told his mother he needed to go to Walmart to buy the girls' coats since he'd forgotten to bring them. Instead he went to the Leeds Police Department. After he began to talk, officers there called in their sergeant, the same man who Stone had asked for directions at Walmart. Leftwich said Stone volunteered all the information. (source: al.com) NEBRASKA: Nebraska's death penalty teeters toward repeal as final vote looms in Legislature The possible demise of Nebraska's death penalty is starting to look probable. Supporters of capital punishment in the State Legislature made an all-out effort Friday to block a repeal bill. After a difficult 4-hour debate, they failed. They will get another chance to derail the legislation in the third round and, if it passes, after a gubernatorial veto. But Sen. Ernie Chambers of Omaha, who has made abolishing capital punishment the paramount issue of his long legislative career, paused to reflect on the moment. "It is not the last step, but I think it is one of historical importance," he said. "And when something of historical significance occurs, it is not the work of a single individual." News that the state will soon have the drugs to carry out executions again failed to deter a Legislature seemingly intent on ending the punishment. Lawmakers voted 34-14 - 1 more vote than was needed - to cut off a filibuster of the repeal bill. They followed up with a 30-16 vote to advance Legislative Bill 268 to the third round of debate. The bill advanced with the same number of votes needed to override a veto. Capital punishment supporters vowed to orchestrate another filibuster during the final round of consideration. "This may be the preeminent issue, in my view, that we face as a Legislature," said Sen. Beau McCoy, a leading defender of the death penalty. Gov. Pete Ricketts said the movement to replace capital punishment with life in prison was "out of touch" with Nebraskans he talks with on the issue. "The Legislature's vote to advance Ernie Chambers' repeal of the death penalty puts the safety of the public and Nebraska families at risk," the governor said. Following a somber and mostly respectful discussion that reflected the gravity of the topic, death penalty supporters dropped the gloves and came out swinging. Sen. Bill Kintner of Papillion fumed after the votes were taken. "I don't want to talk about the spineless wimps I serve with," he said. "I'm livid, absolutely livid." Others accused their colleagues of vote trading, saying such gamesmanship was unseemly with such an important issue. "I can understand when people trade a vote on a bill that doesn't have such serious consequences as this," said Sen. Dave Schnoor of Scribner. "But where do you draw the line?" Among those suspected of cutting deals was Sen. Jim Smith, whose gas-tax bill survived thanks to a veto override Thursday. The Papillion Republican joined repeal supporters in voting to cut off debate, but when it came to advancing the bill, Smith voted "no." Smith denied the accusation, saying he voted as he did because he felt the issue deserved an up-or-down vote. And he said he trusts that his fellow senators have their reasons for voting the way they do. "I think unfortunately too many people are watching 'House of Cards' and think that's how things operate around here," Smith said, referring to a popular TV series of political intrigue set in the nation's capital. Vote-trading accusations also were leveled at Chambers upon hearing he planned not to attack a bill that would legalize cash poker tournaments in Nebraska. Chambers, a longtime foe of gambling, acknowledged that he planned not to stand in the way of the bill, but said he did so for reasons unrelated to his repeal measure. Chambers said he thinks legal poker would not survive a constitutional challenge that would surely come if it passes. And it would provide a way to give a "poke in the eye" to McCoy, a staunch gambling opponent with whom Chambers frequently spars on other issues. Not since 1979 have Nebraska lawmakers voted to repeal capital punishment. The death penalty survived then after a failed attempt to override the veto of Gov. Charles Thone. A veto override now seems more within reach, which explains why death penalty supporters took the offensive in Friday's debate. McCoy brought up examples of "the unspeakable crimes of atrocity against innocent Nebraskans." He mentioned the recent homicides of an Omaha mother and one of her children, asking his colleagues to consider the terror a 4-year-old boy felt when he was thrown alive into the Elkhorn River. McCoy said he has a 4-year-old child of his own. "Can you imagine what that must be like, to have your older brother do that to you after having watched him beat your mother to death and leave your younger brother in a dumpster," McCoy asked. Douglas County Attorney Don Kleine intends to seek the death penalty against the mother's older son. Sen. Dave Bloomfield brought up the recent riot at the state prison in Tecumseh, in which two inmates were killed, apparently by other inmates. Bloomfield argued that without the death penalty, inmates serving life terms may think they have nothing to lose, making them more of a threat to other inmates and prison employees. McCoy introduced an amendment to let voters decide the fate of the death penalty. The amendment failed 25-18. Repeal supporters said the death penalty is applied arbitrarily, doesn't deter crime, costs more than life in prison and risks taking the lives of the wrongfully convicted. "We are in fact ... fallen human beings, and there are ways our system is falling and failing," said Sen. Kate Bolz of Lincoln. Sen. Patty Pansing Brooks of Lincoln said capital punishment just seems inherently illogical to her. "Killing people to teach people not to kill people," she said. "What a twisted view of justice." The governor added another dimension to the debate Thursday night when he announced the state has made purchases to restock its supply of lethal injection drugs. During first-round debate, some argued it was pointless to keep an unenforceable punishment on the books. The state paid $54,400 to purchase sodium thiopental and pancuronium bromide from HarrisPharma, a distributor in India, according to invoices released Friday by the governor's office. The State Department of Correctional Services has an unexpired supply of the third drug, potassium chloride. Sen. Jerry Johnson of Wahoo said news that the state had secured the lethal drugs caused him to reconsider his earlier support for the repeal bill. But when it came time, he voted to advance the legislation. Chambers accused the governor of timing the announcement about the drugs in an effort to influence the outcome. He called it "disingenuous and the lowest form of political chicanery." Taylor Gage, the governor's spokesman, said the information was released to the public on the same day the state made the final payment for the drugs. The shipment has yet to arrive in Nebraska, he added. 3 of the state's 11 inmates on death row have exhausted their appeals, according to Attorney General Doug Peterson. But that doesn't mean 1 of the 3 will be strapped on the lethal injection table as soon as the drugs arrive, death penalty opponents argued. Attorneys for the condemned men have several possible legal avenues to pursue, said Eric Berger, an associate professor at the University of Nebraska College of Law who has written extensively about lethal injection. For example, they could raise questions about whether the drugs received approval by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration or whether they were made by a pharmaceutical manufacturer or by a compounding pharmacy. The quality and effectiveness of drugs can vary widely depending upon how they were produced, Berger said. State officials intend to have the drugs independently tested for purity upon their arrival. But Berger said the individual ingredients in the compounds may have to be tested as well. "The state can and will still be subject to a lot of litigation about the constitutionality of the lethal injection procedure," he said. (source: omaha.com) ************* Governor's office offers more information on death penalty drugs Gov. Pete Ricketts' and Attorney General Doug Peterson's offices provided more information Friday on the purchase of 3 drugs needed to carry out Nebraska's lethal injection death penalty. Ricketts and Department of Correctional Services Director Scott Frakes announced late Thursday the state has 1 of the 3 drugs in its possession, potassium chloride, which stops the heart, and will receive the other 2 in the near future. Sodium thiopental, used to knock out the inmate, and pancuronium bromide, used to cause paralysis, were ordered from Harris Pharma, a company that has supplied the drug in the past. The drugs are being imported from outside the country, said Ricketts' spokesman Taylor Gage. The state has potassium chloride in stock in the Correction Department's central pharmacy, Gage said. It has ordered 1,000 vials of 1 gram each of sodium thiopental at a cost of $25 per vial; and 1,000 ampules of 2 mg/2 ml each of pancuronium bromide at $26 per ampule. The order is expected to be delivered soon, Gage said. The drugs would expire 3 years from the date of manufacture. Questions have come from senators and others outside the statehouse on how the state is able to order the drugs, in particular sodium thiopental, when there have been major problems with procuring the drug in the past. On Friday, the ACLU of Nebraska filed an open records request to determine if the state's recent acquisition of drugs to be used in lethal injection was lawful. A 2013 federal circuit court ruling determined lethal injection drugs are subject to U.S. Food and Drug Administration oversight and importation rules and that states must obtain such drugs legally through licensed, inspected dealers. The sodium thiopental and pancuronium bromide were ordered from Harris Pharma, Ricketts said Thursday. Harris Pharma has previously sold drugs to Nebraska that the state was unable to use. In March 2012, a federal district court held that foreign-manufactured sodium thiopental was improperly approved by the Food and Drug Administration for use in executions, according to the Death Penalty Information Center. Judge Richard Leon of the District Court of the District of Columbia ordered any correctional departments in possession of the drug to return it to the FDA. The safety and effectiveness of the drug was questioned in a lawsuit by death row inmates in several states. Peterson said his office is aware of the court case, which was later appealed to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals. The D.C. Circuit Court affirmed in part and reversed in part. Nebraska was not a party to the case, he said. "No orders or findings were made that our Corrections Department violated any laws in its prior acquisition of the drug," Peterson said. "The case involved the Federal Food and Drug Administration???s interpretation of and compliance with federal rules and federal laws on importation of drugs from outside the county." (source: Lincoln Journal Star) NEVADA----death sentence overturned Court overturns death sentence in Las Vegas slaying A federal appeals court has overturned the death penalty for Billy Ray Riley, convicted in Las Vegas of the shotgun killing of a reputed drug dealer. But Riley is not getting out of prison, because he is also serving a life term without parole for robbery and being a habitual criminal. The U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals said today there was a faulty instruction given to the jury at Riley's 1990 trial. The court will grant the writ of habeas corpus unless the state pursues a new trial "within a reasonable amount of time." Riley, 29 at the time of his conviction, used a shotgun to kill Albert Bollin, 26, and then stole cocaine and money from the victim, according to court documents. According to trial testimony, Bollin was told he was going to die and asked that he be allowed to have one last cocaine hit. After Bollin put down the pipe, he told Riley he was ready to die; Riley then shot him, according to court records. (source: Las Vegas Sun) USA: 'No winner today:' Survivors, lawmakers react to Boston bomber's death sentence Dzhokhar Tsarnaev has been sentenced to death for carrying out the 2013 Boston Marathon bombings and reactions have been pouring in from all over the US. Some believe the penalty is appropriate while others argue capital punishment is never justified. Tsarnaev, a 21-year-old ethnic Chechen, was found guilty in April of all 30 charges he faced, 17 of which were eligible for the death penalty. On Friday, he was sentenced to death for some - but not all - of the capital charges. This marks the 1st time that federal prosecutors have been able to win a death penalty verdict since after the September 11, 2001 attacks. The same jury of 7 women and 5 men who condemned Tsarnaev for the crimes was also responsible for deciding his punishment. Upon hearing his fate, Tsarnaev reportedly had no visible reaction in the courtroom. Speaking outside the courthouse, the prosecution's lead US attorney, Carmen Ortiz, said her team's goal was to present enough evidence for the jury to reach "a fair and just verdict." "Even in the wake of horror and tragedy, we are not intimidated by acts of terror or radical ideals. On the contrary, the trial of this case has showcased an important American ideal that even the worst of the worst deserve a fair trial and due process of law." Shortly after the verdict was rendered, US Attorney General Loretta Lynch called the death sentence "a fitting punishment." "We know all too well that no verdict can heal the souls of those who lost loved ones, nor the minds and bodies of those who suffered life-changing injuries from this cowardly attack," she said in a statement. "But the ultimate penalty is a fitting punishment for this horrific crime and we hope that the completion of this prosecution will bring some measure of closure to the victims and their families." Ortiz said the prosecution did not decide to pursue the death penalty "lightly," but only after a long internal process at the Justice Department. "Today is not a day for celebration," she said. "It is not a day for political or moral debate. It is a day for reflection and healing. Our thoughts should now turn away from the Tsarnaev brothers for good and remain with those who will live in our memories forever." Upon hearing the sentence from an Associated Press reporter, Tsarnaev's father, Anzor, reportedly "groaned" and "moaned deeply" before hanging up the phone. However, he told ABC News that "We will fight. We will fight. We will fight until the end." Multiple Boston Marathon survivors reacted with relief at the news, saying the penalty helps give them closure and the ability to move on. (source: rt.com) *********************** Amnesty International USA Responds to Death Penalty in Boston Bombing Case In response to the announcement that Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was sentenced to death after being convicted in the Boston Marathon bombings, Steven W. Hawkins, executive director of Amnesty International USA issued the following statement: "We condemn the bombings that took place in Boston 2 years ago, and we mourn the loss of life and grave injuries they caused. The death penalty, however, is not justice. It will only compound the violence, and it will not deter others from committing similar crimes in the future. It is outrageous that the federal government imposes this cruel and inhuman punishment, particularly when the people of Massachusetts have abolished it in their state. As death sentences decline worldwide, no government can claim to be a leader in human rights when it sentences its prisoners to death." Amnesty International has documented a steady decline in the use of the death penalty in the United States and around the world over the past several years, though in 2014 there was a marked increase in death sentences to address a real or perceived threat of terrorism especially in Egypt and Nigeria. There remains no evidence showing that the death penalty deters crime or has any effect in reducing terrorism. Annual death sentences in the U.S. have declined since 2000. In the last 8 years the number of death sentences has been lower than any time since reinstatement of the death penalty in 1976. In 2014 there were 72 death sentences, the lowest number on record since 1976. Executions have declined as well, from a high of 98 in 1999 to just 35 in 2014, the lowest in 20 years; there were 43 executions in 2011 and 2012 and 39 in 2013. 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 1 of only 9 countries in the world that carried out executions each year between 2009 and 2013. (source: Amnesty International USA) ***************** Northampton attorneys David Hoose and Harry Miles react to Tsarnaev death sentence Attorney David Hoose, one of a few Massachusetts lawyers who have tried death penalty cases, said Friday he was disappointed not only by the verdict jurors delivered in the trial of Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, but also with their quick deliberation. "I really thought they would take much longer," he said. "I think one could conclude that there was a pretty strong sentiment that death was the appropriate sentence right from the start." The jury delivered the sentence Friday afternoon after deliberating for 14 hours. Hoose said it is clear that the jurors were affected by the hours of testimony from Tsarnaev's victims, including those who lost limbs and children at the Boston Marathon bombing. "It really sort of makes me look at victim-impact evidence and the role passion and emotion has in capital cases. Passion and emotion is not supposed to be part of criminal justice system," he said. Hoose and Northampton attorney Harry Miles defended Kristen Gilbert, the former nurse convicted in 1998 of murder for killing 4 patients at the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Leeds. The jury in that case decided against the death penalty, and sentenced Gilbert instead to life in prison without possibility of parole. In an interview Wednesday, Hoose predicted that at least 1 or 2 jurors would hold out, preventing the unanimous vote necessary to sentence Tsarnaev to die. He cited a recent Boston Globe poll that found 2 out of 3 people polled in Boston were against the death penalty and opposed sentencing Tsarnaev to die. But in order to be eligible to serve on the jury, Hoose said potential jurors had to swear that they were not opposed to capital punishment. "You have 12 people who do favor" the death penalty, Hoose said of the jury's decision, explaining, "either because it was warranted by the evidence, or the jury does not effectively represent Massachusetts." Jurors in a capital murder case have to fill out a questionnaire showing the judge how they feel about the facts of the case and any mitigating or aggravating factors. The jurors only have to be unanimous on whether the crimes warrant death, but their votes on the mitigating and aggravating factors show whether they believed various things the defense or prosecution tried to prove. Hoose said he was surprised to see that only 3 jurors found that Tsarnaev's older brother's influence was a mitigating factor. "That was the most disappointing part for me because I thought the defense had presented a very compelling case that he was controlled by his brother," Hoose said. He went on to describe Tamerlan Tsarnaev as violent, radicalized and possibly mentally ill. Hoose said he was not surprised to see that only 2 jurors believed Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was remorseful. Reporters in the courtroom reported that a few jurors wiped away tears as the sentence was read. "In a case that's gone on for so long, there is just a sense of mental exhaustion probably combined with the thought that they played a role in someone's death. Each of those jurors has to live with that," Hoose said. Miles seconded the sentiment. "I don't know if the government will provide them with any therapeutic services, but the government should," he said. "It always saddens me when the death penalty is imposed," Miles said. "But if you're going to talk about a poster boy for the death penalty, he definitely fit that category." (source: Daily Hampshire Gazette) *************** Boston divided by bomber death penalty----Boston marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev has been sentenced to death for his role in the 2013 attacks in which 3 people died and another 264 were injured. The ruling has received mixed reactions in the US city. Jurors said on Friday that Tsarnaev had committed 11 of the 12 aggravating factors which supported a sentence of capital punishment, including choosing to carry out the attack at a popular event sure to draw large crowds. The only factor they said prosecutors had not proven was that statements made by Tsarnaev suggested to others that acts of violence against the US would be justifiable. The 21-year-old was found guilty of all 30 charges relating to the bombings on April 8. Among the counts were the murder of a police officer, a carjacking, and a shootout. Divided opinon In Boston, Tsarnaev's death sentence has been met with mixed reactions. US Attorney General Loretta Lynch welcomed the decision saying that "the ultimate penalty is a fitting punishment for this horrific crime." The parents of Martin Richard, at 8-years-old the youngest victim of the attacks, have openly opposed the death penalty, however, saying the years of appeals to follow would prolong their pain. Similarly, on the streets of Boston, Virtue Grizzle of California told DW that the jury's decision was "too good" for Tsarnaev. "I think he should live out his life to be 105 - why put him to death now? That's what he is looking for. They should give him a life in prison, let him live the rest of his life to think about what he has done, it was terrible, absolutely unacceptable," the pensioner said. 25-year-old Samantha Rosa, was in full support of Tsarnaev's death sentence. "I don't want say an eye for an eye because that will make the world blind, but he made his bed and now he has to lie in it ... He was old enough to know the consequences of his actions and therefore I'm on the side of the American government putting him to death," she told DW. Remorseless terrorist or led astray? Witnesses inside the courtroom on Friday reported that Tsarnaev did not react upon hearing the decision. Tsarnaev and his elder brother Tamerlan killed 3 people in the bombings on April 15, 2013. Another 264 people were wounded - 17 of whom lost limbs. After going on the run, the Tsarnaev brothers killed a police officer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and stole a car. A city-wide manhunt later ended in a shootout during which Tamerlan was killed. Throughout the trial, Tsarnaev's defense focused on labeling Tamerlan as the mastermind behind the attacks, saying Dzhokhar was a "lost kid" who had been manipulated by his older brother into committing a "heinous crime." Ultimately, however, government prosecutors maintained that Tsarnaev was a remorseless terrorist whose actions deserved capital punishment. Only three of the 12 jury members found that he would not have committed the crime without the influence of his brother. (source: Deutsche Welle) **************************** O'Malley Calls Death Penalty 'Ineffective' Former Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley says he respects the verdict of the jury in the Boston Marathon bombing case but remains opposed to the death penalty and considers it "ineffective." The potential Democratic presidential candidate says in a statement Friday that he hopes Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev never enjoys a "moment of freedom." Tsarnaev was sentenced Friday to death for the April 2013 bombing. O'Malley says the death penalty's appeals process is "expensive and cruel to the surviving family members." He says most of the public executions around the globe are conducted by North Korea, Iran, Iraq, Yemen, China and the United States and that the U.S. "does not belong in that company." As governor, O'Malley led the push to repeal the death penalty in Maryland. (source: Associated Press) ****************** Governor Baker speaks about death penalty verdict----Baker said he hoped it would bring closure to victims and their families Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker spoke about the death penalty verdict today. He referred to the marathon bombings as an act of terrorism. Baker said he hoped it would bring closure to victims and their families, although he knows the horrific attacks have changed the city of Boston forever. Governor Baker said, "I think every time everybody runs the marathon and participates in the marathon, it will be impossible for this to be too far from the top of people???s minds..." Previously Governor Baker said he supported the death penalty for Dzokjar Tsarnaev, although today he said it's not his opinion that matters. (source: WWLP news) From rhalperi at smu.edu Sat May 16 09:35:44 2015 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Sat, 16 May 2015 09:35:44 -0500 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide Message-ID: May 16 IRAN----executions 8 People, Among Them One Afghan Citizen Executed in Iran The execution wave continues in Iran. At least 45 people have been executed so far in May 2015. 1 prisoner was executed in the prison of Mashhad (northeastern Iran) and 7 people were hanged in the prison of Shiraz (southern Iran). The Iranian daily newspaper "Khorasan" reported on Thursday May 15, that a 45 year old man who was convicted of murdering a 26 year old man was hanged in the prison of Mashhad. Both the offender and victim were drug addicts said the report. According to unofficial reports from Adelabad prison of Shiraz seven prisoners were hanged in this prison. The "Human Right Activists News Agency" (HRANA) reported that 4 of the prisoners were convicted of armed robbery and executed on Sunday May 11, while 3 were convicted of murder and hanged on May 13. 1 of those executed was an Afghan citizen. These executions have not been announced by the official Iranian media. (source: Iran Human Rights) VIETNAM: Man kills brother, sister-in-law over land dispute, gets death penalty A court in the southern province of Kien Giang on Friday sentenced a man to death and his wife to 20 years in prison for killing his brother and sister-in-law. Danh Hau Phuong, 39, and Vo Thi Nga, 42, had reportedly abused the victims many times before. On September 29 last year, Phuong anh Nga stopped the victims on their way home, attacking them with a hammer, a tree branch and stones. Danh Thanh Hau, 42, and his wife Trieu Thi Li Na, 31, succumbed to severe injuries, forensic experts said. Phuong and Nga stayed at the crime scene and were arrested. They later confessed that the 2 couples had conflicts over land inheritance. Neighbors said that the victims had been insulted and beaten many times before the final attack. Each couple has 3 children. It is unclear at this point who will take care of them. (source: Thanh Nien News) EGYPT: Mohamed Morsi sentenced to death: Court hands down death penalty for prison break; The deposed Muslim Brotherhood leader is one of more than 100 people to be sentenced to death for involvement in prison breaks during the Arab Spring Egypt's 1st democratically elected president has been sentenced to death as a government crackdown against his supporters continues. Mohamed Morsi was deposed by the military in July 2013 during huge street protests against his rule and he has been imprisoned ever since. The former leader had already been sentenced to 20 years in jail for ordering the arrest and torture of protesters but was today condemned for separate charges relating to a mass prison break in 2011. > He was accused of plotting with foreign militants to free Islamists and supporters of his Muslim Brotherhood in raids on several jails. Mr Morsi himself escaped Wadi Natroun prison during the violence, having been imprisoned with fellow party leaders days before. A total of 105 defendants have also been sentenced to death, including around 70 Palestinians, most of whom had been tried and convicted in absentia. Judge Shaaban el-Shami announced the death sentence for Mr Morsi at a court in Cairo as Muslim Brotherhood supporters chanted "down with military rule". It has been referred to Egypt's Grand Mufti, a Muslim theologian, for his religious opinion. Another court hearing has been set for 2 June. Opponents of President Mohammed Morsi light flares in Tahrir Square in Cairo Opponents of Mohammed Morsi in protests leading up to the 2013 coup in Cairo Mr Morsi is expected to appeal the verdict and his supporters claim the charges were politically motivated, attempting to legitimise the coup against him. The former President faces further punishment in a separate case alleging that he, along with aides and fellow leaders of his now-outlawed Muslim Brotherhood party, passed state secrets to foreign groups, including Hamas, in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, and Lebanon's Hezbollah militant group. The court recommended death sentences for 16 other defendants accused of espionage in the case and the verdict on Mr Morsi's involvement will be passed in June. The 2011 prison break saw hundreds of Muslim Brotherhood members escape four jails in Cairo as armed gangs took advantage of chaos during the Arab Spring. Turmoil raged in Egypt as tens of thousands of protesters occupied Tahrir Square and landmarks in other cities demanding the removal of President Hosni Mubarak, who had been in power for 3 decades. He resigned after weeks of demonstrations and the military took power until Mr Morsi was voted in following internationally scrutinised presidential elections in 2012. But protests began building less than a year into his rule after he issued a decree extending his powers and in July 2013, the Egyptian Armed Forces launched a coup. Muslim Brotherhood leaders and supporters have since faced numerous charges relating to the killing and wounding of anti-government protesters, seeing many sentenced to death. Mr Morsi's predecessor Mubarak was also jailed in connection with the deaths of Arab Spring demonstrators but the charges have since been dismissed. The 87-year-old was jailed for 3 years after a re-trial in a separate embezzlement case. The current Egyptian President, former military chief Abdul Fattah al-Sisi, secured a landslide victory in presidential elections in May 2014. (source: The Independent) ******************* 16 Brotherhood leaders face possible death penalty in spy trial----The court set June 2 to deliver its final verdict in the case, in which ousted President Mohamed Morsi and 34 co-defendants are standing trial An Egyptian court on Saturday referred 16 leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood to the grand mufti, Egypt's top religious authority, to consider death penalty against them on espionage charges. The court set June 2 to deliver its final verdict in the case, in which ousted President Mohamed Morsi and 34 co-defendants are standing trial. The opinion of the mufti is not binding to the court, but Egyptian law makes it necessary for judges to seek a religious point of view on any death sentence. Egyptian authorities accuse Morsi and co-defendants of "conspiring" with Palestinian group Hamas and Lebanon's Hezbollah to carry out "terrorist acts" inside Egypt. Last month, Morsi and 12 co-defendants were sentenced to 20 years in prison each for mobilizing supporters in order to "intimidate, detain and torture" dozens of anti-Morsi protesters during clashes outside eastern Cairo's Ittihadiya presidential palace in December 2012. Morsi, Egypt's first democratically elected president, was ousted by the military in July 2013 - after only 1 year in office - following mass protests against his rule. He currently faces multiple criminal trials on charges that include espionage and "insulting the judiciary." Morsi and his co-defendants insist the charges against them are politically motivated. Since Morsi's ouster, the Egyptian authorities have launched a relentless crackdown on dissent that has largely targeted Morsi's Islamist supporters, leaving hundreds dead and thousands behind bars. (source: Anadolu Agency) From rhalperi at smu.edu Sun May 17 15:16:55 2015 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Sun, 17 May 2015 15:16:55 -0500 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----LA., TENN., ILL., CALIF., USA Message-ID: May 17 LOUISIANA: Seabaugh's bill could put death penalty on fast track The Louisiana House of Representative Judiciary Committee will again take up a bill aiming to strip oversight and funding of death penalty cases away from the Louisiana Public Defender Board. House Bill 605 was sponsored by Republican state Rep. Alan Seabaugh, of Shreveport. A hearing on the bill took place Thursday. The Louisiana District Attorneys Association backed Seabaugh. The house committee recognized criminal defense attorneys, judges, the Louisiana State Bar Association and the Louisiana Conference of Catholic Bishops as some of the bill's opponents. Seabaugh expects the committee to meet again this week and discuss the bill, which has undergone dozens of amendments since at least Tuesday. If the full Legislature approves it, the bill would create a new 5-member committee, comprised of three active or retired judges, one appointment from the Louisiana District Attorneys Association and one appointment from the Louisiana Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers. But opponents of Seabaugh's bill say it could create an unconstitutional system - making it impossible for death penalty convictions to withstand an appeal and create an uneven balance of power in an adversarial system. "It just doesn't make sense. It's flawed. I can't think of any other place in the United States where we deliver justice in that fashion," said George Steimel, an LACDL lobbyist. The representative doesn't feel that way. Seabaugh doesn't believe the constitutional argument is valid. He says the bill is a way to address wasteful spending by the state public defender board. He says the board uses public dollars to drag out death penalty cases by hiring multiple expert witnesses and unnecessary lawyers. Seabaugh accused the board's current members of being anti-death penalty advocates using state dollars to price out capital punishment in Louisiana - often at the expense of other indigent clients. "It's not just a funding issue. It's an administrative issue. And, the people that run the board are anti-death penalty crusaders and they're trying to do anything that they can to stop capital prosecution," he said. "And that includes bankrupting the system to saying, 'We don't have the money to afford it; therefore, we cannot provide the counsel, therefore, the prosecution cannot go forward.'" Jay Dixon, state public defender, did not return calls by deadline. But, he disputed much of the testimony Seabaugh and the district attorney association offered during the hearing - including an accusation that he recently asked the house appropriations committee for $115 million. The bill would redirect 25 % of the monies deposited in the Louisiana Public Defender Fund to the five-member committee. Steimel contends death penalty clients would be at the mercy of a committee that is equally prosecution and defense. "I don't think anyone would want a lawyer who is managed by the judiciary and the prosecutors as part of a team," he said. "It's a team - a group that's making all of the decisions." The bill is flawed, he said. No one wants their adversary deciding who's going to represent them in court. The bill also requires members of the proposed committee to possess the qualifications required of a juror to serve on capital cases. This means they wouldn't mind imposing a death sentence. Marjorie Esman, executive director of ACLU of Louisiana, said constitutional problems arise if defendants aren't given a vigorous defense. Like Steimel, Esman also found the makeup of the proposed board problematic. She said it doesn't make sense in an adversarial legal system. "It might be a prohibitive legal conflict of interest for a prosecutor to be on a panel that governs defense. You can't do that," she said. Seabaugh says the committee would be neutral. He's proposing to put it under the Louisiana State Law Institute. Originally, the bill called for the Louisiana Supreme Court to have administrative oversight of the committee. But the Supreme Court wanted nothing to do with it. Seabaugh amended the bill to replace the Supreme Court with the law institute. He admits it might have been problematic for the court. The Louisiana Public Defender Board received approximately $33 million in state funding in 2013, according to a 2014 Louisiana Legislative audit. Nearly $17.5 million of the state public defender board's 2013 budget paid for capital and non-capital defense at district offices. The audit found the public defender board to be underfunded. The report said it provided inadequate representation for capital defense services in accordance with state statutory requirements. E. Pete Adams, Louisiana District Attorneys Association executive director, and Calcasieu Parish District Attorney John DeRosier testified with Seabaugh in support of the proposed changes. "We cannot allow the pricing of capital punishment cases out of the market as a way to get rid of it," DeRosier said. (source: Shreveport Times) TENNESSEE: Henry Lee Jones sentenced to death - again - for 2003 murders of Bartlett couple A Shelby County jury on Saturday found Henry Lee Jones guilty of 2 counts of 1st-degree murder in the 2003 slayings of an elderly Bartlett couple and sentenced him to death. Jones had been convicted and sentenced to death in 2009 for killing Clarence and Lillian James in their Bartlett home, but he got a new trial when the conviction was overturned last year. The state Supreme Court ruled the jury should not have been told of charges faced by Jones in the death of 19-year-old Carlos Perez 4 days later in Melbourne, Florida. This time, the jury only heard about the Florida case during the penalty phase, rather than the earlier guilt-or-innocence phase, said James Gulley, a private lawyer appointed to help Jones. Jones had defense lawyers in his 2009 trial, but he went against their advice by taking the stand in his own defense. This time, he insisted on representing himself during much of the trial, though Gulley said Jones let him help him briefly during the end of the trial on Friday. During the sentencing phase Saturday, when the jury had to decide whether to send him to life in prison or to death, Jones insisted on representing himself again. Jones put on no evidence that would counter the prosecution's contention that he deserved to die, even though the court would have permitted the reading of his brother's earlier statements about their traumatic childhood. Judge W. Mark Ward advised Jones to accept legal advice and defend himself. "It could be something that saves your life," the judge said. But Jones chose not to, and his lawyer took a seat in the spectators' area. Dressed in a red jail smock, Jones said during closing arguments that the prosecutors were acting unjustly. "The most evil people, which they call me, I think they need to reflect on themselves," he told jurors. "It's no evidence that I committed this crime ... Ladies and gentlemen, please do not sentence me to death. Thank you." Then prosecutor Tom Henderson began speaking to the jurors softly, prompting Jones to speak up. "I can't hear him, your honor," Jones said. Henderson turned toward Jones and nearly shouted. "It's about control, and he's not in control anymore," Henderson said. He said the jurors should follow the law. He and prosecutor Jennifer Nichols had argued that they'd proven many of the aggravating factors needed for a death sentence. Jones was convicted of killing the James couple during a robbery, and among other things the prosecutors said he'd inflicted cruel violence on the elderly couple, killed them to eliminate them as witnesses, and had gone on to kill Perez in Florida, making it a mass murder. The jury began deliberations on the death sentence shortly before 5 p.m. and returned their verdict about 6:15 p.m. Judge Ward appointed Gulley, the backup defense lawyer, to handle an appeal. That prompted a stronger reaction from Jones than the sentence itself. "No no no no no!" Jones said. The judge responded, "We'll hash that out at the next court date." It will take place June 5." "I'm obviously relieved. And that is the penalty that we wanted and I think that justice was served," said Veronica James Lewis, 43, a granddaughter of Clarence James. She testified earlier Saturday that her grandfather had attended her wedding in 2002 and had a wonderful time, and the double killing the following year was a tremendous shock. "It haunts the entire family," she said. Jones already faces the death penalty in Florida for the murder there. He was convicted by a jury in 2013 and a judge imposed the death sentence in 2014. In that case, too, he represented himself. (source: Copmmercial Appeal) ILLINOIS: How Gov. Ryan ended death penalty at Tamms The tiny community in deep Southern Illinois that waged a full-press fundraising campaign and courtship with the state to earn its 1st "supermax" prison, was to become Illinois's death row capital - the final destination for inmates sentenced to die and whose appeals had run out. But with 3 sighs and a lick of his lips, according to The Associated Press reporter who witnessed the lethal injection that day, Andrew Kokoraleis on March 17, 1999, became the 1st person executed at the new facility in Tamms, and last person executed by the state of Illinois. Former corrections' officials instrumental in the construction of the facility some 20 years ago said Tamms was chosen, in part, to house the state's execution chamber because of its remote location and distance from Chicago. Previous executions in northern Illinois had drawn scores of media and protesters and disrupted prison operations, they said. The fact that the death chamber was used even once continues to weigh on former-Gov. George Ryan. When the Supreme Court declined to hear his appeal, the final call for executing Kokoraleis rested with then-newly elected Ryan. "He wouldn't have died if I hadn't of signed the order," Ryan told The Southern Illinoisan earlier this month. "I was uncomfortable doing it, and not because I thought he was innocent. ... If someone else had signed the order, I probably wouldn't have felt too bad about it. Who am I to say the guy should die? ... That's an awesome responsibility." Early death penalty supporter Prior to his rise to governor, Ryan not only the supported the death penalty, he spoke in favor of it on the Illinois House floor in 1977 as a state representative from Kankakee, and voted with the majority of his colleagues to reinstate the death penalty in Illinois after the U.S. Supreme Court lifted its ban on government executions in 1976. But while Ryan was campaigning for governor, an inmate named Anthony Porter, of Chicago, was scheduled to die for a 1982 murder of 2 teenagers. Citing Porter's IQ of 51, the man's attorney won a temporary reprieve. After that, journalism students, led by Professor David Protess at Northwestern University, went to work on his case. The students, under Protess' direction, unearthed evidence of a confession of the murder by another Chicago man, Alstory Simon, and Porter was freed after 18 years behind bars. Ryan said he was troubled by the overturning of that conviction of a mentally disabled man in a string of actions taken that just barely saved his life from a wrongful execution by the state. "I got to be governor, and a guy is sitting on death row for 15 or 20 years, only to be found innocent and turned loose," Ryan said. "In America, I couldn't understand how that could happen. How could someone sit on death row for 15 years and be innocent of a crime they were sitting there to die for?" Emptying death row As history unfolded, Ryan would go on to place a moratorium on the death penalty in Illinois in January 2000, and three years later, in January 2003, on his way out of office in a cloud of controversy, commute the sentences of 167 men and women on death row to life in prison. Tamm's claim as the state's only would-be death chamber faded away. With his decision, Ryan became the darling of anti-death penalty advocates. Governor behind bars Upon his federal racketeering conviction in 2006, Ryan went on to serve more than 5 years in federal prison and 7 months on home arrest for accepting cash and gifts for himself, friends and family in exchange for state contracts. Alstory Simon, the man who was convicted of the double-homicide that freed Porter and set into motion a chain of actions leading up to the General Assembly and Gov. Pat Quinn abolishing the death penalty in January 2011, also was exonerated of the crime and freed in 2014. Protess, the professor who fought to free Porter, left the prestigious journalism school at Northwestern amid controversy in 2011. And in February of this year, Simon filed a lawsuit against Protess and the school seeking $40 million, alleging the university allowed a "culture of lawlessness" among those students and others working to free inmates, leading to his wrongful conviction, according to court documents. Execution still weighs on him But before all that happened, Ryan would decide whether to give the green light to execute Kokoraleis at Tamms in the newly built execution chamber. The Republican governor had just been sworn into office after defeating downstate Democrat Glenn Poshard.MO< Ryan sought the council of trusted associates, and said he "made sure before we executed him there was no doubt in my mind about his guilt." Prosecutors said Kokoraleis and others who were part of a satanic "Ripper Crew" that killed and maimed as many as 18 women, cutting off parts of their breasts and eating some of the flesh as a sacrament of sorts. Kokoraleis testified that, at one point, the box in which reputed leader Robin Gecht kept the severed parts contained as many as 15 breasts. Ultimately, Kokoraleis was sentenced to death for kidnapping a 21-year-old Elmhurst woman at the real estate agency where she worked. As she was missing, her mother pleaded with the killers, according to published reports: "If the worst has happened, please let us bury her. Because if you don't, I'll find her anyway -- if I have to dig up all the ground in the state. And then I'll go looking for you." She was found 5 months later in a cemetery. Gecht is presently at Menard Correctional Center, in Chester, and scheduled to be released on parole in October 2042, according to the Illinois Department of Corrections. He will be 88. Kokoraleis' brother, Tommy Kokoraleis, also convicted, is at the Illinois River Correctional Center, and is scheduled to be released on parole in September 2017. He will be 56. Another convicted gang member, Edward Spreitzer, is at Stateville Correctional Center serving a life sentence. Ryan said, 16 years later -- in between doing what "old guys do," which for him means yard work, house chores, writing a book, giving speeches, and spending some time with family -- he still thinks about the final decision he made to allow the execution of Kokoraleis. This past year, Ryan told his hometown newspaper in Kankakee he "regretted killing that Greek fella," according to a published report in The Daily Journal. But Ryan, 81, told The Southern Illinoisan: "I really have no regrets about it, but it bothers me." Ryan called Kokoraleis a "terrible guy." But, he said, what bothers him is "the fact that I put another man to death." Ryan: Look at corrections policies Moving beyond the death penalty, Ryan said the public needs to take a long, hard look at its corrections policies, especially as it relates to the imprisonment of people who do not pose a direct public safety threat. "Nobody gets rehabilitated in the federal prison system, and I don't think in the state prison system," he said, noting he's working on a book that will include details of his time behind bars. "America incarcerates more people a year than any other country in the world." Of those whose convictions are overturned, he said, "We've still destroyed their lives and it shouldn't be that way." Ryan said there should be reform as it relates to indigent defense, and, calling it "pretty arbitrary," said focus should be placed on sentencing that can vary widely from county to county for similar crimes. Ryan called it "inhumane" that he wasn't allowed to attend the funeral of his longtime wife, Lura Lynn Ryan, who died in June 2011. Though courts denied his requests to spend time with his wife after she became very ill with cancer, the prison???s warden in Terre Haute where Ryan was housed allowed him four visits that year and he was at her side when she died. "I tried to get home for the funeral and they refused," Ryan said. Ryan was preceded in prison by former Gov. Otto Kerner, convicted of bribery, and former Gov. Dan Walker, who was convicted related to private business activities. Walker died on April 29, and Kerner in 1976. He was followed by former Gov. Rod Blagojevich, who is serving out the remainder of a 14-year sentence at a federal prison in Colorado, convicted for attempting to sell President Barack Obama's vacated U.S. Senate seat, among other crimes. Ryan said he did not much care for Blagojevich as a politician, but thought his sentence was excessive. "I haven't figured out why they put Rod in jail for 14 years," Ryan said. "That's beyond me, but I'm sure there is a reason." Ryan blamed harsh sentences on "overzealous prosecutors." He stated a similar feeling about his own sentence, which also stemmed from the Operation Safe Road scandal. Prosecutors argued that Ryan, when he was Secretary of State, attempted to squash an investigation into staffers giving out driver's licenses in exchange for bribes. That scandal came to light as federal investigators probed a deadly Wisconsin crash involving a commercial truck that killed 6 children. The criminal justice system, "It's gone astray," Ryan said. (source: The Southern Illinoisan) CALIFORNIA: David Whiting: Legacy of O.C.'s worst killing should be abolishing death penalty The legacies of Orange County's worst mass murder are many, including a town that rose up and bonded. But for Bethany Webb, who lost her sister and nearly lost her mother, there can be no greater legacy than abolishing the death penalty. Make no mistake. Webb's mission has nothing to do with forgiveness. Rather, it has everything to do with practicality. That, and avoiding the footsteps of a man who shot and killed 8 people. Webb sits on the couch in her living room and after an hour of quietly sharing her grief, she jabs her finger in the air and angrily questions what is the point of risking killing the wrong person, wasting countless hours on court hearings, spending billions of dollars in California on death penalty cases? "What happens on the day you watch them put a needle in his arm and watch him fall asleep?" she asks of those on death row. "Are you going to get satisfaction?" Providing her own answer, Webb points out her sister, Laura Webb Elody, got none of the courtesies afforded to a convict on death row. No last meal. No goodbyes. Just horrific terror staring at blood, bodies and the barrel of a gun. If handled properly, she notes, a convicted murderer drifts away after a peaceful overdose. Eliminate the death penalty, Webb suggests. Put death row inmates in general population. "Let them spend 30 years wondering if they'll die a violent death." As Webb talks, we are only miles from the Salon Meritage in Seal Beach where the killings took place 4 years ago. But we could be anywhere in California, the state with the largest population of death row inmates -- more than 700. Of those, more than 50 are Orange County killers. Webb offers there are layers of problems with the death penalty. "It's like peeling an onion, and each one stinks." MISTAKES ON DEATH ROW Robert Dunham is executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center in Washington, D.C. The nonprofit takes no stance on the death penalty. But it does raise serious issues about government-sanctioned killing. Dunham tells me, "There's an extreme risk that you are executing people who are innocent." A review of case law bears out his statement. Cameron Willingham, for example, was executed February 2004 for murdering his children in an arson fire in Texas. A nationally known fire investigator, Gerald Hurst, later determined, "There's nothing to suggest to any reasonable arson investigator that this was an arson fire. It was just a fire." Juror Dorinda Brokofsky responded, "Now I will have to live with this for the rest of my life. Maybe this man was innocent." Webb is typically blunt about the Willingham case. "They murdered a man who was innocent." Dunham points out there is evidence that executions tend to be biased against minorities and the poor. He also points out there is no evidence the death penalty deters crime, and that the system is extraordinarily expensive. 3 years ago, Judge Arthur Alarcon and professor Paula Mitchell updated their landmark study about the cost of California's death penalty. The authors found that since 1978, when the state restored the death penalty, more than $4 billion has been spent. Here's the breakdown of your tax dollars at work: $1.94 billion on pretrial and trial costs; $925 million on automatic appeals and habeas corpus petitions; $775 million on federal habeas corpus appeals; $1 billion on incarceration. Of the single-person death row cells, Webb says, "We're taking the worst of the worst and giving them the best housing." If death sentences were commuted to life without parole, the authors reported, California would save $170 million a year. Instead, death row has become so crowded that Gov. Jerry Brown recently proposed spending $3.2 million for 100 new prison cells. Here's one more cold statistic: It's been nearly a decade since California executed anyone. Ironically, that in itself may be a crime. VICTIMS' FAMILIES PAY PRICE Last July, U.S. District Court Judge Cormac Carney vacated the death sentence of Ernest Jones, who was on death row for 2 decades. The judge ruled that California's death penalty is so dysfunctional it amounts to cruel and unusual punishment. "Inordinate and unpredictable delay has resulted in a death penalty system," Carney wrote, "in which very few of the hundreds of individuals sentenced to death have been, or even will be, executed by the state." The federal judge called California's death penalty "a system that serves no penological purpose." In March, Webb joined families of other murder victims in filing briefs on behalf of Jones. Yes, our death penalty system is so screwed up that the families of murder victims are in court arguing for the murderers. Constitutional law on cruel and unusual punishment is important. But after spending time with Webb -- and I???ve also spent time with other relatives of those killed at Salon Meritage -- my heart doesn't break over the judge's points on stressing out convicts on death row. But the convicts aren't the only ones stuck in this unusually cruel system. The relatives suffer emotionally as well -- people like Webb and her mother, Hattie Stretz, now 77 and the sole survivor of the Salon Meritage tragedy. Dunham of the death penalty center notes a recent law review report comparing victim families who lived in states without capital crimes to families that lived in states with death penalties. By the time the appellate process was over, families who didn't have to face the rigors of death penalty cases had better mental health. After 4 years of court hearings -- and understand that the Salon Meritage killer confessed to his guilt -- Webb and her mother, who was at the salon having her hair done, are worn out. Yet because this is a capital case, they still face a very complicated and lengthy penalty phase. The process is especially difficult for Webb because she's always been wary of the death penalty. For those who back the death penalty, she warns, "Your train of thought becomes (the killer's) train of thought. "I'm no hippie-dippy," she is quick to say, "but as a mom, I've always believed that 2 wrongs don???t make a right. The idea that we're ever going to make (the Salon Meritage murders) right is ridiculous." KILLERS WANT FAME Webb has another sister and a brother. But Webb and Elody, a stylist, were especially tight. "She was the soft one. I was the hard one. She was a gentle soul and that fear she faced at her end haunts me." Webb allows that her mother survived only because her left arm happened to be over her chest and the bullet shattered arm bone, stopping it from destroying her heart. Today, Stretz has a cadaver bone in her arm and only has partial movement of her left hand. As we talk, Webb reveals her biggest fear. She is convinced that her sister's killer, Scott Dekraai, strapped on a bulletproof vest and picked up 3 guns not simply to kill his wife during a custody battle. Webb says, "I believe this in my core, that he walked in there for the infamy, for the fame." Wiping away tears, Webb maintains that every article with his name, every court hearing only helps the killer to get the attention he craves. "I hope he gets put in general population and he's there until the day he dies and we never hear from him again." She asks that every person he killed be named in this column to honor their memory: Elody, 46; Michelle Fournier, 48; David Caouette, 64; Randy Lee Fannin, 62; Michele Daschbach Fast, 47; Lucia Bernice Kondas, 65; Christy Lynn Wilson, 47; Victoria Buzzo, 54. "Victoria, Laura and Gordon (Gallego, a stylist who survived) were the 3 amigos," Webb recalls. As she remembers, she points to her shirt. It's emblazoned with "Team Laura" and the images of Laura and Buzzo, both tilting their heads back with glee. The one thing that will help, Webb believes, is time. She hopes to wake up one day not thinking of the awful way her sister died, but of the great times they had together. And Webb has one more wish, one about what was once a joyous place where people joked, shared, celebrated life. "My goal is the think of the Salon Meritage with a smile, as opposed to the bloodbath it became." That healing will come more quickly if we abolish the death penalty. (source: Oranage County Register) USA: NY Times Suggests Death Penalty for Boston Terrorist a 'Blot' on City's Shining Reputation The front of Sunday's New York Times will evidently be blessed with "Death Penalty Leaves Boston Unsure of Itself." The paper found the death sentence handed down to convicted Boston Marathon terrorist bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev a "blot" on Boston's compassionate liberal reputation, which has rendered the finish line "a place of ambivalence," with no end of self-righteous Bostonian handwringing on the matter. Seelye had pushed in previous stories the activism of leftist nun Sister Helen Prejean, who lent what Seelye termed "moral authority" toward the defense's plea for leniency for Tsarnaev, who killed four people and wounded hundreds more with pressure cooker bombs set by he and brother Tamerlan at the Boston Marathon finish line. On Sunday Seelye (with reporters Abby Goodnough and Jess Bidgood) did not hide her distaste for Tsarnaev's death sentence. The Times quoted hordes of previously undiscovered law-and-order liberals who perversely claim to embrace punitive Supermax prisons (which provide long sentences, solitary confinement and other punitive measures reserved for the very worst inmates) as an alternative to the death penalty. But since a federal jury on Friday sentenced the convicted bomber to death, the finish line suddenly seems to be a place of ambivalence. Fresh flowers are accumulating. A sense of sorrow lingers in the air. Sightseers who come to snap a photo feel a little self-conscious. Residents train their gaze on the line, and the conversations turn to death -- and disappointment. "I was shocked," said Scott Larson, 47, a records manager who works near the finish line. "The death penalty -- for Boston." U.S. Attorney Carmen Ortiz said that Dzhokhar Tsarnaev would pay for his crimes with his life. Mr. Tsarnaev was sentenced to death for his role in the 2013 Boston Marathon bombings. The Times gave death penalty opponents ample room to opine, with reactions rather less about justice for the victims of terror than self-righteousness: To many, the death sentence almost feels like a blot on the city's collective consciousness. To the amazement of people elsewhere, Bostonians overwhelmingly opposed condemning the bomber, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, to death. The most recent poll, conducted last month for The Boston Globe, found that just 15 % of city residents wanted him executed. Statewide, 19 % did. By contrast, 60 % of Americans wanted Mr. Tsarnaev to get the death penalty, according to a CBS News poll last month. No one here felt sympathy for him. Rather, many thought life in prison would be a fate worse than death, especially for someone as young as Mr. Tsarnaev, who is 21. Others feared that putting him to death would make him a martyr. Still others, interviewed around the city Friday night and Saturday, reflected the region's historical aversion to the death penalty. Like many others, he could not square the death sentence with the sense of Massachusetts exceptionalism that has pervaded Boston since 1630, when the Puritan John Winthrop said this spot in the New World would be "as a city upon a hill -- the eyes of all people are upon us." Mr. Maher, walking in South Boston on the waterfront, lamented that Massachusetts seemed to be losing its lofty goals and a piece of its unique identity. "The Chinese put a lot of people to death, and we put a lot of people to death, and almost nobody else in the world does," he said. "It's kind of a brutal thing. And for this to happen in Massachusetts ..." His voice trailed off. The jury was "death qualified" -- each juror had to be open to the death penalty; anyone who opposed it could not serve. In that sense, the federal jury did not reflect the general population of the region. Massachusetts abolished the death penalty for state crimes in 1984 and has not carried out an execution since 1947. Still, some people outside the courtroom did favor death for Mr. Tsarnaev. Peggy Fahey, a lifelong Bostonian who was sipping coffee on a park bench in South Boston early Saturday, said she believed that Mr. Tsarnaev had been treated too gently since his arrest and that death was what he irrefutably deserved. But many more seemed to share the view of Priscilla Winter, 56, an elementary school teacher from Dorchester who was strolling along the South Boston waterfront. To her, the verdict felt morally wrong. Ms. Winter's walking companion, Liam Larkin, 57, said he lived around the corner from the Richards. Like them, he said, he wanted the closure that a life sentence would have brought. "I think the best way of punishing him would be to send him to the Supermax," said Mr. Larkin, who works removing lead from old buildings. The Times uncovered more allegedly tough on crime liberals: "I think that was too simple, to put him to death," said Ms. Pouncy, 39, who works in accounts receivable at a hospital. "I think he needs to suffer some. Death is too easy. Once it's over, it's over." Mr. Pouncy, 47, agreed, adding that he wondered how much solace the death penalty could provide for survivors. "The families who lost people are still going to be numb. Maybe they'll feel like a little bit of justice has been done, but all in all, it's not going to bring their loved ones back." Do liberals truly think "it's not going to bring their loved ones back" is an idea that's never occurred to the family members of murder victims? (source: New York Times) ****************************** Dzhokhar Tsarnaev: At Least a Decade of Appeals to Follow Death Sentence Dzhokhar Tsarnaev has become the 62nd inmate on federal death row after he was sentenced to death on Friday for his part in the Boston Marathon bombings. He will now join the rarified group of men and women (2 are female) awaiting execution on federal death row; at 21 he will be the youngest. But despite the dramatic news from the Boston courtroom on Friday, Tsarnaev's fate will take years to reach its conclusion. Many of his new federal death row peers have been sitting waiting for the appeals process to work its way out for more than 20 years. Though the Justice Department could attempt to fast-track executions in the name of public interest, death penalty experts expect the very quickest timeframe from Friday's sentence to Tsarnaev actually being put on a gurney and injected with lethal chemicals would be at least 10 years. (source: allmediany.com) ******************** Stop the Death Penalty Banner ---- Each Death Sentence Further Discredits US - Russian Rights Activist According to prominent Russian human rights activist Lev Ponomaryov, each death sentence deals a blow to the image of the US; his remarks came as a US jury sentenced Dzhokhar Tsarnaev to death for his role in the April 2013 Boston Marathon terrorist attack. Commenting on a US jury's decision to sentence Dzhokhar Tsarnaev to death for his role in the April 2013 Boston Marathon terrorist attack, prominent Russian human rights activist Lev Ponomaryov described each death sentence by the US as a blow to its image, Russia's news agency RIA Novosti reported. "Undoubtedly, I'm shocked over Dzhokhar Tsarnaev getting the death penalty. I believe that the United States discredits itself and that every death sentence is a blow to the image of the United States, which considers itself a country moving toward democracy," Ponomaryov said. In his view, the US could be quick to abolish the death penalty in all its states in order to be in line with the image the US is touting. Ponomaryov pointed to certain historical circumstances, claiming that the US emerged as a union of armed men. "Unfortunately, these traditions have been preserved and they currently persist. I think that in this sense, the United States could learn from Europe," he said. Ponomaryov, who is an executive director of the all-Russian movement For Human Rights, expressed hope that all the states in the US will finally abolish capital punishment. Some of the police officers who helped track down the Boston Marathon bombing suspects failed to demonstrate weapons discipline during the manhunt, creating a dangerous firefight at one point, according to a report released Friday. As for Tsarnaev, he was convicted last month on all 30 counts for his role in the most deadly terrorist attack in the United States since September 11, 2001. The same jury sentenced Tsarnaev to death on 6 counts for the bombing that killed 3 people and injured more than 260 on April 15, 2013. The verdict included use of a weapon of mass destruction and bombing a public place. sputniknews.com) *********************** Boston Bomber's Execution To Be Delayed 18 Years? Dzhokhar Tsarnaev's legal representatives have released a statement saying that the Boston Bomber's execution will be delayed 18 years. Earlier this week, a fresh-faced 21-year-old entered a court of justice in Massachusets and left a few hours later with a death sentence. Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was sentenced to death by lethal injection for his involvement in the 2013 Boston Marathon Bombings, which led to the death of 5 people (including Tsarnaev's brother) and injured over 250 others. Earlier today, news broke that Tsarnaev's representatives were negotiating an appeal against the death sentence given to Tsarnaev. Often appeals against the death penalty are very complicated and take extremely long lengths of time. Of course, if the delay is 18 years (as predicted), Tsarnaev will be nearing 40 by the time he is executed. Defence attorney Judy Clarke believes that she has 2 strong cases to make in the appeal. First, by holding the trial in Boston, the jury would be prejudiced against Tsarnaev. Second, Clarke says the defense didn't have enough time to prepare a case against the death penalty. Tsarnaev is currently the youngest inmate on death row, but legal experts believe that by the time he faces execution, he will be much older. Jim Fedalin released this statement. "This guy may be the youngest inmate on death row at 21 but he could be pushing 40 by the time they march him to the death chamber. We are looking at 18 years, possibly longer, before his appeals process is exhausted. By then, who even knows what the legal landscape on federal executions will look like?" Interestingly, a poll conducted by the Boston Globe indicated that only 15 % of people in Massachusetts agree with Tsarnaev's sentence. The death penalty hasn't been used in Massachusetts since 1947 when gangsters Phillip Belino and Edward Gertson were executed for murder. There are people who are strong advocates for his sentence, including as Michael Ward, a fireman who helped pull over 12 people out of rubble. "Ultimately justice has prevailed. He wanted to go to hell and he's going to get there early," Ward said. Only 340 prisoners have been executed by the U.S. Government since reforms in 1790, which equates to an average of 1.5 per year. Tsarnaev has been sentenced to be put to death at the Terre Haute penitentiary in Indiana (known as Guantanamo North due to it's high density of foreign inmates), where only 3 people have been executed since it's opening in 1940. Out of 74 inmates who received a death sentence for federal crimes, only three have been executed thus far. All 3 at Terre Haute. (source: inquisitr.com) From rhalperi at smu.edu Sun May 17 15:17:52 2015 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Sun, 17 May 2015 15:17:52 -0500 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide Message-ID: May 17 SAUDI ARABIA----execution Saudi Arabia beheads Pakistani in 84th execution this year Saudi Arabia has beheaded a Pakistani national convicted of drug trafficking, bringing to 84 the number of such executions in the kingdom since the start of this year. The convict, identified as Iftikhar Ahmed Mohammed Anayat, was beheaded in the Red Sea city of Jeddah on Sunday, the Saudi Interior Ministry said in a statement carried by the official Saudi Press Agency. The man was found guilty of attempting to traffic heroin into the kingdom in balloons concealed in his stomach. In recent months, a significant number of foreign nationals and workers have been beheaded in the kingdom, triggering an outcry from human rights organizations. On April 16, Saudi Arabia beheaded an Indonesian female domestic worker, just 2 days after executing another woman from the Southeast Asian country. In January, authorities in Saudi Arabia publicly beheaded Laila Bint Abdul Muttalib Basim, a Muslim woman from Myanmar, by sword in the holy city of Mecca. Footage of the execution showed Basim being dragged into a street and held down by 4 police officers. "I did not kill, I did not kill," she was heard to shout repeatedly. Basim then screamed as a sword-wielding man struck her neck. 2nd and 3rd blows completed the beheading and authorities swiftly removed her body from the road. In 2014, Saudi Arabia beheaded a total of 87 alleged convicts. Saudi authorities claim the executions show the kingdom's commitment to "maintaining security and realizing justice." Saudi Arabia has come under particular criticism from human rights groups for the executions. Amnesty International says Saudi Arabia has one of the highest execution rates in the world. Muslim clerics have also slammed Riyadh for indicting and then executing suspects without giving them a chance to defend themselves, describing the Saudi authorities as uncivilized. Rape, murder, apostasy, armed robbery and drug trafficking are all punishable by death under Saudi law. (source: Albawaba news) ************************** Saudi protesters hold rally to support senior Shia cleric Saudi protesters have once again taken to the streets, calling on authorities to overturn the death sentence handed to prominent Shia cleric Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr. The Saudis staged a rally in the Qatif region of Eastern Province for the 3rd night in a row to show solidarity with Nimr, on death row in the kingdom. The demonstrators carried placards and shouted slogans, urging the ruling Al Saud regime to release the respected cleric, who was sentenced to death last year. The protest was held as calls were growing worldwide for the release of Nimr, who has been in jail for more than 3 years. Rallies in UK, Germany Also on Saturday, a similar rally was held outside the Saudi Embassy in London, where protesters voiced anger at the death penalty handed down to Nimr and other human rights activists in the Arab kingdom. A similar rally was also staged in Germany in solidarity with the prominent Saudi Shia cleric. In the capital, Berlin, Germans called upon Riyadh to immediately release Sheikh Nimr and drop all charges brought against him as they carried large portraits of the Shia Saudi cleric. The German demonstrators also commended the systematic and widespread violations of human rights in Saudi Arabia. Nimr was attacked and arrested in Qatif in July 2012 on charges of disturbing the country's security, delivering anti-government speeches, and defending political prisoners. There have been numerous demonstrations in Saudi Arabia's Eastern Province since 2011, with protesters calling for political reform and an end to widespread discrimination. A number of people have been killed and many have been injured or arrested during the demonstrations. The monarchy has intensified repression not only against Shia Muslims, but also against Sunnis and other dissident voices. International human rights organizations have criticized Saudi Arabia for failing to address the rights situation. On May 1, Amnesty International criticized Saudi Arabia for its grim human rights record, arguing that widespread violations continue unabated in the oil-rich country even though a new ruler, King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, has taken the helm of the absolute monarchy. (source: Press TV) EGYPT----executions Egypt hangs 6 convicted Islamist militants Egyptian authorities hanged 6 men convicted of killing soldiers Sunday, police said, ignoring appeals to spare them amid allegations 2 of them had been in custody at the time of their alleged crimes. A military court upheld the death sentences last March, following a trial in which the 6 were convicted of carrying out the attacks in the months after the army's overthrow of Islamist president Mohamed Morsi in July 2013. Prosecutors said they were members of the Sinai-based Ansar Beit al-Maqdis jihadist group, which late last year pledged allegiance to the Islamic State group in Iraq and Syria. The sentence was carried out by hanging in a Cairo jail, the officials said. Some of the men had been arrested when police and soldiers raided their safehouse north of Cairo in March 2014. 2 army explosive experts and 6 militants were killed in an ensuing gunfight, adding to the list of charges against the 6 men. But human rights groups had appealed for a stay of execution, saying 2 of the defendants had been in custody at the time. Amnesty International said the men underwent a "grossly unfair" trial and that the only witness during the trial was a secret police officer. (source: The Guardian) *************************************** US 'deeply concerned' by Egypt's death penalty decision for Mohamed Morsi -- US joins Amnesty International and Turkey's president in criticising mass death sentence handed to more than 100 Muslim Brotherhood supporters The US is "deeply concerned" about an Egyptian court decision to seek the death penalty for the former president Mohamed Morsi, a State Department official said on Sunday. The US criticism follows condemnation from Amnesty International and Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, after the court ruling on Saturday against the deposed leader and 106 supporters of his Muslim Brotherhood in connection with a mass jail break in 2011. The ruling against Morsi is not final until 2 June. All capital sentences are referred to Egypt's top religious authority, the Grand Mufti, for a non-binding opinion, and are also subject to legal appeal. "We are deeply concerned by yet another mass death sentence handed down by an Egyptian court to more than 100 defendants, including former president Morsi," the State Department official said, speaking on condition of anonymity. "We have consistently spoken out against the practice of mass trials and sentences, which are conducted in a manner that is inconsistent with Egypt's international obligations and the rule of law," he said. The official, noted, however, that Saturday's death sentence ruling was "preliminary". Morsi and his fellow defendants were convicted on charges of killing and kidnapping policemen, attacking police facilities and breaking out of jail during the uprising. Morsi, who became Egypt's 1st freely elected president in 2012 after the ousting of president Hosni Mubarak in a popular uprising, has said the court is not legitimate, describing proceedings against him as part of a coup by former army chief Abdel Fatah al-Sisi in 2013. Despite US lawmakers' concerns that Egypt is lagging on democratic reforms, Egypt remains one of Washington's closest security allies in the region. Relations cooled after Morsi was overthrown by the military nearly 2 years ago, but ties with Sisi, his successor, have steadily improved. In late March, Barack Obama lifted a hold on a supply of arms to Cairo, authorising deliveries of US weapons valued at more than $1.3bn. ****************************** Egypt's former leader Morsy given death sentence in jailbreak case Former Egyptian President Mohamed Morsy was sentenced Saturday by a Cairo court to death -- the latest judicial setback for the ousted leader. He was convicted in a 2011 prison break. Morsy's name, along with those of more than 100 other defendants, will be passed to the Grand Mufti, the highest legal authority in Egypt, who will have the final say on their sentence. The verdict will be confirmed June 2. This was the harshest sentence that Morsy could have expected to receive in the case. The leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, Mohamed Badie, and a former parliament speaker, Mohamed Saad El-Katatny, also were referred to the Grand Mufti in the jailbreak case. Cairo's military-installed government has banned the Muslim Brotherhood, branding it a terrorist group -- an allegation it denies. Morsy and his co-defendants were accused of collaborating with the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas and the Lebanese Shiite group Hezbollah to break into several prisons across Egypt in January 2011 and of facilitating the escape of Morsy and 20,000 others. The jailbreak came amid the chaos of the January 2011 popular uprising that toppled longtime strongman Hosni Mubarak and led to Morsy's election the following year. Rights group: Trials a "charade" Muslim Brotherhood lawyer Abdel Moniem Abdel Maqsoud told CNN that the defense would have to consult with Morsy before deciding whether to lodge an appeal on his behalf. Morsy has said throughout the process "that he doesn't recognize these trials," the lawyer said. Maqsoud characterized Saturday's ruling as "a decision, not a verdict." "Consequently we will wait until June 2," he said. "If there is a conviction, we will continue the legal path that we started the past months, which is to point the legal faults of these verdicts." He said he believed the Court of Cassation would overturn all the verdicts handed down. Rights group Amnesty International condemned the trials of Morsy and others as a "charade" which demonstrated the "deplorable state" of Egypt's criminal justice system. Condemning Morsy to death "shows a complete disregard for human rights. His trials were undermined even before he set foot in the courtroom," said Said Boumedouha, deputy director of Amnesty International's Middle East and North Africa program. He urged Egypt to ensue the independence and impartiality of the justice system, saying most of those sentenced to death by its courts since July 2013 have been Morsy supporters. "The death penalty has become the favorite tool for the Egyptian authorities to purge the political opposition," he said. Hamas criticized the death sentences handed down for some of its members in connection with the jailbreak -- pointing out that 2 of the named defendants were already dead. "Hossam El-Sanie was martyred in 2008. Martyr leader Raed El-Attar was martyred the 2014 war. Today, the Egyptian judiciary sentenced them to death. Fair judiciary indeed," Ismail Haniyyeh, the deputy head of the Hamas politburo, tweeted. He noted that another Palestinian sentenced to death, Hassan Salama, has been in Israeli prisons since 1996. Espionage case In a separate case involving espionage charges, another 16 defendants -- but not Morsy -- were also sentenced to death. The verdict will be confirmed June 2. Among those sentenced to death are Mohamed El-Shater, deputy leader of the Muslim Brotherhood; Mohamed El-Beltagy, a former Muslim Brotherhood member of parliament; Ahmed Abdel Aty, a former presidential aide; and Emad Shahin, a political science professor now in the United States. Those defendants present chanted "Allahu Akbar," meaning "God is the greatest," as they were sentenced. They remained in the cage where prisoners are held in the courtroom, waving to journalists and lawyers as they chanted. Morsy can expect to learn his verdict in the espionage case on June 2, but it won't be the death penalty. Violence against protesters Morsy, who became Egypt's 1st democratically elected President in June 2012, was deposed by a popularly backed military coup in July 2013. He was already sentenced to 20 years in prison in April this year on charges involving violence against protesters outside the presidential palace in December 2012. But he was acquitted of murder in the deaths of protesters. After that verdict, his Freedom and Justice Party, the Muslim Brotherhood's political wing, called the trial a "travesty of justice." The ousted president is still facing an ongoing trial on charges of espionage with Qatar. A fifth trial will start this month on charges of insulting the judiciary. (source: CNN) ********************** Sondos Asem: Only woman to be sentenced to death in Egypt mass trial The former international media coordinator for ousted president Morsi was charged with espionage and sentenced to death in absentia Sondos Asem, a member of the Freedom and Justice Party, was one of the defendants sentenced to death in absentia by an Egyptian court on Saturday, and the only woman to receive the death penalty. She is 1 of the 16 members of the Muslim Brotherhood, including leaders Mohamed al-Baltegy and Khairat al-Shater, to be sentenced to death after being charged for acts of espionage by conspiring with Palestinian movement Hamas. The preliminary verdict was sent to the grand mufti for approval as is required with all death penalty sentences under Egyptian law. The final decision is expected to be announced on 2 June. (source: middleeasteye.net) ****************** Erdogan slams Western stance on Egypt after Morsi death sentence Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan slammed the West for not taking action against Egyptian rulers after a court sentenced the country's deposed leader Mohammed Morsi to death over his role in a 2011 jail break. "Egypt is returning to old Egypt. You know what old Egypt is about, don't you?" Erdogan asked supporters at a rally in Istanbul on Saturday, held hours after the Egyptian court ruling was announced. "[Egyptian President Abdel Fattah] al-Sisi cannot be stopped. The West does not take a position against the coup maker Sisi. While the West is abolishing the death penalty, they are just watching the continuation of death sentences in Egypt. They [Western leaders and Sisi] meet and display solidarity." An Egyptian court on Saturday sentenced Morsi and more than 100 other members of the Muslim Brotherhood to death in connection with a mass jail break in 2011. Morsi and the other defendants were convicted for killing and kidnapping policemen, attacking police facilities and breaking out of jail during the 2011 uprising against former President Hosni Mubarak's rule. Erdogan, a close ally of Morsi, has condemned a 2013 coup that deposed Morsi and the lack of strong international reaction against his toppling. After criticizing the Western stance towards the Sisi administration, Erdogan said in his speech that it was the Turkish nation that will "shape the course" of events. "This is why the June 7 election is critical," Erdogan said, apparently asking the crowd for support for the ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party). Erdogan has been frequently criticized by opposition parties for campaigning for the AK Party, a party that he founded and led for years before handing over the chairmanship to Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu after he was elected president in August last year. The opposition says Erdogan's rallies are in violation of the Turkish Constitution, which stipulates that the president be politically impartial. Erdogan says in response that he does not name any party in his speeches. Davutoglu draws parallels with Turkey In a separate speech in the western province of Bursa, Prime Minister Davutoglu also condemned the death penalty and said what happened in Turkey 55 years ago was now being repeated in Egypt, referring to the death penalties handed down for late Turkish Prime Minister Adnan Menderes and two former ministers following a military coup in 1960. Davutoglu slammed a Turkish media report of the death penalty ruling for Morsi for highlighting the fact that he had been elected president with 52 % of the vote. "What do they mean? If they refer to our President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who was also elected with a 52 % vote, they should know that no elected president or a prime minister will be sent to death in this land," Davutoglu said. Echoing Erdogan, he criticized the West for its silence on the Egyptian court ruling. "Those who tried to teach us a lesson on freedoms during Gezi [Park] protests. Where are you now?" he asked. (source: Sunday's Zaman) ******************************* Amnesty calls Mursi death sentence bid in Egypt 'a charade' Amnesty International on Saturday called an Egyptian court's decision to seek the death penalty for ousted Islamist president Mohamed Mursi "a charade based on null and void procedures" and demanded his release or retrial in a civilian court. The court sought the death penalty for Mursi and more than 100 supporters of his banned Muslim Brotherhood group in connection with a mass jail break in 2011. (source: Reuters) PAKISTAN: To the gallows: Black warrant issued for murder convict A black warrant has been issued for a Haripur prison inmate convicted of murder; he will be put to death within seven days, insiders familiar with the matter told The Express Tribune. According to official sources, the home department issued a black warrant for Shamsul Islam on Friday. The Charsadda resident was sentenced to death by the district court over 8 years ago for murdering a young boy. He challenged his conviction in the high court and later the Supreme Court but his death penalty was upheld by both courts. After exhausting all forums of appeals, the condemned prisoner moved a mercy petition to the office of the President of Pakistan. However, that too was turned down a few days ago, said insiders. Following the rejection of his mercy petition, the provincial home department issued his black warrant. According to an official of the prison department, they have written to the office of IG Prisons to shift Islam to his native district for the execution. Insiders said although gallows were constructed at Haripur Central Prison a couple of months ago, the administration would prefer to send him to Charsadda. However, the final decision in this regard would be taken by IG Prisons and home department. The prisoner would be allowed a last meeting with his family in the next few days. Being one of the biggest jails of the province, Haripur Central Prison holds over 140 condemned prisoners. Earlier, Niaz Muhammad, convicted in the attack on former president General Pervez Musharraf, was also taken to Peshawar and hanged on January 1st. (source: Express Tribune) ************************* Hanging in the balance----The debate on possible deterrence goes on as more than 100 persons have been executed in Pakistan in less than 6 months On March 19, around midnight, Saulat Mirza, a convicted murderer issued a video-statement from jail that was aired on the national media. He blamed the Muttahida Qaumi Movement's (MQM) top leadership for complicity in the crimes he had committed. This was a few hours before his scheduled hanging. Hours after the video, the president of the country stayed his hanging. He did that a couple of times subsequently, apparently to get more clues. Mirza was hanged to death in the early hours of May 12 at Balochistan's Machh Jail, after about 2 months, putting an end to the rumours that he might be saved as an approver. By early May, Pakistan had crossed the 100 mark in executions since lifting of ban on death penalty last December. The moratorium was lifted following the barbaric attack on Army Public School Peshawar on December 16, 2014 in which around 150 students and teachers were ruthlessly slaughtered. A few days later, Pakistan lifted the ban and hanged 2 terrorists in Faisalabad jail involved in attacks on forces; the video of hanging was flashed by the media. "Till mid April, the number of executed prisoners whose mercy petitions had been rejected by the highest forum went up to 81," says Farooq Nazir, Inspector General Prisons of the Punjab. "The executions will continue till any further order from the government." By mid May, 33 condemned prisoners including one woman, whose mercy petitions were rejected by the President of Pakistan, are languishing in Punjab jails. While 5,431 condemned prisoners including 46 women are waiting for the appeals to be heard at different forums. Shockingly, around 45 % of population of Punjab jails consists of under-trial murder prisoners. Figures show that of the under-trial accused murderers, number of convicted and condemned inmates is 19781, while 194 inmates are facing charges of death by negligence and 2140 have been booked on murder attempt. Human rights groups claim that resuming executions will not do much to address the root causes of crime and terrorism, and must end immediately. Critics of death penalty say the country's criminal justice system is marred by police torture, poor legal representation for victims and unfair trials. "The decision to hang a large number of condemned prisoners is a complicated issue," says I.A. Rehman, Secretary General Human Rights Commission of Pakistan. "This would not bring terrorist groups to their knees. Besides, we must realise that nothing can be achieved by anger alone." Amnesty International and European Union are still urging Pakistan to resume moratorium. According to Pakistan's Interior Ministry, the number of condemned prisoners is not less than 8,000 including those who have moved appeal before the relevant courts. Over 8,500 death row prisoners were languishing in jails across Pakistan till March 2014. Pakistan is among the countries that have the highest number of accused held on murder charge. "This is not the case in Punjab alone. Jails throughout the country have a high ratio of inmates on death-row," Masood Khan, former principal of the Academy of Jail Staff and Training Institute, tells TNS. He says no other place in the world has such high number of inmates on death-row. "In death-cells, where you cannot put more than 1 condemned prisoner; the cells are packed with 6 to 10 inmates." "The major reason which has led Pakistan to this situation is faulty criminal justice system that delays justice and lack of accountability making people fearless," says Khan. Mirza had been on death row for nearly 17 years. He was sentenced to death in 1999. Last week, the Islamabad High Court gave a verdict on a petition challenging capital punishment to Shafqat Hussain, who was said to be a juvenile at the time of crime by a non-government organisation. The IHC also set aside the request of forming a commission for the confirmation of age of the accused murderer. In March 2015, death penalty was extended to cover all capital offences. The European Union, the United Nations and human rights campaigners have all urged Pakistan to reinstate the moratorium. However, the hiatus in the 5 year moratorium was interrupted in November 2012 when the military executed a soldier who was found guilty of murder in a military court. Since then, no one had been sent to the gallows till the lifting of ban on death penalty last December. (source: The News) INDIA: Supreme Court slaps death sentence on woman In a new twist to sentencing policy, the Supreme Court on Friday held that no leniency can be shown by courts in awarding death sentence only on the ground that the accused in a brutal killing is a woman. The sentencing policy must be proportionate to the crime committed and the sentence must be the same for man and woman, held a 3-judge bench of Chief Justice H.L. Dattu and Justices S.A. Bobde and Arun Mishra, while confirming a death sentence awarded to a woman and her paramour for killing 7 members of a family (the case was briefly reported on April 30 when the bench reserved orders). Writing the judgement, the CJI said, "The Indian legal system today does not differentiate between a son and a daughter - they have equal rights and duties. Indian culture has been witness to for centuries, that daughters dutifully bear the burden of being the care-givers for her parents, even more than a son. Our experience has reflected that an adult daughter places greater emphasis on their relationships with their parents, and when those relationships go awry, it takes a worse toll on the adult daughters than the adult sons." The bench said, "The principle that when the offence is gruesome and was committed in a calculated and diabolical manner, the age of the accused may not be a relevant factor. Death penalty is not proportional if the law's most severe penalty is imposed on one whose culpability or blameworthiness is diminished, to a substantial degree, by reason of youth and immaturity. This, however, does not seem to be the case herein. The appellant-accused persons' preparedness, active involvement. It said "Here is a case where the daughter, appellant-accused Shabnam, who has been brought up in an educated and independent environment by her family and was respectfully employed as a Shikshamitra (teacher) at the school, influenced by the love and lust of her paramour has committed this brutal parricide exterminating seven lives including that of an innocent child." It said "Of all the crimes that shock the souls of men, none has ever been held in greater abhorrence than parricide, which is by all odds the most complete and terrible inversion, not alone of human nature but of brute instinct. Such a deed would be sufficiently appalling were the perpetrator and the victims are uneducated and backward, but it gains a ghastly illumination from the descent, moral upbringing, and elegant respectful living of the educated family where the father and daughter are both teachers. Dismissing the appeals against a Allahabad High Court verdict confirming a trial court's order, the bench said "the crime is committed in the most cruel and inhuman manner which is extremely brutal, grotesque, diabolical and revolting. Therefore, as the instant case requires us to award a punishment that is graduated and proportioned to the crime, we have reached the inescapable conclusion that the extreme culpability of both the appellants-accused makes them the most deserving for death penalty." (source: The Asian Age) From rhalperi at smu.edu Mon May 18 09:26:54 2015 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Mon, 18 May 2015 09:26:54 -0500 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----N.J., NEB., CALIF., USA Message-ID: May 18 NEW JERSEY: Death penalty still supported by majority of NJ residents It's been over 7 years since New Jersey abolished the death penalty, and a new poll released Monday shows the majority of residents still support it. In December 2007, New Jersey abolished its death penalty after legislation was passed and signed by former Gov. Jon Corzine to replace the death penalty with life without the possibility of parole. According to the Death Penalty Information Center, 32 states have the death penalty and 18 have abolished it. In 2013, Maryland became the last state to abolish the death penalty. A poll that was taken in 2006 by Fairleigh Dickinson University's PublicMind asked Garden State residents their opinions on the death penalty. 8 years later, the same question was asked and it received almost the same responses. "Right now, 57 % of Garden Staters say they favor the death penalty for certain crimes with 36 % who are opposed. Back in 2006, support came in at 54 %," said Krista Jenkins, director of PublicMind and professor of political science. Partisanship, gender and racial divides are evident in the survey. "Support is the strongest among Republicans, whites, men and Gen Xers with clear majorities of all these groups saying 'yes' to the ultimate penalty," Jenkins explained. "Support is considerably less among Democrats, people of color and millennials." 65 % of the white poll respondents are in support of the death penalty while 35 % of black New Jerseyans say the same. More than 3/4 of Republicans favor capital punishment, but less than 1/2 of Democrats agree. Other breakdown percentages included: 52 % of Independents favor the death penalty; 64 % of men support it; 51 % of women are unopposed; 48 % of those ages 18 to 34 favor the death penalty; 61 % of those ages 35 to 59 support it; 60 % of New Jersey residents 60 and older are unopposed. After a spate of botched executions across the country, the U.S. Supreme Court is now considering the constitutionality of the death penalty. The poll was conducted by telephone from April 13 to 19, 2015 using a randomly selected sample of 1314 adults in New Jersey, including an oversampling of 403 African-Americans. (source: nj1015.com) ***************** FDU Poll: Majority support remains for death penalty With the Boston bomber, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev being sentenced to death, and a number of botched executions attracting the attention of the U.S. Supreme Court, the death penalty has been in the headlines recently. The most recent survey from Fairleigh Dickinson University's PublicMind finds support for the death penalty virtually unchanged from when the same question was asked in 2006. 57 % of respondents say they favor the death penalty for certain crimes with 36 % opposed. In 2006, support measured 54 % with 31 % opposed. "With the Supreme Court decision on lethal injections looming, and another federal defendant sentenced to death, sentiment in New Jersey is squarely on the side of allowing the practice to continue. A majority would undoubtedly agree with the decision to sentence the Boston bomber to the ultimate penalty," said Krista Jenkins, director of PublicMind and professor of political science. She went on tos say "It's not really a state issue, as New Jersey is among those states who abolished the death penalty in 2007. It's more of a federal issue, given the difficulty that many states are having in getting the drugs needed for the legal injection cocktail. Right now Garden Staters are about where the nation is in regard to the question. Other polls have national support at 56 %, another sign that New Jersey is really a microcosm of the rest of the nation." Not everyone embraces this form of punishment: Support is the strongest among Republicans, whites, men, and Gen Xers - with clear majorities of all of these groups saying yes to the ultimate penalty. There is considerably less support among Democrats, people of color, women, and Millennials - all of whom oppose the death penalty in numbers almost reaching or exceeding a majority. Partisanship and race are the 2 biggest dividers in attitudes toward the death penalty. Among whites, approval approaches 2/3, but among blacks support plummets thirty points to 35 %. 3/4 of Republicans favor this form of punishment with fewer than half of all Democrats. The Fairleigh Dickinson University poll of 1314 adults, including an oversample of 403African-Americans, in New Jersey was conducted by telephone with both landline and cell phones from April 13 through April 19. The margin of error is +/- 3 % points. (source: politickernj.com) NEBRASKA: Conservative Support Aids Bid in Nebraska to Ban Death Penalty The Nebraska Legislature will decide in the next several weeks whether to do what no other conservative state has done in more than 40 years: Abolish the death penalty. In the latest sign that vigorous support for capital punishment can no longer be taken for granted among Republicans, a coalition of Republican, Democratic and independent lawmakers has backed a bill that would replace capital punishment with life imprisonment. Its members cite reasons that range from fiscal and practical to ideological. On Friday, the unicameral Legislature voted in favor of the bill, 30 to 16, after four hours of debate. A final vote is likely this week, and if the lawmakers approve the measure again, as is expected, it will go to Gov. Pete Ricketts, a Tea Party Republican and strong supporter of capital punishment. The governor has said he would veto the bill, setting up a potentially fierce campaign to override him. In a statement after the vote, Mr. Ricketts said the repeal vote "puts the safety of the public and Nebraska families at risk." "The death penalty in Nebraska remains an appropriate tool in sentencing the most heinous criminals," he added. But the Republicans who support repeal say they are part of an emerging group that has changed positions on the death penalty, forming what they hope is a compelling conservative argument against it. Those Republicans have argued that the appeals process for inmates sentenced to death has left the state with unnecessary costs, money that should be spent elsewhere. They have spoken of the botched execution in Oklahoma last year and the difficulty in procuring the drugs for lethal injections. (The electric chair was outlawed in Nebraska in 2008 when the State Supreme Court declared the method unconstitutional.) Some lawmakers have also pointed to the fact that Nebraska has not executed an inmate since 1997, leaving family members of crime victims waiting interminably for resolution. 11 inmates are on death row. Senator Colby Coash, a conservative who is a sponsor of the bill, said he had come to believe that opposing capital punishment aligned with his values as a Republican and a Christian conservative. "I'm a conservative guy - I've been a Republican my whole life," he said in an interview. "A lot of my conservative colleagues have come to the conclusion that we're there to root out inefficient government programs. Some people see this as a pro-life issue. Other people see it as a good-government issue. But the support that this bill is getting from conservative members is evidence that you can get justice through eliminating the death penalty, and you can get efficient government through eliminating the death penalty." But other Republicans, dismayed over what they see as a deviation from the party's core beliefs, have vowed to fight the measure. Senator Bill Kintner, who opposes repeal, said a filibuster had been discussed to try to stop it. Those lawmakers in his party who favor the bill, Mr. Kintner said, have lost their way. "Conservatives have always been the bedrock of law and order," he said in an interview in his office in the Capitol. "We want to make sure our streets are safe." Yet even some lawmakers who ultimately voted against the bill on Friday said they had lost sleep trying to decide. "I have struggled with this issue," Senator Dave Bloomfield said. "At the end of the day, I will be voting to keep the death penalty on our books as an alternative to the most heinous crimes." Mr. Ricketts, in a last-minute attempt to shore up Republican opposition to the bill, announced on Thursday that the state had acquired "all 3 drugs" necessary to carry out lethal injections. But Senator Ernie Chambers, an independent from Omaha, who introduced the bill, questioned whether the state had procured those drugs. "The governor is going to have to show and establish where these drugs come from," Mr. Chambers said during debate. "They don't have them in their possession. The timing of this announcement is very problematic." Lawmakers in other conservative states have made their own efforts this year to abolish capital punishment. In Montana, a bill to ban the death penalty passed the Senate but encountered opposition in the House. A vote there ended in a tie, 50 to 50, effectively killing the bill. A bill introduced in the Kansas Legislature this year is in committee, and it is unclear whether it will advance to a vote. The Midwest has historically been a stronghold of opposition to the death penalty, which has been outlawed in Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, North Dakota and Wisconsin. 18 other states have banned the death penalty, and Nebraska has tried before. In 1979, a bill to do so passed the Legislature but was vetoed by the governor, and lawmakers failed to override his veto. In 1999, the Legislature passed a moratorium on the death penalty, citing concerns that it had been applied unfairly. That bill was also vetoed by the governor. The measure was approved on Friday in a preliminary vote. The governor has promised a veto. Credit Andrew Dickinson for The New York Times "This year, there apparently are conservatives on the national level who have finally acknowledged the truth of what those of us who are against the death penalty have been saying," said Mr. Chambers, the longest-serving member of the Nebraska Legislature, which is officially nonpartisan. "But it has more impact coming from them. The arguments are being presented by people whose presentation carries far more weight than mine. If I say it, it's, 'Ho-hum, he's been saying that for 40 years.'" Supporters of the bill in Nebraska say they are encouraged by the erosion of support for the death penalty on a national level. Last year, a Washington Post-ABC News poll found that support for it in the United States had slipped, with 52 % of Americans favoring life without parole over the death penalty. "It's a broken government program that produces no tangible benefits," said Marc Hyden, the director of the national group Conservatives Concerned About the Death Penalty. "More and more conservatives are increasingly seeing this as just another program that is antithetical to our conservative ideas." Some conservatives, like Senator Coash, say they now see the death penalty as anti-Christian. 22 % of Nebraskans are Catholic, according to the 2008 American Religious Identification Survey, and studies have revealed that Catholic support for the death penalty is decreasing as Pope Francis denounces it strongly. A Pew poll released in April showed that 42 % of Catholics in the United States opposed the death penalty, compared with 36 % 4 years ago. Stacy Anderson, the executive director of Nebraskans for Alternatives to the Death Penalty, said this was the closest Nebraska had ever been to having a veto-proof majority on a bill to eliminate capital punishment, leaving her "cautiously optimistic" that it would succeed. "We're hearing across the board from Republicans and Democrats that the system is broken, there's no way to fix it, and it's time to move on," Ms. Anderson said. "Republicans have been saying that this is a pro-life issue for them. They believe in the sacredness of life across the board. And for fiscal conservatives, the math just doesn't make sense, especially when we aren't getting any benefit from it." In Nebraska, bills must be approved 3 times before they reach the governor's desk, and the intense lobbying in advance of Friday's vote, the 2nd, signaled that much more fighting is in store as the bill heads toward its final vote. Opponents and supporters of repeal have been bombarding lawmakers with phone calls and emails, and the governor has been pushing Republicans who support repeal to change their minds, arguing that the measure would provide "no cost savings" to taxpayers. Repealing the death penalty, the governor said on Friday, "is out of touch with Nebraska citizens that I talk to on this issue." (source: New York Times) CALIFORNIA: Son who swore vengeance against his mother's killer at 6 years old when testifying against him meets him after 20 years on death row - and now vows to save his life Clifford O'Sullivan was just six when he appeared in a California court at the trial of his mother's killer, Mark Scott Thornton He gave a stirring sentencing testimony during which he asked for the 'bad man' to be killed Thornton has spent the past 20 years sitting on death row as California hasn't executed a single prisoner since 2006 O'Sullivan says he has now changed his mind and he doesn't want Thornton to die A son, whose mother was murdered in 1993, has come face to face with the killer who has spent the past 20 years on death row and has vowed to fight to save the man's life. Clifford O'Sullivan was just 6 years old when he appeared in court at the trial of his mother's killer and gave a stirring sentencing testimony asking for him to be killed. 'All I think is that what the bad man did to my mom should happen to him,' he told the court. Kellie O'Sullivan, Clifford's mom, was kidnapped in Malibu and murdered on September 14, 1993 as she drove to collect her son from daycare. Mark Scott Thornton, who was wanted at the time on a juvenile-probation arrest warrant, abducted Kellie - a nurse - and drove her to a remote area off Mulholland Highway, where he shot her once in the chest and twice in the back. At his trial, a jury convicted Thornton of 1st-degree murder. During sentencing, Clifford was given the chance to take the stand and give us thoughts. 'It's really sad for my family 'cause she was one of the greatest mothers I've met,' he said. Now 26, O'Sullivan - who works in a Nashville emergency room - has changed his mind and no longer believes that the death penalty is the right punishment for Thornton. O'Sullivan's change of heart comes partly from his own experience of just how damaging the death penalty system is to victims' families. 'You don't heal,' said O'Sullivan, who as a 15-year-old was caught with cocaine and arrested for assault. At 20, Scott Thornton become the youngest inmate on death row when he was sentenced to die in 1995. He was admitted to San Quentin State Prison, where California houses its male death row inmates, but since 2006 the state hasn't executed a single prisoner. With California unlikely to ever execute Thornton, O'Sullivan has said that he - and many other victims - are not given closure. 'The process goes on,' O'Sullivan said, 'delayed for years in a way that is torturous.' With his strong belief that the capital punishment system doesn't do what it is supposed to, O'Sullivan decided to write to his mother's killer asking if he could visit him. Last September - some 22 years after his mother's death - O'Sullivan flew to California to meet with Thornton and the 2 men spoke for 5 hours. 'It was the greatest gift he could have given me,' O'Sullivan said. When O'Sullivan told Thornton that he no longer thought he should be killed he was surprised at the killer's response Rather than talk about his own future, Thornton wanted instead to make peace over what he had done all those years ago. 'Let us focus on making sure that the next 20 years are not a reflection of the past 20 years,' he said. 'Let's find meaning in this, for your sake, for mine and for your mother's.' It was not the response O'Sullivan expected, but he maintains that he longs wants Thornton to die. 'If they put him up for a date I would stop it, just like I started it,' said O'Sullivan. (source: Daily Mail) USA: GOP Consultant: Death Penalty Supporters Will Be Like Gay Marriage Opponents Republican strategist Matthew Dowd says opponents of the death penalty will be as outmoded as gay marriage opponents in 20 years. Dowd told a This Week panel he didn't understand the conservative support for the capital punishment, which is back in the news thanks to the jury that handed Dzhokhar Tsarnaev a death sentence last week. "20 years from now, people that are for the death penalty are going to be in the same place as people that are against gay marriage," Dowd said. "The death penalty is going to go the way of opposition to gay marriage." "I find it amazing that conservatives are all for the death penalty and government involvement in the taking of a life, but they're not for government involvement in health care, and the saving of a life?" he asked. "I don't get the disposition on this." (source: Fox News) ******************** Chechen Leader Says Tsarnaev Death Sentence Is Part Of US Intelligence Plot----In an Instagram post, Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov says Dzhokhar Tsarnaev got the death sentence because "US intelligence agencies had to find a victim" The leader of the Chechen Republic lashed out at the U.S. Sunday over the jury's decision to give Dzhokhar Tsarnaev the death penalty for his role in the Boston Marathon bombing. In a post on his Instagram acccount, Ramzan Kadyrov accused U.S. intelligence agencies of using Dzhokhar and his older brother to hide their own involvement in the grisly 2013 attack. Kadyrov is one of the most powerful figures in Russia, and a close ally of President Vladimir Putin. Under their unwritten pact, Kadyrov keeps order in a region that has been notoriously unstable, and in return, he gets free rein to be heavyhanded with any local opposition to his own rule. Some worry that the Chechen leader is transforming the republic into a place where dissenters are punished and Islamic law is used for oppression rather than religion. At one point in his Instagram post on Sunday, Kadyrov says: "US intelligence agencies, who were accused of involvement in the Boston tragedy, had to find a victim. Tsarnaev was handed to them as a victim." Later, speaking about Dzhokhar and his older brother Tamerlan, who died in the police chase following the bombing, Kadyrov writes: "If they actually did that attack, I don't believe the US special intelligence services didn't know about it." Kadyrov is close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin. Dzhokar is from a family of ethnic Chechens who were forcibly removed from the Russian province in the years after WWII and resettled in the then-Soviet republic of Kyrgyzstan. In 2002, his immediate family gained political asylum in U.S. They had sought to return to Chechnya, but Russian authorities prevented them from returning to the Russian republic, which was ravaged by war and had become a hotbed of radicalism. Tamerlan Tsarnaev had made two visits to Chechnya in the years leading up to Boston bombing, and some believe those trips fed his growing radicalization. After 3 months of testimony, a jury on Friday sentenced Dzhokar, 21, to death for the 2013 bombings, which killed 3 people, injured hundreds more and deeply scarred the city of Boston. His appeals are expected to take years. (source: vocativ.com) From rhalperi at smu.edu Mon May 18 09:27:48 2015 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Mon, 18 May 2015 09:27:48 -0500 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide Message-ID: May 18 INDONESIA: Jokowi says he's no coward For the 1st time after 7 months in office, President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo met his campaign volunteers in public, asking them to support his recent policies, including the slashing of fuel subsidies and the execution of drug convicts. During a speech on Saturday at the Cibubur camping grounds in East Jakarta, Jokowi said he would face the consequences of his controversial policies. "I'm ready to become unpopular. I'm ready to be attacked. Don't ever think that Jokowi is a coward. Keep that in mind," the President said. On executing drug traffickers, Jokowi said he would do anything to protect the nation's interests and sovereignty. "When [the government] was about to execute the drug traffickers, I was warned that there would be foreign pressure, including from Amnesty [International], the United Nations and leaders from other countries. But I insisted that we have the legal sovereignty - that our law recognizes the death penalty," he said. Jokowi repeated his standard talking point on defending capital punishment. "50 people die [in Indonesia] every day and 18,000 every year because of drugs, so why do we need to take care of 1 or 2 people who have been convicted as drug traffickers?" he said. Defying international pressure, the government executed 14 death row prisoners in the first four months of the year, including 12 foreign nationals. Despite his popularity in the months prior to last year's presidential election, Jokowi, an Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) politician, did not secure the nomination from his own party until March, less than a month before the legislative election and 4 months before the presidential election. Observers said that the volunteer organizations supporting Jokowi put pressure on former president and incumbent PDI-P chairwoman Megawati Soekarnoputri to drop plans to run again and instead give the ticket to Jokowi. Jokowi won the election by a slight margin, a victory attributed to his volunteers. Among the groups that organized Saturday's event were the Volunteer Front for Jokowi for President (Bara JP), Pro Jokowi, the Coalition of Youths and Volunteers for Jokowi (Kawan Jokowi) and the People's Struggle Post (Pospera). Representing the organizations, Pospera leader Mustar Bonaventura said such gatherings would be held regularly. "This is just a start. The volunteer groups must continue existing and consolidate themselves," he said. (source: Asia One) EGYPT: EU latest to criticize Morsi death penalty referral The European Union criticised on Sunday the recent court decision against former President Mohamed Mursi, adding that it was not streamlined with Egypt's obligations under international law. "The court decision to seek the death penalty for former President Mohamed Morsi and more than 100 of his supporters, in connection with a mass jail break in 2011, was taken at the end of a mass trial that was not in line with Egypt's obligations under international law," Federica Mogherini, the High Representative of the EU for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy said in a statement. On Saturday, the Cairo Criminal Court referred Mursi and 105 other defendants to the Grand Mufti to issue his opinion on handing them death sentences, for escaping from a prison. A referral to the mufti is a step that must be taken within Egypt's court system ahead of handing a death sentence. "The Egyptian judicial authorities have the responsibility to ensure, in line with international standards, defendants' rights to a fair trial and proper and independent investigations," the statement added. Meanwhile, the Egyptian State Information Services (SIS) said in an earlier statement that the defendants are not being tried in "exceptional courts" and that all litigation procedures are guaranteed in order to ensure that trials are fair, in response to international condemnation. Mogherini's statement was preceeded by an earlier statement today by the United Kingdom's minster for the Middle East and North Africa, who voiced his government's "deep concern" over the court decision. UK Minister Tobias Ellwood's statement urged Egypt to "apply the rule of law consistently in line with international standards, and to protect the political and legal rights of all Egyptians as the basis for the country's future stability." Several groups and countries were among the critics of Saturday's court decision, including the pro-Mursi Anti-Coup Alliance, the Palestinian Hamas movement, international watchdog Amnesty International, Turkey and the United States. Following his ouster by the military in 2013, after mass protests against his rule, Mursi has since been accused of several charges and stood as defendant in various trials. He still faces trial for insulting the judiciary, as well as a separate espionage case. A Cairo court sentenced Mursi last month to 20 years of maximum security prison for charges of show of force and detention associated with physical torture during deadly protests in 2012. He was nevertheless acquitted of murder charges. Since Mursi's ouster, Muslim Brotherhood leaders and prominent figures have often found themselves behind bars and facing courts. He and his support base consider the power change which saw his removal a coup. (source: Albawaba news) ******************* Qaradawi on his death sentence: 'worthless, undeserving of attention' The death sentence handed to Islamist scholar Yusuf al-Qaradawi and dozens others in a 2011 prison break case is "worthless and undeserving of attention," Qaradawi said in a televised speech aired by Al-Jazeera Mubasher Saturday. Qaradawi, an Egyptian living in Qatar, was sentenced to death Saturday along with former President Mohamed Morsi and 104 others over charges of raiding Wadi al-Natroun prison and freeing many prisoners during the 2011 January 25 Revolution. The sentences "cannot be executed," because they are "against the law of God, logic and mind," said Qaradawi, a major supporter of the banned Muslim Brotherhood group. "I do not pay attention to such rulings ... they are fabricated and invalid," he added. He also denied accusations of inciting violence. "Everybody knows that I was in Qatar at that time [wadi el-Natroun prison break]... and how can an 85-year-old man break a jail and free prisoners" he continued. The preacher ruled out that the Grand Mufti would approve the mass sentences; the Mufti's religious opinion, sought when a case results in a death sentence, only has an advisory capacity. However, several mass death sentences were commuted after receiving the Mufti's opinion. The case has already been referred to the Mufti, and the court will uphold or commute the sentences on June 2. Regardless of the court's decision, the defendants are legally entitled to challenge the verdict. Qaradawi, who is the head of the International Union for Muslim Scholars, was listed in December 2014 on Interpol's wanted list over accusations of murder, helping prisoners to escape, arson, vandalism and theft. His membership in the International Islamic Council for Da'wah and Relief, headed by Grand Imam Sheikh Ahmed al-Tayed, was revoked for mixing politics with religion, according to Youm7. In January, Egypt formally requested Qatar to freeze the assets of Qaradawi for "illegitimately acquiring" them. (source: The Cairo Post) IRAN: Juvenile offender faces imminent execution Amnesty International is urging the Iranian regime to halt the execution of a 24-year-old man is at imminent risk of execution, for a crime which took place while he was below 18 years of age. Hamid Ahmadi, who has been convicted of fatally stabbing a man during a group fight that took place when he was 16 years old. "The death penalty is the ultimate cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment, but it is particularly troubling that in this case Iran is again set to violate the clear prohibition in international law of executing those who were children at the time of the alleged crime. If the execution goes ahead while the case is under review at Iran's highest court, it would also be an appalling miscarriage of justice," said Said Boumedouha, Deputy Director of Amnesty International's Middle East and North Africa Programme. "The Iranian authorities should halt all plans to carry out this execution immediately." "Hamid Ahmadi's death sentence contradicts, once again, Iran's repeated claims that it does not execute juvenile offenders and displays the authorities' blatant disregard for one of the clearest prohibitions on the use of the death penalty," said Said Boumedouha. PAPUA NEW GUINEA: PNG 'seriously reconsidering' death penalty The Papua New Guinea government says it will seriously reconsider the death penalty following church, NGO and public criticism of the law. Parliament voted in favour of the death penalty for crimes such as murder and rape 2 years ago, but it has not yet been implemented due to lack of infrastructure. The Prime Minister, Peter O'Neill, has called for a review of the law, saying the matter would be debated in parliament, which could result in the law being repealed. Our correspondent, Todagia Kelola, says this comes after the global outcry of Indonesia's execution of foreign drug convicts. "The death of the 2 Australians in Indonesia is I would say a part of the reason why the prime minister is seriously considering to review that law. But there are also other criticisms by ordinary Papua New Guineans, churches and NGOs that this law will really not solve the problem of crime." Todagia Kelola says it is not known when the issue will be raised in parliament. (source: Radio New Zealand International) From rhalperi at smu.edu Mon May 18 15:59:03 2015 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Mon, 18 May 2015 15:59:03 -0500 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, NEV., USA Message-ID: May 18 TEXAS: Biker Gang Accused Could Face Death Penalty Some 170 bikers are facing murder charges - and potentially the death penalty - after 9 people were killed during a shootout between rival motorcycle gangs in Waco, Texas. A fist fight broke out in the bathroom of the Twin Peaks restaurant before spilling into a car park as the bikers attacked each other with clubs, chains and knives before opening fire. 8 of the bikers died at the scene on Sunday, with another dying in hospital. 18 others were taken to hospitals with injuries including stab and gunshot wounds. Police say the arrested bikers, who come from 5 different gangs, face charges of engaging in organised crime for capital murder. The blanket murder charge is possible given the number of those killed in a single incident, Sgt Swanton said. A capital murder conviction is punishable by death in Texas. Police initially said 192 people were taken into custody but revised that number downward on Monday. Sgt Swanton said: "This is probably one of the most gruesome scenes I've ever seen in my 34 years of law enforcement. "I was amazed that we didn't have innocent civilians killed or injured. "This is not something we're playing around with. This is a major crime scene... it is a pretty gruesome scene." He added that the interior of the restaurant was littered with bullet casings, knives, clubs, bodies and pools of blood. Up to 100 weapons are also thought to have been recovered. Snipers stood watch from the restaurant's roof on Monday because of fears of a potential attack on police by the gangs. Many of the people arrested were detained arriving at the scene with weapons to try and continue the fight. Sgt Swanton told reporters that off-duty officers had put themselves in "harm's way" and ran from nearby shops to help. Authorities in Waco have increased security to prevent outbreaks of further violence. Parts of downtown were placed on lockdown on Monday, including the bridges crossing the Brazos River. The rival biker gangs gathered at the Twin Peaks restaurant for a meeting about turf and recruitment, Sgt Swanton said. The location, off Interstate 35, also holds a shopping centre. There were up to 200 gang members inside the restaurant when the violence erupted. McLennan County Sheriff Parnell McNamara said all 9 people killed were members of the Bandidos or Cossacks gangs. Police were aware of the meeting in advance and at least 18 Waco SWAT officers, as well as state troopers, were positioned outside the restaurant before the chaos began. Sgt Swanton said some bikers turned their guns on the officers as the shootout spilled into the car park. "Officers took fire and responded appropriately by returning fire," he said. It was not immediately known if any of the 9 killed were shot by police. Meanwhile, Twin Peaks has revoked the franchise rights to the Waco restaurant, company spokesman Rick Van Warner said on Monday. Sgt Swanton told reporters the venue had become a regular meeting site for bikers since its opening last August, and that the restaurant's managers did not cooperate when authorities expressed concern. The chain, a so-called "breastaurant", is known for its scantily clad waitresses. Mr Van Warner said in a statement that the management team chose to ignore warnings and advice from the company, and did not establish the "high security standards" that the company requires. (source: Sky news) *********** Death penalty support has taken big drop in Houston, but why? Support for the death penalty in metro Houston is at the lowest level since an annual survey by Rice University began asking the question in 1993. The finding is in the annual Kinder Survey, which polled 809 people in February and March of this year. It found that support for capital punishment has declined to 56 percent this year, from a high of 75 % in 1993. We've had a few interesting death penalty items in our paper the past few weeks. I'm thinking about the Points essay yesterday about the "demise" of the death penalty, and Steve Blow's recent column specifically about Texas. My fascination is with Harris County, home to Houston, which has sent more people to death row than any other county. You could look it up on this here TDCJ link. Or I could break it down for you in this list of inmates sent to death row since reinstatement in 1976: Harris - 293 Dallas - 108 Bexar - 75 Tarrant - 72 Jefferson - 24 Nueces - 24 Smith - 23 Travis - 20 El Paso - 20 Lubbock - 20 Of the subset of those executed, Harris County is responsible for more deaths in Huntsville - 123 - than any other county or state in the union. All of that makes changing Houston-area attitudes something to behold, and understand better. The death-row numbers out of Harris County were driven largely by two things: 1) Legendary DA Johnny Holmes, and 2) the high-crime 1990s. Remember the '90s. National publications were writing about blood-splattered cities across the U.S. Texas was no different. Murders reached 500 on the nose one year in Dallas. Compare that to 116 in murders in Dallas last year. Remember the crack wars of the 1990s - the Crips and Bloods and Jamaican gangs. Remember how Congress dealt with it by enhancing penalties for crack and for federalizing the crime of carjacking. Talk about trying to calm white people! In Harris County, add the crime picture to the state's hardest-nose lawman, and it was a bonanza for death row. Now, it appears, Harris County's support for capital punishment is nearly 20 points below the state's, though that's hard to know, since it doesn't appear the same question is asked by the Rice survey and the UT/Texas Tribune survey. (I have other ideas on the discrepancy, but keep reading.) Why the big drop in 20-plus years in Houston? (To be clear, the Kinder Survey says it polled across Harris County.) My theory is one of encroaching doubt. Houston has had more than its share of high-publicity cases that raised different questions. One was the execution of Gary Graham in 2000, with celebrities adding their names to a long list of people who warned about faulty eyewitness ID. The public has heard more and more about the proven fallibility of eyewitness ID, so much so that you wonder if Graham would have died on the gurney today. Then think of Karla Faye Tucker out of Houston, she who put a pretty, white repentant face on things. She went to her death for a ghastly drug murder excited to see the Lord. Did the case cause people to doubt the value of retributitive justice? Tucker's last words: Yes sir, I would like to say to all of you - the Thornton family and Jerry Dean's family that I am so sorry. I hope God will give you peace with this. Baby, I love you. Ron, give Peggy a hug for me. Everybody has been so good to me. I love all of you very much. I am going to be face to face with Jesus now. Warden Baggett, thank all of you so much. You have been so good to me. I love all of you very much. I will see you all when you get there. I will wait for you. Another big case was mentally ill mother Andrea Yates, who killed her 5 children while in the grips of a post-partum break with reality. Johnny Holmes' successor, DA Chuck Rosenthal, sought the death penalty. A jury convicted her and sentenced her to life in prison. Then the verdict was set aside on a technicality, and the state tried her a second time, and oops - the jury found her not guilty by reason of insanity. Did the Yates case make the public wonder about the flip-flopping? Did it make the DA's office seem particularly bloodthirsty in asking for the insane mother's life? There are other things in Houston - like the scandalously shoddy work that had to be cleaned up in the Houston police crime lab - that cast doubt on the justice system. One thing I wonder about: Where the strongholds are for capital punishment support in Texas. That led me to the cross tabs in the UT/Texas Tribune poll results, and I found this, when adding both strongly support and somewhat support the death penalty: Metro Houston - 74 % Dallas-Forth Worth area - 72 % San Antonio area - 77 % Austin area - 62% Another part of Texas - 82% Draw your own conclusions about why the UT/TT poll shows higher Houston-area support for the death penalty than the Kinder Survey does. One obvious place to start would be addition of responses from suburban counties. The UT/TT cross tabs show stronger support in suburban over urban areas. (source: Rodger Jones, Opinion blog, Dallas Morning News) NEVADA: Lawmakers split on funding new execution chamber in Ely Nevada lawmakers are split on whether to spend $860,000 to build a new execution chamber at Ely State Prison. A joint Assembly and Senate budget subcommittee split a vote 5-5 on Monday on whether to recommend the construction project. The issue may be resolved at a Wednesday meeting. The state's existing death chamber at the shuttered Nevada State Prison in Carson City is not in compliance with the Americans With Disabilities Act. State officials have said for about 4 years that they wouldn't be able to carry out an execution there. Executions remain rare in Nevada, which has only carried out the death penalty 12 times since 1977. Department of Corrections officials say there are about 80 inmates on Nevada's death row, but the state hasn't executed anyone since 2006. (source: Associated Press) USA: Unabomber's Brother Spreads Anti-Death Penalty Message in Troy After Boston Marathon Sentence An outspoken critic of the death penalty visited the Capital Region area just days after Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokar Tsarnaev was sentenced to death. David Kaczynski, the younger brother of the Unabomber, Ted Kaczynski, spoke at the La Salle Institute in Troy Monday. Kaczynski has been an anti-death penalty activist since being named director of New Yorkers Against the Death Penalty in 2001. He says he was struck because Tsarnaev's story was also a brother story, and while he understands the anger and the outrage, he does not think the death penalty is the answer. "Life without parole as I said is a very tough sentence, it gives a person a lot of time to think about what they've done, perhaps experience remorse. At the same time it saves lots and lots of money, it relieves the victims the endless reliving through years of appeals," Kaczynski said. Kaczynski spoke with the students about making ethical choices, like the one he says he made when he turned his brother in to authorities. (source: Time Warner Cable News) ******************* Death Penalty for Dzhokhar Tsarnaev in Anti-Execution State Brings Complications, Not Closure James Rooney, president of Massachusetts Citizens Against the Death Penalty. In March, he helped organize a symposium on "The Tsarnaev Trial: The Federal Death Penalty in Abolitionist Massachusetts." Eric Freedman, professor of constitutional law at Hofstra Law School. He has worked on many death penalty cases and has written extensively on capital punishment. Denny LeBoeuf, director of the ACLU???s John Adams Project and former director of its Capital Punishment Project. She has 26 years of experience as a capital defense attorney. A federal jury has sentenced 21-year-old Dzhokhar Tsarnaev to death by lethal injection for setting off bombs at the 2013 Boston Marathon that killed 3 and injured more than 260. The sentence was issued in Massachusetts, a state which has banned the death penalty since 1987 and has not carried out an execution since 1947. Polls show 85 % of Bostonians oppose the death penalty for Tsarnaev, as well as 80 % of Massachusetts residents. The jury in the case was "death-qualified," meaning each member had to be open to considering the death penalty, and anyone who opposed it could not serve. Tsarnaev's lawyers are now expected to appeal. The process could take more than a decade to finish. Since the federal death penalty was reinstated, just 3 federal prisoners have been executed, none since 2003. We host a roundtable with 3 guests: James Rooney, president of Massachusetts Citizens Against the Death Penalty; Eric Freedman, professor of constitutional law at Hofstra Law School, who has worked on many death penalty cases; and Denny LeBoeuf, director of the ACLU's John Adams Project, who has 26 years of experience as a capital defense attorney. Transcript AMY GOODMAN: We begin today's show in Boston, where on Friday a federal [jury] sentenced 21-year-old Dzhokhar Tsarnaev to death by lethal injection for setting off bombs at the 2013 Boston Marathon that killed 3 and injured more than 260. The sentence was issued in Massachusetts, a state which has banned the death penalty since 1987 and has not carried out an execution since 1947. Polls show 85 % of Bostonians oppose the death penalty for Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, as well as 80 % of Massachusetts residents. But the death penalty was allowed because it was a federal trial. In a statement, the ACLU of Massachusetts said, quote, "Today's verdict does not reflect the values of the majority of people in our Commonwealth. ... [It] is an outlier, and does not change the fact that Americans increasingly reject capital punishment," unquote. During the sentencing phase of the trial, Tsarnaev's lawyers focused on presenting witnesses who could convince jurors he should be sentenced to life without parole instead of death. They argued Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was a, quote, "good kid" who fell under the influence of his radical older brother, Tamerlan, and that he is now remorseful. One of the witnesses called was Sister Helen Prejean, a Catholic nun whose story was told in the 1995 movie Dead Man Walking. She met with Tsarnaev 5 times, said he told her of the bombing victims: quote, "No one deserves to suffer like they did," unquote. Ultimately, prosecutors prevailed in convincing jurors Tsarnaev should be put to death. After the jury deliberated for more than 15 hours and announced its verdict Friday, U.S. Attorney Carmen Ortiz addressed the media. CARMEN ORTIZ: Our goal in trying this case was to ensure that the jury had all of the information that they needed to reach a fair and just verdict. We believe we accomplished that goal and that the trial of this case has shown the world what a fair and impartial jury trial is like. Even in the wake of horror and tragedy, we are not intimidated by acts of terror or radical ideals. On the contrary, the trial of this case has showcased an important American ideal, that even the worst of the worst deserve a fair trial and due process of law. Today, the jury has spoken, and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev will pay with his life for his crimes. Make no mistake: The defendant claimed to be acting on behalf of all Muslims; this was not a religious crime, and it certainly does not reflect true Muslims beliefs. It was a political crime designed to intimidate and to coerce the United States. AMY GOODMAN: At least 1 of the federal jurors was reportedly in tears when the verdict was read. The jury was "death-qualified," meaning each member had to be open to considering the death penalty; anyone who opposed it could not serve. Tsarnaev's lawyers are now expected to appeal. The process could take more than a decade to finish. Since the federal death penalty was reinstated, just 3 federal prisoners have been executed, none since 2003. [Tsarnaev's defense attorney, Judy Clarke, has previously negotiated plea agreements that spared the life of her high-profile clients facing the death penalty in federal cases, including Jared Loughner, who killed 6 people when he tried to assassinate Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords; Ted Kaczynski, known as the Unabomber; Eric Rudolph, charged in the Centennial Olympic Park bombing; and 9/11 suspect Zacarias Moussaoui.] For more, we're joined by 3 guests. In Boston, James Rooney is with us, president of Massachusetts Citizens Against the Death Penalty. In March, he helped organize a symposium called "The Tsarnaev Trial: The Federal Death Penalty in Abolitionist Massachusetts." Here in New York, Eric Freedman is with us, professor of constitutional law at Hofstra Law School. He has worked on many death penalty cases. And in New Orleans, Denny LeBoeuf is with us, director of the ACLU's John Adams Project, former director of the Capital Punishment Project. She has 26 years' experience as a capital defense attorney. We welcome you all to Democracy Now! I wanted to begin in Massachusetts, where the Boston Marathon was. James Rooney, you're with Massachusetts Citizens Against the Death Penalty, but can you explain - I think there's a lot of confusion around the country right now - why if in Massachusetts, where there is no death penalty, the death penalty was considered, and the response this weekend in Boston, and Massachusetts overall, to Dzhokhar Tsarnaev getting the death penalty? JAMES ROONEY: Well, as you explained earlier, Amy, the - this is a federal case, and the federal government, because it's its own sovereign, gets to have its rules applied in any state, even states that don't have the death penalty, so that here, with a death-qualified jury, as you mentioned, you had 12 people from the community who said they were willing to impose the death penalty if the prosecution showed it. In terms of the reaction here, I think it's somewhat of a surprise, given the poll numbers that you mentioned showing that so many people in this state oppose the death penalty, not simply generally, but in this case. So, it doesn't reflect community sentiment here. And it also - the jury appears to have acted without knowing that the family of the young boy, 8-year-old Martin Richard, who was killed in the bombing and whom - seems to have been the focus of a number of people I talked to who thought that if there was a reason to sentence Dzhokhar Tsarnaev to death, it was because of the killing of a young child. The Richard family, after the guilt version - portion of the case had ended, wrote a letter, which was published in The Boston Globe on the front page, saying that they preferred a life sentence in this case. The prosecution in this case emphasized its view that the victims of this crime deserved to have Dzhokhar Tsarnaev put to death, including the - particularly for the killing of this young child. And so the jury acted with that in mind, but without knowing that the Richard family opposed a capital sentence. AMY GOODMAN: So, in fact, Denny LeBoeuf, the pool that was chosen, of jurors, can you explain how that took place? Because you're talking about choosing from a true minority of people in Massachusetts, if 85 % of Bostonians are against giving the death penalty. How many jurors came out, and what was the pool that was chosen from? DENNY LEBOEUF: It's part of the unfairness of this system and the sort of convoluted position that the prosecutors have to put this jury in and how this process occurs. You have to asked the jury - it's a process called death qualification. You have to ask the jury, "Can you consider a death sentence?" And they're told, "Don't tell us how you're going to vote, but tell us that you can seriously make a death penalty a possibility if at the end of this process you've convicted him of a death-eligible offense." And having picked some death-qualified juries in a very Catholic city, New Orleans, you watch as you lose a lot of Catholics, most of your African-American and other people of color - you lose all the people who, even for non-religious reasons, don't have a strong sense that the authorities, that the government, is always right and always tells the truth and always gives you the straight angle on what's going on and what the facts are. And you're instead picking a jury from a very small, unrepresentative, very conservative, conviction-prone pool. And it's the central unfairness of this process, that couldn't be more dramatic in this case. AMY GOODMAN: Is this grounds for appeal? DENNY LEBOEUF: No. I mean, it's certainly - I answered too fast. It's not grounds under current Eighth Amendment jurisprudence. It should be. It's a basic unfairness. And I think, as the numbers get stronger, as the United States moves closer and closer to abolition of the death penalty, which we will get, there may be revisiting of some of the decisions. We've certainly seen that in the process of fighting this penalty for many, many years. The court has looked at a lot of issues and come away with a need. AMY GOODMAN: We're going to break and then come back to this discussion. We're speaking with Denny LeBoeuf in New Orleans. She is with the ACLU. In Boston, Massachusetts, James Rooney is with us, with Massachusetts Citizens Against the Death Penalty. And we'll be speaking with Eric Freedman, professor at Hofstra Law School, about the conviction and sentencing to death of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the 21-year-old convicted in the deaths of 3 people and the injury of over 260 in the 2013 Boston Marathon. Stay with us. [break] AMY GOODMAN: We are hosting a roundtable discussion on the federal jury's decision in Boston to sentence Dzhokhar Tsarnaev to death by lethal injection. In Boston, James Rooney is with us, president of Massachusetts Citizens Against the Death Penalty. In March, he helped organize a symposium on "The Tsarnaev Trial: The Federal Death Penalty in Abolitionist Massachusetts." Here in New York, Eric Freedman is with us, professor of constitutional law at Hofstra Law School. He has worked on many death penalty cases. And in New Orleans, Denny LeBoeuf, who is director of the ACLU's John Adams Project, former director of the Capital Punishment Project. We welcome you all to Democracy Now! Some of the survivors of the Boston Marathon bombing expressed relief at the verdict. This is Karen Brassard. KAREN BRASSARD: If feels like we can take a breath and kind of actually breathe again. You know, without even realizing it, you're holding your breath. And once the verdict came in, it was like, OK, now we can start from here and go forward and really feel like it's behind us. REPORTER: Are you happy with the verdict? KAREN BRASSARD: "Happy" is not the word I would use. There is nothing happy about having to take somebody's life. I'm satisfied. I'm grateful that they - that they came to that conclusion, because, for me, I think it was the just conclusion. But there's nothing happy about any single bit of this situation. AMY GOODMAN: The youngest victim of the Boston Marathon bombings was eight-year-old Martin Richard. His parents wrote a front-page opinion column for The Boston Globe last month in which they urged the federal government to drop its pursuit of the death penalty for Tsarnaev on the grounds that the appeals process would prolong their mourning. Bill and Denise Richard wrote, quote, "We hope our 2 remaining children do not have to grow up with the lingering, painful reminder of what the defendant took from them, which years of appeals would undoubtedly bring." They conclude by saying, "We believe that now is the time to turn the page, end the anguish, and look toward a better future - for us, for Boston, and for the country." Eric Freedman, you're a constitutional lawyer of Hofstra Law School. Can you talk about the instructions to the jury? ERIC FREEDMAN: Yes. That's not a technical problem. It builds on what Denny LeBoeuf was saying about the very unrepresentative nature of the jury in this case. In light of that, it's incredibly important for the jury to know that a single holdout juror can block the imposition of a death sentence and make it be that there will be life without any further proceedings on penalty. The judge was asked to instruct the jury specifically that, so that they would know the rules that apply, and refused. And - AMY GOODMAN: Explain - say it again. ERIC FREEDMAN: The rule is different at guilt and at penalty. At guilt, if there's a hung jury, you can, if the prosecutor wants to, retry the defendant on guilt and go through the whole thing all over again. And Etan Patz in New York has been a recent visible example. Penalty is not like that in a death case. If a single juror insists on life, and therefore the jury cannot unanimously come to death, then it's life - period, done, end of story. And that gives a huge incentive to a juror who's being overwhelmed by her fellows to hang tight, as opposed to thinking, "This is useless, because, after all, it's only going to be retried again, and they'll probably sentence him to death again. Who needs it?" If the juror knows, "I can stand firm, and there will be life," the juror has a lot of incentive to do that. And yet, although that is the rule, the judge refused to tell the jury that it was the rule, which takes an unrepresentative jury and has it make its decision in the dark. AMY GOODMAN: Well, explain exactly what the judge said. ERIC FREEDMAN: He just didn't tell them what would happen if they failed to agree. He said, "You need to agree," period, and left them to speculate that, "Oh, well, if we don't agree, eventually they'll just have to do this again." He just refused to give them the correct and true answer as to what would happen if they didn't agree, leaving them to speculate. AMY GOODMAN: Denny LeBoeuf, can you talk more about the significance of this, instructing the jury what happens if they vote for the death penalty, what happens if they vote for life in prison, and what it means if there is a holdout? DENNY LEBOEUF: [inaudible] typically tell the jury, look, the United States Supreme Court has said that the decision and the penalty of a capital case is a reasoned, moral judgment. It calls on an individual juror to examine the whole life - short though it's been - of the offender, as well as the circumstances of the crime, and to make a moral judgment based on their own morality, on their own perception of what is the appropriate punishment. Is this person, as young as he is, the worst of the worst? And what the instruction that Professor Freedman is talking about tells the jury is just simply the state of affairs. That is that if one juror, for reasons that are good to her, good, important to her, meaningful to her, says, "No, life in prison without probation, without parole, without release," that is the appropriate punishment, and if I simply tell, respectfully, my other jurors, "Fellow jurors, I disagree," that will be the sentence. And that is a matter of law, and jury instructions are supposed to tell the jury here's the law. AMY GOODMAN: Was that raised with the judge? And explain how much of this trial was public and how much of it was sidebar. How much do you know what happened? DENNY LEBOEUF: I really can't comment on that. I don't [inaudible] - AMY GOODMAN: Eric Freedman, can you comment on that? ERIC FREEDMAN: Yes. This particular issue was so important that defense lawyer David Bruck went out of his way in open court to repeat to the judge this instruction - said, "Your Honor, we reiterate our demand for this instruction," and he read it, in a vain effort to catch the attention of the mainstream press, which failed to pick up on this point. And the judge said, "I've already ruled on that, in chambers." We had long arguments about that, as we now know, away from the press and out of the public eye, in which he refused to give the instruction. And - but we do know, from the transcript, that - and from what was said in court - that the defense explicitly asked for this, and it was explicitly refused by the judge, on the basis of considerations which he didn't tell us. He just said, "What I told you in chambers." AMY GOODMAN: Is this grounds for appeal? ERIC FREEDMAN: Oh, there's no question that the failure to give that instruction, in a situation where it has been given 71 times in federal death penalty cases, including the only 2 others ever tried in Massachusetts, will certainly be made prominent in the appeal. AMY GOODMAN: And that appeal would be of the sentence, not of the verdict? ERIC FREEDMAN: Well, that particular aspect of the appeal will go to the sentence. AMY GOODMAN: The age of Dhzokhar Tsarnaev, 21 years old now, if you, Denny LeBoeuf, can talk about the significance of his age when he committed this act? DENNY LEBOEUF: Yeah, he was 19 years old. He was - he was a kid. It was a terrible act. But the United States Supreme Court has recognized, recently, when we belatedly joined the world in saying you can't execute or death sentence people under the age of 18 - they recognized that we've advanced in the neuroscience of understanding what every parent who's raised a teenager knows, that at some point you look at the best kids in the world and say, "What were you thinking?" We now know that the answer to that is "What was he thinking with?" And what he was thinking with was a 19-year-old brain. It is an undeveloped brain. It is not fully - we are not fully developed at that age. And you look at these actions, and you look at the horror of them and the terrible consequences of his act, but that's precisely one of the problems that kids have, is they can't gauge consequences of their act. They're not equipped to do that yet. The other point about his youth is that it's very hard for those of us who have lived some decades on this planet to ever say that somebody as young as this has no redemptive possibilities, that there is no way that this person could never redeem himself and have a life that's worth living, even though that life will always be behind bars. And the Supreme Court recognized that in fairly recent decisions. The universal understanding of the neuroscience is that this kid's brain - I always look at it this way: If you compare a kid at 19 with me, he's got better eyes, better reflexes, better hearing, better - you know, everything is better about his physical being, but he can't rent a car for another 6 years, and I can rent one anywhere I want to, because my judgment is better. AMY GOODMAN: The issue of the SAMs, if you could explain what SAMs are - special administrative measures - and how we come to know who Dzhokhar Tsarnaev is? I mean, there were a number of people who spoke in the sentencing phase - his teachers, people talking about his life. But for most people in this country, I think there's very little understanding of what was allowed to be said in court. The major issue in the sentencing part of this trial was whether he was remorseful. We only know this from 1 person, from Sister Helen Prejean, who said that Tsarnaev - she had met with Tsarnaev 5 times. She said they spoke about his crimes, as well as his victims, and that he said, quote, "No one deserves to suffer like they did." She said Tsarnaev lowered his eyes, his voice sounded pained. She said she could see the emotion in his face, and says she came away believing that he's, quote, "genuinely sorry for what he did." Talk about the significance of what was allowed to be said in open court. DENNY LEBOEUF: Well, I think my friend Eric may be better equipped to talk about the legal effect of the SAMs on this trial, but I do say that, to some extent, the characterization of him as a terrorist and that extra designation is a - it's a bit of a red herring. It is not - we're very familiar, those of us who have been looking at capital cases for many years, with seeing our clients, the defendants, portrayed as some sort of monster, because you can kill monsters, you can kill the non-human. And terrorism is another - another description to throw at somebody you want to say is a monster. He's an extra-bad person, an extra-terrible murderer, the worst of the worst, because he's a terrorist. As far as the legal effects of the SAMs on this case, Professor Freedman may know more than I do. AMY GOODMAN: Professor Freedman? ERIC FREEDMAN: It is more psychological than legal. The special administrative measures, the SAMs, was something that was invented out of whole cloth by the U.S. government in the few days after 9/11, when they suddenly decided that if you are suspected of a terrorist offense, then attorney-client privilege is not for you. And as you know, subsequently, we decided, you know, self-incrimination rights are not for you, and many other things, if you pose a threat to the United States. Good old due process, which got us through the Revolutionary War, isn't going to make it in the new age. And that thereby insidiously expanded to anything that could be plausibly called terrorism, which is just, as Denny LeBoeuf said, another epithet to hurl at people so that the kabuki drama sort of reinforces itself. You produce all these guards with machine guns, and you make the world think the guy is very dangerous. In terms of what could be said at the - this, in the penalty phase of this trial, that is something which is now buried deep in the record on appeal. We talk about, well, there will be an appeal about the failure to change venue, there will be an appeal about the failure to give this instruction. All the other stuff that is buried in this record, that's going to result in a brief of over a thousand pages on appeal, we don't know about yet. Many of the things that the defense may have been complaining about that they weren't given access to put together that mitigation case, because they couldn't get a visa to Russia, hypothetically, or because other efforts were made to block evidence, almost by definition, we don't know about yet. We don't know because, in many cases, the lawyers haven't been allowed to say. And 2nd of all, it just hasn't come out yet. And so - AMY GOODMAN: But - ERIC FREEDMAN: And so, it's - AMY GOODMAN: Explain the logic. I mean, you - the way it is argued, these special administrative measures, is you don't want a, quote, "terrorist" sending a message out to his followers. But when you're talking about the issue of whether he was remorseful or not, if he expressed great remorse in the defense team, were they allowed to convey this? And who was setting the rules? The defense team is versus the prosecution. Is the prosecution the ones that are trying to show that he has no remorse, the very ones who are setting the SAMs, saying that he cannot say this? ERIC FREEDMAN: I believe, from what's now public, that the attempt to keep Sister Helen off the stand was maybe on a completely different set of grounds. We know that there was passionate, closed-door argument as to whether she could testify or not, but I don???t think it had anything to do with national security. I think the - I mean, I don't know. But it would appear that the judge decided, as a matter of death penalty law, that it's much more risky to keep the defense from putting on some testimony that they want to put on about remorse than to give in to whatever the prosecutor was arguing. Whether the prosecutor was arguing national security or whether the prosecutor was arguing irrelevance or hearsay, we don't know. But on that small point - AMY GOODMAN: Which wasn't a small point. This presumably was the point the jury was weighing, is how much remorse he had. ERIC FREEDMAN: Yes, OK. On that, the defense won that point, right? The defense - I mean, Sister Helen got to testify. AMY GOODMAN: So - and the prosecution are the ones who were setting the rules on what can be said about this - ERIC FREEDMAN: No, that's really not quite right. The SAMs relate to access to the prison and to the prisoner and - but not to presentation in court - AMY GOODMAN: And what can be conveyed. ERIC FREEDMAN: No, in court, that's the judge's ruling. And you saw the judge had the final word on that. AMY GOODMAN: Venue, finally - let's put this question to Denny LeBoeuf - the issue of Boston, the scene of the crime, being the venue for this trial, the attempt to move it out of Boston. Other venues were put forward. What about this? And is this grounds for appeal? DENNY LEBOEUF: It certainly is grounds for appeal. The defense took a fairly extraordinary action of trying to use the mandamus process to get this in front of the appellate court ahead of time. It was a - observed from the outside, it just was an inexplicable ruling. When you combine that with sort of saying, if the community that suffered the greatest harm is supposed to be the community, for some reason, that they are going to suffer the fear of prejudice to the defense and to a fair trial by having it in this community, where no one was unaffected by the hunt for the bombers and for the ensuing lockdown of the whole city or by the horror of the consequences of the bombing - if you're going to do that, and then you turn and take a totally unrepresentative proportion of that community to weigh in on the conviction and the penalty, it stands fairness on its head. So, the people who have religious opposition to the death penalty - 2 million Bostonians identify themselves as Roman Catholics - then you should say to those people, "You get to say - we're going to have this trial here. You get to say whether or not you think he was guilty." And if the prosecution can't find 12 jurors who can examine guilt and innocence, but cannot consider the death penalty, then I guess they can't get a death penalty in this community, because this community doesn't have a death penalty. Massachusetts hasn't had one. So, I think that saying we're going to do it in Massachusetts, we're going to do it in Boston, but we're going to pick a jury from Boston that doesn't represent this city in any - in a very important way, is unfair, clearly unfair. AMY GOODMAN: Well, we're going to leave it there. We're going to continue, as information comes out from what the jurors thought and what happens next, of course, continue to follow this case. Denny LeBoeuf, I want to thank you for being with us, of the ACLU John Adams Project. Thank you very much to James Rooney of Massachusetts Citizens Against the Death Penalty and Eric Freedman, professor at Hofstra Law School here in New York. (source: Democracy Now!) From rhalperi at smu.edu Mon May 18 16:00:41 2015 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Mon, 18 May 2015 16:00:41 -0500 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide----LEB., INDIA, EGYPT, INDON. S. ARAB. Message-ID: May 18 LEBANON: Military prosecutor files appeal for Samaha retrial, urges death sentence Military Prosecutor Judge Saqr Saqr filed an appeal Monday against the 4 1/2-year jail sentence handed down to former minister Michel Samaha last week, urging instead he receive the death penalty, judicial sources told The Daily Star. The appeal, submitted to the Military Court of Cassation, challenges the Military Tribunal's sentence issued over smuggling explosives from Syria into Lebanon with the intent to target political and religious figures. Saqr and Assistant Prosecutor Judge Hani Hajjar called on the Court of Cassation to terminate the sentence and retry Samaha on all charges brought against him in the initial indictment. The prosecutors also urged the court to display video and audio recordings showing Samaha handing over explosives and money to Milad Kfoury - an undercover Internal Security Forces agent. A judicial source told The Daily Star that the appeals memo is 14 pages long and asserts that Samaha is guilty of charges that should be met with the death penalty. The appeals document also states that the Military Court sentenced Samaha for "attempts" to carry out terrorist acts, when in fact, the crimes Samaha committed go beyond that. The document argued that since Samaha met with Kfoury on several occasions, planned the operations, agreed on the targets and handed the explosives and a sum of money over to the agent, then his role in the plot was complete. Considering that, Samaha should be found guilty of carrying out terrorist operations and not merely an attempt to do so. The document also challenged the military court's verdict, which found the suspect not guilty of attempted murder. The appeals memo said that Samaha had carried out all preparations in an attempt to assassinate religious and political figures. The killings did not occur, however, because of circumstances outside of the suspect's hands and not because of the lack of criminal intent. The Court of Cassation will have 15 days to review the appeal before issuing a decision. If it accepts the appeal, then the court must retry Samaha and should issue a new verdict within 2 months of approving the challenge to the original sentence. If the appeal is rejected, then Samaha will serve his 4 1/2-year-sentence. (source: The Daily Star) INDIA: Her crime a blow to society's faith in educated daughter as caregiver: SC Calling it an abhorrent crime of parricide shaking the Indian society's aspirations of an educated daughter as a caregiver more responsible than a son, the Supreme Court confirmed the death penalty of a young teacher and her lover for the murder of her aged parents and 5 other family members. The case dealt with the multiple murders committed by Shabnam, a teacher in Uttar Pradesh, in 2008. She had incapacitated her entire family by sedating them. Then had held their heads while her lover slit their throats, one after the other. The Supreme Court judgment quotes the prosecution saying that she strangled her 10-month-old nephew with her own hands. After the deed, she pretended to lie down unconscious near her dead father till the neighbours broke into the house. The court confirmed that she wanted to do away with her family, who was opposed to her relationship, and keep the family property to herself. A trial court convicted and sentenced the duo to death in July 2008. The decision was upheld by the Allahabad High Court in April 2013. In its recent judgment on their appeals, a Bench led by Chief Justice of India H.L. Dattu said the fact that an educated teacher from a civilised family committed this crime and showed no remorse by itself makes it a 'rarest of rare' crime deserving the death penalty. "Such a deed as parricide would be sufficiently appalling were the perpetrator and the victims are uneducated and backward, but it gains a ghastly illumination from the descent, moral upbringing, and elegant respectful living of the educated family where the father and daughter are both teachers," Chief Justice Dattu said. "Here is a case in which Shabnam, who has been brought up in an educated and independent environment by her family and was respectfully employed as a Shikshamitra (teacher) at the school, influenced by the love and lust of her paramour has committed this brutal parricide exterminating 7 lives including that of an innocent child," the judgment said. Justifying its decision to uphold her death sentence, the apex court distinguished Shabnam's crime triggered intense indignation in the community as it shattered the modern Indian parents' faith that their educated daughter would care for them in their old age. "The modern era, led by the dawn of education, no longer recognises the stereotype that a parent would want a son so that they have someone to look after them and support them in their old age. Now, in an educated and civilised society, a daughter plays a multifaceted and indispensible role in the family, especially towards her parents," the court said. The court said the accused "wrench the heart of our society where family is an institution of love and trust". It concluded that the couple's cold-blooded depravity leaves little "little likelihood of reform". (source: The Hindu) EGYPT: Former presidential candidate Sabahi tweets: Death penalty is not the solution; Leftist politician Hamdeen Sabahi tweets against death sentence after 6 men were executed on terrorism charges Former presidential candidate Hamdeen Sabahi criticised the issuing of death penalties on Monday, a day after 6 Egyptian men were executed on terorrism-related charges. "Execution is not the solution," the leftist politician wrote on Twitter. The 6 men, including one 19-year-old, were sentenced to death by a military tribunal in October on charges of plotting and carrying out deadly attacks in Qalioubiya and Cairo. Sabahi was the only contender to challenge former army chief Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi in last year's presidential elections, garnering just 3 percent of the vote. The Nasserist politician had come 3rd in the 1st round of the presidential elections of 2012, which were won by Mohamed Morsi A decision by a Cairo court on Saturday to seek the death sentence for ousted president Morsi and over a hundred others on charges related to a prison break in 2011 brought a barrage of criticism from foreign states, as well as local and international rights groups. (source: Ahram Online) SOUTH AFRICA: The return of the death penalty to South Africa I was a young primary school pupil on March 2 1978. It was the morning uMkhonto we Sizwe (MK) operative, Solomon Mahlangu, was executed by the apartheid government at the then Pretoria Central Prison. I will never forget the feeling I had that morning when my late elder brother told me about the brutal hanging of Mahlangu, who I came to know through frequent Rand Daily Mail's headlines and news-breaking stories. I remember clearly that I couldn't sleep properly that night, haunted by the barbaric nature of the execution, and tarnished by living in a country run by a government that hanged its people. I was sullied and disgusted. The same feelings arose in me this week when I heard that DA leadership candidate, Mmusi Maimane, supported a referendum to decide on the re-introduction of the death penalty. He was repeating President Jacob Zuma's 2008 sentiments after he was elected president of the ANC. At the time, Zuma raised the possibility of a referendum on the death penalty. Zuma, however, later changed his mind. And Maimane did the same this week. But this shows that people are beginning to consider the return of the death penalty in South Africa. And this is too sad for words. South Africa could be attracting more tourists than it is right now because of the crimes stories that come out of the country. So, crime has some negative impact on the economy, whether we like it or not. But I digress. The cruelty of the apartheid government's hanging method prompted the founding fathers of the new South Africa to abandon the practice of killing convicted criminals. But readers of this column experience greater revulsion when they consider the crimes that have forced people to ask for the return of the death penalty in recent years. About 6 months ago, Reiger Park residents, angered by the kidnapping and murder of the 4-year-old Taegrin Morris, called for the return of the death penalty. Morris was killed when his parents' Volkswagen Golf was hijacked in Reiger Park, Boksburg, in July last year. The boy was caught in his seatbelt and was dragged along the road as the hijackers drove off. Shortly before that, calls for the death penalty were also reiterated by Diepsloot residents after the sentencing of a convicted child killer and rapist, Ntokozo Hadebe, to 9 life terms. Hadebe was convicted of three counts of murder, 3 of kidnapping and 6 of rape. The bodies of toddlers Anelisa Mkhonto and cousins Yonalisa and Zandile Mali were discovered dumped in a rubbish bin and public toilets. They'd been abducted, taken to Hadebe's shack in Diepsloot, where he raped and killed them. Reading of these shocking stories, many will be of the view that the people responsible for these crimes have not only lost the right to live, but also any right to sympathy. I am against the death penalty. But I know the feelings that lead to the calls for it. One of the feelings is that some criminals are simply beyond recovery and that their death may bring some sense of a definitive ending to the victim's friends and family. However, the mistakes in the death penalty are well-known. They include the risk of wrongful conviction and later killing of innocent perpetrators. It is also not a deterrent because criminals always commit crimes with the firm belief that they will not be arrested. I am proud to be South African today, proud that I live in a country where this cruelty does not exist. And the regime that killed Mahlangu is no more. (source: Mzwandile Jacks, ventures-africa.com) INDONESIA: July 6 hearing on appeal by duo on death row The Appellate Court here (in Kota Kinabalu) yesterday set July 6 this year to hear the appeal by 2 men against their death sentence for separate syabu trafficking convictions. Justice Dato' Mohd Hishamudin Md Yunus, who sat together with Justices Datuk David Wong Dak Wah and Dato' Umi Kalthum Abdul Majid, agreed to adjourn hearing the appeal by Eswaran Susop and Jaswant Singh in order to give them ample time to look for counsels. The court directed that the appellants, who both hail from Johor, must be represented by different counsels. During the proceedings yesterday, both appellants, aged 24, were represented by counsel Ram Singh. The High Court here had on October 23, 2013, sentenced both the appellants to death by hanging after finding them guilty under Section 39B (1) (a) of the Dangerous Drugs Act 1952 which is punishable with the mandatory death penalty, upon conviction. The trial judge, in his decision, held that the appellants had failed to cast a reasonable doubt on the prosecution's case after finding that there was no evidence that the appellants did not have knowledge about the said syabu. Eswaran was caught for trafficking in 770.9 grams of syabu on March 18, 2012 at the arrival hall of Terminal Two of the Kota Kinabalu International Airport while Jaswant was convicted of trafficking in 780.2 grams of the same drug at the same time and place. They were jointly tried since February 25, 2013 with the prosecution, led by deputy public prosecutor (DPP) Aida Jaafar Mad Ariff, calling 15 witnesses to testify against both the appellants. The duo were called to enter their defence on July 21, 2013 with both of them being the only defence witnesses. DPP Mohd Fairuz Johari appeared for the respondent in these appeals. Meanwhile, the same court adjourned to July 6 this year to hear the appeal of a 45-year-old woman against her conviction and sentence for trying to cheat a man. The court unanimously agreed to defer the appeal for the last time to allow Jamilah Likabon to engage a counsel, to represent her in the appeal. The court also advised the appellant, a former security guard at the temporary detention center (PTS) in Sandakan, to seek a counsel through Yayasan Bantuan Guaman Kebangsaan. Previously, her (the appellant's) appeal had been adjourned twice, on November 11, 2014 and January 19, 2015, as she claimed that her counsels had withdrawn from representing her on the two hearings, respectively. The lower court had sentenced the appellant to 1 year's jail plus a RM10,000 fine, in default, 3 months' imprisonment, after she was found guilty of attempting to deceive the man of RM3,000 by leading him to believe that she could secure the release of a detainee at the PTS in Sandakan. She committed the offence at a restaurant at Batu 4 in Sandakan on July 20, 2012. The appellant was convicted under Section 420 of the Penal Code, read together with Section 511 of the same Code, which provides for a jail term of up to 5 years and with whipping and liable to a fine, upon conviction. DPP Norzilati Izhani Zainal acted for the respondent. (source: The Borneo Post) SAUDI ARABIA: Saudi Arabia advertises for eight new executioners as beheading rate soars ---- 85 reported executed so far this year, rivalling total for whole of 2014 Saudi Arabia is advertising for 8 new executioners, recruiting extra staff to carry out an increasing number of death sentences, usually done by public beheading. No special qualifications are needed for the jobs whose main role is "executing a judgment of death" but also involve performing amputations on those convicted of lesser offences, the advert, posted on the civil service jobs portal, said. The Islamic kingdom is in the top five countries in the world for putting people to death, rights groups say. It ranked third in 2014, after China and Iran, and ahead of Iraq and the United States, according to Amnesty International figures. A man beheaded on Sunday was the 85th person this year whose execution was recorded by the official Saudi Press Agency, compared to 88 in the whole of 2014, according to Human Rights Watch (HRW). Amnesty said there were at least 90 executions last year. Most were executed for murder, but 38 had committed drugs offences, HRW said. About half were Saudi and the others were from Pakistan, Yemen, Syria, Jordan, India, Indonesia, Burma, Chad, Eritrea the Philippines and Sudan. Saudi authorities have not said why the number of executions has increased so rapidly, but diplomats have speculated it may be because more judges have been appointed, allowing a backlog of appeal cases to be heard. Political analysts say it might also reflect a tough response by the judiciary to regional turbulence. A downloadable pdf application form for the executioner jobs, available on the website carrying Monday's date, said the jobs were classified as "religious functionaries" and that they would be at the lower end of the civil service pay scale. (source: The Guardian) ************* Saudi Arabia To Behead, Crucify Pro-Democracy Opposition Leader Sheikh Nimr----Sentenced to death last year, Sheikh Nimr is a political prisoner condemned for demanding the release of other prisoners and Saudi government reform. Last week, Saudi officials announced the impending execution of Sheikh Nimr Baqir al-Nimr, a 53-year-old Shiite cleric sentenced to death last year. If the execution is carried out over calls against it coming from across the globe, Nimr will be beheaded and then his body will be publicly displayed, a process locally called "crucifixion." Nimr was condemned to death for '"seeking ???foreign meddling' in the kingdom, 'disobeying' its rulers and taking up arms against the security forces" - accusations made by the government that pro-democracy activists say are unfounded claims to discredit the fight for freedom. The last charge likely stems from his arrest, when police accuse the cleric of exchanging gunfire during a chase - a charge denied by his family who claim he was unarmed. Police shot Nimr 4 times during his arrest. Human rights advocates criticize the charges, saying Nimr was imprisoned for his support of the 2011 Arab Spring uprising, criticism of the treatment of other Shiite Muslims by the country's rulers, demanding the release of other political prisoners, and other accusations against the House of Saud. It's unclear when the death sentence could be carried out. BBC Arabic reported Nimr would be executed on Thursday, but as of Friday, no reports indicated he had been killed. Zack Beauchamp, writing for Vox, highlighted Saudi Arabia's unpredictability in death penalty cases: "[T]he country has a habit of both postponing executions and carrying them out without very much warning." The announcement of Nimr's execution renewed protests that began after his arrest and have continued ever since, especially in al-Qatif in eastern Saudi Arabia, known for its strong sympathies to his positions. In April 2014, Princess Sahar, 1 of 4 imprisoned daughters of the late King Abdullah, linked her struggle to Nimr's imprisonment, and called for revolution against the ruling government. Now, Nimr's death sentence has become an international issue, condemned by Reprieve and Amnesty International. Protesters took to the streets of al-Awamiyah, Nimr's hometown, on Saturday to demand his release, chanting anti-government slogans. Solidarity rallies also occurred in Bahrain, whose oppressive royal family depends on Saudi military support to quell pro-Democracy protests, and the Iraqi city of Najaf. Protests for Nimr even occurred in India, and Nimr supporters rallied in London, where activists used the opportunity to highlight the plight of other victims of the Saudi regime. "There are over 30,000 political prisoners in Saudi Arabia," a protester told Iran's PressTV on Thursday. "But with Sheik Nimr, he's become the name of them, he's become a representative of all the minorities, the oppressed people in Saudi Arabia." (source: Mint Press News) From rhalperi at smu.edu Tue May 19 12:06:21 2015 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Tue, 19 May 2015 12:06:21 -0500 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, FLA., TENN., NEB., USA Message-ID: May 19 TEXAS: Texas House OKs keeping execution drug suppliers secret The identity of execution drug makers for America's busiest death chamber would remain confidential under a bill preliminarily approved by the Texas House. Lawmakers passed the measure via voice vote without debate Monday, 6 days after a 32-year-old Houston man became the 7th convicted killer executed in Texas this year. The Senate passed the plan last week, and a final House vote is now all that's needed to send it to Gov. Greg Abbott to be signed into law. An ongoing court challenge already prohibits Texas from disclosing where the state buys execution drugs. That ruling came after manufacturers reported being threatened by death penalty opponents. But the push to permanently keep suppliers secret, even form death row inmates and their attorneys, is on the verge of becoming law. (source: Associated Press) ******************** Capital murder charges expected in Waco biker shootout The unprecedented, deadly biker gang violence on display Sunday at the Twin Peaks restaurant in Waco, Texas, has led to mass arrests, massive bail figures, the specter of numerous death penalty cases, the likely shuttering of a business, and an irate police force who said they did everything they could to stop it. About 170 motorcycle gang members charged with engaging in organized crime are each being held on a $1 million bond in the wake of the shootout in Waco that left at least nine dead and 18 injured, and authorities say capital murder charges are expected. By early afternoon about 1/3 of the suspects had been booked into the McLennan County Jail, reports CBS affiliate KWTX in Waco. While they haven't been filed yet, capital murder charges open the possibility that prosecutors will seek the death penalty for some of the suspects, in a state that puts far more inmates to death annually than all others. McLennan County Justice of the Peace W.H. Peterson set the bond Monday for each suspect and described the amount as "appropriate" given the level of violence that occurred a day earlier at a Twin Peaks restaurant in Waco. Peterson also performed inquests on the nine dead bikers but declined to identify them pending notification of family. Peterson said all 9 were from Texas. Waco Police Sgt. W. Patrick Swanton said while capital murder charges are likely, it's too early to determine how many motorcycle gang members will face the charge. The head of the Texas Department of Public Safety says the violence that unfolded in Waco when rival motorcycle gangs opened fire on each other in a restaurant parking lot is unprecedented. The shootout erupted shortly after noon at a busy shopping center where members of at least 5 rival gangs had gathered for a meeting. DPS Director Steve McCraw, a former FBI agent, said Monday that the shootout Sunday was the 1st time "we've seen this type of violence in broad daylight." McCraw's agency sent Texas Rangers to process the crime scene and special agents who target motorcycle gangs. He wouldn't reveal details about what prompted the melee. Waco police say a dispute that began in a Twin Peaks restaurant bathroom spilled into the parking lot. Police and the operators of Twin Peaks - a national chain that features waitresses in revealing uniforms - were aware of the meeting in advance and at least 12 Waco officers, in addition to state troopers, were outside the restaurant when the fight began, Swanton said. As a result, the whole incident, involving an estimated 100 guns in total, "happened very fast," Swanton said. "We were there within seconds, meaning within 35 to 40 seconds," Swanton said. So far, officials have admitted that some of the bikers were shot by police, but have not said whether or not any of those killed died as a result of police gunfire. The Twin Peaks restaurant in the Waco Market Place shopping center is coming under increasing fire from authorities over the shootout. The Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission suspended alcohol sales at Twin Peaks for 7 days because of the shooting. State law allows the agency to suspend a business license to sell alcohol after a shooting, stabbing or murder on premises that's likely to result in subsequent leadership. "Any wrongdoing uncovered during the investigation could result in further action against the restaurant, including monetary fines, further suspension, or cancellation of its TABC license to sell alcohol," the agency said in a press release Monday. Additionally, the Twin Peaks corporate office Monday revoked the franchise of the restaurant, reports KWTX. "Unfortunately the management team of the franchised restaurant in Waco chose to ignore the warnings and advice from both the police and our company, and did not uphold the high security standards we have in place to ensure everyone is safe at our restaurants," the company said in a statement. Swanton said law enforcement had repeatedly asked the restaurant owners to suspend the event that drew the bikers in the first place. "If you have a police department asking for your assistance as a business, you ought to pay attention," Swanton said. "We asked for assistance to keep this from happening and we didn't get that." Texas officials said they are constantly monitoring biker gangs and that motorcycle gang violence dates back to at least the 1970s. Swanton said authorities had received threats against law enforcement "throughout the night" from biker groups and stood ready to confront any more violence resulting from Sunday's gunfire. "We have a contingency plan to deal with those individuals if they try to cause trouble here," Swanton said at a news conference. The interior of the restaurant was littered with bullet casings, knives, bodies and pools of blood, he said. Authorities were processing the evidence at the scene, south of Dallas. About 150 to 200 bikers were inside during the shootout. "I was amazed that we didn't have innocent civilians killed or injured," Swanton said. Parts of downtown Waco were locked down, and officials stopped and questioned motorcycle riders. Agents from the FBI and the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives were assisting local and state authorities. McLennan County Sheriff Parnell McNamara, whose office is involved in the investigation, said all nine who were killed were members of the Bandidos or Cossacks gangs. In a 2014 gang threat assessment, the Texas Department of Public Safety classified the Bandidos as a "Tier 2" threat, the second highest. Other groups in that tier included the Bloods, Crips and Aryan Brotherhood of Texas. The Bandidos, formed in the 1960s, are involved in trafficking cocaine, marijuana and methamphetamine, according to the U.S. Department of Justice. El Paso authorities in 2012 said several Bandido members were involved in an assault and robbery at two bars, according to the assessment. State arrest warrants were issued for aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, engaging in organized crime and other crimes, and 6 of the suspects were arrested. In 2006, eight men were found dead inside vehicles on a farm in Canada, and authorities linked the Bandidos to the slayings. The Bandidos conduct their activities as covertly as possible to avoid publicity, according to the DPS assessment. Members are not covert, however, about making their presence known by wearing their colors and insignia, and riding in large groups. The Texas assessment does not mention the Cossacks. There's at least 17 previously documented instance of violence between the 2 groups. In November 2013, a 46-year-old from Abilene who police say was the leader of a West Texas Bandidos chapter was charged in the stabbings of 2 members of the Cossacks club. Swanton said the local biker gangs have little regard for law enforcement, which is why they did not hesitate to start a shootout with uniformed officers in plain sight. "They could care less whether we were here or not," Swanton said. "That's the violence we were dealing with." (source: CBS news) FLORIDA: Davis found guilty of killing couple to start illicit pot grow business Jurors have found a Walton County man guilty of killing a couple to further a marijuana growing operation. He now faces the death sentence when a penalty phase commences. After 3 weeks of testimony and a full day of closing arguments, jurors found Barry Davis Jr., 34, guilty Monday in a "no body" murder trial after a little more than 2 hours of deliberation. Davis also was found guilty of numerous other charges related to the deaths of John "Gregory" Hughes, of Santa Rosa Beach, and Hiedi Rhodes, of Panama City Beach, neither of whom have been seen or heard from since May 7, 2012. Tiffani Steward, former girlfriend and the mother of Davis' child, said she felt "relief" as the verdict was being read. Steward testified she was present the night of the slayings. "I just hope the family will finally get closure, and I will get closure myself," she said. Prosecutor Bobby Elmore faced what seemed like an uphill battle since the bodies of neither Hughes nor Rhodes were ever recovered. Elmore used bank account records, cellphone records and the lack of contact with friends and family to argue Davis killed the couple. Many family members were present Monday for closing arguments in the trial of Davis when Elmore made a final push to convince jurors that Davis killed the couple and robbed Hughes' home "down to the very last salt shaker" in order to have enough money to assemble a marijuana growing business. "If everyone lived happily ever after, then why have they never been heard from again?" Elmore asked. "Why did (Davis) go back and take everything (Hughes) owned and why did he take Hiedi Rhodes' dog she never parted with? ... Because no one lived happily ever after." Elmore argued Rhodes was collateral damage in a robbery attempt that turned deadly, after which Davis dismembered and chopped up both of the couple's bodies and burned the pieces. Davis did not testify on his own behalf during the trial. Defense attorney Spiro Kypreos highlighted the inconsistencies in the stories told by witnesses, to whom Davis allegedly admitted the killing. He compared the lies told by the state???s witnesses told against Davis to lies told in the Salem witch trials. Kypreos mostly attempted to puncture the testimony of the key witness, Steward, who claimed to be in Hughes' home at the time. Kypreos said the inconsistencies in her story could be explained by her fear - not of Davis - but of serving prison time for possibly being considered an accomplice. "She's always eager to make her testimony fit the state theory ... and she always does," Kypreos said. "Give her an idea and, if she thinks long enough and hard enough, she'll come up with a story." Steward told jurors that the night of May 7, 2012, she and Davis went to Hughes' home unannounced so Davis could collect on a drug debt. Hughes invited them into his home for dinner and margaritas, she said. Steward told jurors she and Rhodes left to get margarita mix, only to find Hughes motionless and bleeding on the floor when they returned. Steward said Davis then grabbed Rhodes by the throat until she slipped into unconsciousness. He then bound both Hughes and Rhodes and submerged their head in a bathtub, she testified. Davis would later return to collect their bodies, chop them up and burn them at his own home, the state argued. However, Davis' attorney said Davis and Hughes discussed business that night before amicably parting. Hughes even allowed him to leave with his Cadillac Escalade, Kypreos said. Kypreos also said that when 2 independent human remain detection dogs, also called cadaver dogs, alerted on the Escalade, they were actually smelling blood from some previous incident. "The name 'cadaver dog' is misleading," Kypreos said. "They are trained to detect remains - bones or blood, as in this case." A cadre of people who helped Davis in some way after May 7 told investigators they feared Davis and misled law enforcement under his direction, including a group who assisted in removing Hughes' possessions from his home. In total, authorities said they recovered more than $18,000 in Hughes' property from Davis' home. Authorities also claimed Davis forged about $16,000 worth of Hughes' checks for moving Hughes out of his house and "property maintenance." Those funds went toward planting the seeds of a business, the prosecution said. "He was broke," Elmore said. "He couldn't even turn his lights on, but here comes the future. He took Hughes' money to build the marijuana grow room." Prosecutors also claimed a trail of cellphone calls and texts highlighted the truths of witness testimony and traced Davis' actions in the days and weeks after the killings of Hughes and Rhodes as investigators attempted to close in on Davis. Davis previously was acquitted of stealing a 2008 Corvette from Hughes following his disappearance. Jurors on Monday found Davis guilty of 15 counts of robbery, theft and fraud to attain Hughes' possessions, including 1st-degree premeditated murder of Hughes and Rhodes. Circuit Court Judge Kelvin Wells was expected to give the jury a day off and resume the penalty phase Wednesday to determine if Davis will be sentenced to death. Steward said she did not think a person who takes another's life should have to give their own life as a penalty. "He should have to think about what he's done every day for the rest of his life," she said. "My son will never know his father because of his decision. I just hope he can find peace within himself and find God." (source: Panama City News Herald) TENNESSEE: Death Penalty To Be Considered In Kirsten Williams Murder Case It could be years down the road, but Shelby County District Attorney Amy Weirich says she is prepared to consider the death penalty in the murder of 7-year-old Kirsten Williams. 4 men have been charged with 1st degree murder in the April shooting, which resulted in the death of the young girl as she played down the street from her home. The preliminary hearing in this case will take place on June 23, but legal maneuverings have already begun on both sides. Weirich explained the upcoming process to FOX13. "If those charges are murder 1st degree, then the conversation begins with the D.A.'s Office about the death penalty and that's a decision that I make in meeting with the prosecutors assigned to the case," Weirich said. FOX13 did some digging regarding both the statistics and recent histories concerning death penalty cases in Memphis and Shelby County. Our research revealed three convicted murderers have been sent to Death Row since 2010. We looked specifically at Jessie Dotson, the infamous Lester Street killer of six, and Sedrick Clayton, who was convicted in 2014 for 3 murders. Well before their respective trials, both underwent a mental evaluation. It is a process that's apparently being conducted with some, but not all, of the co-defendants in the Williams murder. "The mental exams were on the co-defendants, not on Mr. Stokes," Carlos Stokes' Attorney, Marty McAffee, said. "I didn't see any problem at this point. No need to have an evaluation of Mr. Stokes at this point." When the time comes, the District Attorney's office will have to make the call of whether or not they want to pursue the death penalty. For those having to make the decision, it is not a choice that is made lightly. "It is a difficult decision to make and it's completely guided by the law of the State of Tennessee," Weirich said. "Not everyone in a 1st degree murder case is eligible for the death penalty." (source: myfoxmemphis.com) NEBRASKA: The death penalty's dying breaths, even in Nebraska Someday when they write the history of the death penalty in the United States, it will include the fact that on the day Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was being sentenced to death in federal court in anti-capital-punishment Massachusetts, the Nebraska legislature was voting nearly 2-to-1 to repeal the state's death penalty law. Yes, Nebraska. When Nebraska is considering abolishing the death penalty - although the governor has promised a veto - you know where this is headed. When governor after governor - in states not Nebraska - say that he or she no longer wants to be part of the death machine, you know where this is headed. When the polls - which not so long ago showed upwards of 80 % favoring the death penalty - fall closer to 50 % when life without parole is an option, you definitely know where this is headed. You don't know how long it will take, but the direction seems clear. The people in Massachusetts don't want the death penalty. Governor after governor no longer wants to be part of the death machine. Overall public support is 50 %. You know where this is headed. The conversation that John Hickenlooper promised - and has since avoided - on the death penalty is everywhere now, including Colorado. The Aurora theater trial makes it impossible not to have the conversation. If James Holmes is convicted of his terrorist act, will he get the death penalty? And if he does, will it ever be administered in Colorado, where no one has been executed since 1997? The only thing certain is the uncertainty. And the death penalty - the ultimate penalty - cannot survive without certainty. It's built on it. It's about the promise not only that the person being put to death is guilty - and we've see how often DNA testing has upended that promise - but that there's justice in determining who gets life and who gets death. And although the Supreme Court keeps shifting the rules to try to make the death game equitable, there's no real argument here. Convicted murderers are sentenced to die disproportionately according to race, gender, geography, the ability to hire a good lawyer, how they scored on an IQ test. And now we have the bizarre uncertainty of whether an execution will even end in a predictable death. This is partly how Nebraska got into the argument. In Nebraska, as in many states, they've run out of the 3-drug cocktail that most states use for lethal injection. They've run out because the 1 place in America that made 1 of the drugs refused to sell them anymore. And so, in what has turned into a black comedy, desperate states finally found a London middleman who shared offices with a driving school, until the FDA stepped in. Then they tried a place in India - that's apparently where the governor of Nebraska finally scored - but it's unclear whether this import business is even legal. States had tried other countries in Europe, but the European Union ruled that Europe was out of the death business. The 3-drug cocktail was invented with little to no scientific input in Oklahoma, where they were desperate enough to try a substitute drug in the botched execution of Clayton Lockett. You may know the story. It has, in large part, changed the debate. The executioner couldn't find a vein in Lockett's arms or legs, and so he ended up with the groin, where the needle didn't hold. The sedative didn't work properly, and when Lockett was supposed to be unconscious, he was struggling for breath. And when the death cocktail was supposed to have killed him, he was still alive. Eventually they had to call off the execution, just in time for Lockett to die. And suddenly cruel and unusual were back in the conversation. You don't have to feel sorry for Lockett, who kidnapped a woman in a botched robbery, shot her and then buried her alive. The killers themselves are often the best argument for the death penalty. Heinous, after all, is usually the right word. It certainly applies to the Boston bombings, where the bombs were built to inflict maximum damage to innocent people at an event that, as much as any other, defines the city. And yet, if you trust the polling, the people in Massachusetts didn't want this ending. The death penalty has been off the books in Massachusetts for 3 decades, and no one has been executed since 1947. But the trial was taken to federal court, where the death penalty was in play. And even though a Boston Globe poll showed that only 15 % of Boston residents were in favor of putting Tsarnaev to death, the jury voted unanimously for the death penalty. It was not a surprise. The jury was selected so that only those who are death-qualified - meaning those drawn from the minority in Massachusetts who believe in the death penalty - could be on the jury. The verdict, in the words of The New York Times, left the city's residents "unsettled," which may leave unsettled those who argue that the death penalty brings closure. It may, if closure means waiting 10 or 20 years as the long series of appeals play out. It may not, if, say, you live in Pennsylvania, where there are 185 people on death row - and no executions since 1999. The Democratic governor there has issued a moratorium on what he calls an "ineffective, unjust and expensive" system. And in very Republican Nebraska, an unlikely combination of Republicans, Democrats and independents are close to sending the governor a bill to abolish their ineffective, unjust and expensive system. This is not as shocking as you may think. The legislature voted in 1979 to end the death penalty, but it was vetoed by the governor. And 20 years later, it voted for a moratorium, again vetoed by the governor. In the next week or so, the legislature, on third reading, will try again. In, yes, Nebraska. (source: Mike Littwin, The Colorado Independent) USA: Death penalty, even for Tsarnaev, a stain on U.S.: DiManno ---- Forget Tsarnaev's reported remorse or his negligent upbringing. His death sentence is wrong because of what it does to the U.S., writes Rosie DiManno Outside of war, there is only 1 justification for killing the enemy - an immediate and mortal threat. Self-defence or defence of others. Not for retribution. Not for vengeance, as in eye-for-an-eye Old Testament decree. Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, one half of the Boston Marathon bomber-brothers, is a threat to no one anymore and the option was there to make certain he would never be a menace to society in the future - a future spent entirely behind bars, in grim solitude, 23 hours a day of utter isolation at a "supermax" federal prison. (Such solitary confinement has come under legal challenge in the United States and has been increasingly reined in by various state jurisdictions.) Instead, the 21-year-old was condemned to death by a Boston jury last week, execution by lethal injection. It will be years - if ever - before the sentence is administered, with appeals after appeals guaranteed, in a state which hasn't executed anybody since 1947. America is a great nation, perhaps the greatest ever. But its stubborn cleaving to the death penalty is an ugly stain on every principle of enlightenment so passionately espoused and deeply cherished in U.S. history. It puts America in the company of China, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Libya and North Korea - among the 58 countries where the death penalty is still permitted. According to Amnesty International, 140 countries - including Canada - have abolished this most primitive form of "justice." Its persistence south of the border diminishes America immeasurably. Its wielding as punishment against Tsarnaev prolongs the anguish caused by the April 15, 2013 attack against innocents at the finish line of the beloved Boston Marathon that killed 3 and seriously injured more than 240, including 17 people who lost at least 1 leg. Worst, but not most deadliest, terrorist attack on American soil since 9/11. A 4th person, MIT police officer Sean Collier, was killed a few days later, during the massive manhunt that ensued, shot several times by Tsarnaev and his older sibling Tamerlan as they attempted to flee in a carjacked SUV. In the chaos of the subsequent gunfight with cops, Dzhokhar ran over Tamerlan, killing him. Interestingly, the jury did not vote to give the death penalty based on the death of Officer Collier, but did for his role in killing Boston University student Lingzi Lu and 8-year-old Martin Richard. Both bled to death at the scene, bodies ripped apart by flying shrapnel when the 2 pressure-cooker bombs exploded, and linked directly to the device Tsarnaev placed outside a restaurant. He was not sentenced for the death of a 3rd victim killed by the blast from the 1st bomb. But the jury found that death was the appropriate punishment for 6 of the 17 capital counts in which he'd been convicted. Martin Richard's remarkable parents, Bill and Denise Richard, had made it clear they did not want the death penalty for Tsarnaev. In an elegant statement published in the Boston Globe, they wrote: "We understand all too well the heinousness and brutality of the crimes committed. We were there. We lived it. The defendant murdered our 8-year-old son, maimed our 7-year-old daughter, and stole part of our soul. We know that the government has its reasons for seeking the death penalty, but the continued pursuit of that punishment could bring years of appeals and prolong reliving the most painful day of our lives. We hope our 2 remaining children do not have to grow up with the lingering, painful reminder of what the defendant took from them, which years of appeals would undoubtedly bring . . . "The minute the defendant fades from our newspapers and TV screens is the minute we begin the process of rebuilding our lives and our family." They did not speak about forgiveness or enter into any argument about the immorality of the death penalty. But their view is shared by the majority of Massachusetts' citizenry. Poll after poll has shown that the state's residents overwhelmingly favoured life in prison for Tsarnaev, who was 19 when the crimes were convicted. The most recent pulse-taking, a month ago, found just 15 % of Boston residents wanted Tsarnaev executed, and only 19 % statewide, in sharp contrast to the 60 % of Americans who favoured execution according to a CBS News poll. That speaks, I think, to the progressive nature of a city and state which wears its bears historical aversion to the death penalty proudly, still shamed by the 17th-century Salem Witch Trials that put at least people, mostly women, to death for sorcery, and the 1927 execution of Italian-born anarchists Sacco and Vanzetti. Some of the Boston Marathon bombings expressed satisfaction with the death-penalty verdict, which was unanimous and came after a mere 14 hours of deliberation. "Happy is not the word I would use," Karen Brassard, who suffered grievous leg injuries, told the New York Times afterwards. "There's nothing happy about having to take somebody's life. I'm satisfied, I'm grateful that they came to that conclusion, because for me I think it was the just conclusion." While many were shocked by the sentence, the outcome really was all but preordained. Jurors, in order to be selected for the trial panel, had to be "death qualified" - a hideous terms meaning they needed to be open to a death penalty. Those opposed to executions on principle could not serve. In that context, the jury did not reflect the mores of the general population in the region where the trial was held. And the trial was held in Boston because then-U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder - judicial right-hand man to President Barack Obama - refused a defence petition for a change of venue. From the very beginning, it was Holder's decision to seek the death penalty, a palpably political strategy. Massachusetts abolished the death penalty for state crimes in 1984. But Tsarnaev was prosecuted under federal laws. (Of 80 federal defendants sentenced to death in the U.S. since 1988, only 3 - including Timothy McVeigh, the Oklahoma City bomber - have actually been executed.) As has been noted even by harsh critics of the sentence, it wasn't the jury's job to make policy. Theirs was a difficult job and they did it, rejecting every argument for mercy mounted by the defence, which even pulled out Sister Helen Prejean, the Roman Catholic nun whose work with death row prisoners was dramatized in the '93 film Dead Man Walking. Prejean testified that she had met with Tsarnaev, that he'd expressed remorse and that she believed his sincerity. I don't care about remorse, real or feigned. I don't care that Tsarnaev was under the malignant influence of his older brother. I don't care that he was 19 and hailed from a dysfunctional, negligent family. He was a colossally evil young man. I understand the visceral rage that resonates still from his contemptible acts. But a death penalty isn't, in the end, about him. It's about societies that kill killers, which do unto others - even the most irrefutably guilty, as was Tsarnaev - the very monstrosity they have committed. Deliberately, planned, with forethought: All the requirements of 1st-degree murder, onto which is larded righteousness. No pain is alleviated. Nothing is undone. The dead can't be breathed back to life nor limbs restored to the maimed. It only consecrates cruelty. And there's zero virtue in that. (source: Opinion, Rosie DiManno; Toronto Star) ******************* America should know better than to use the death penalty I've been thinking a lot about steak-frites. Soft, bloody, barely-seared meat with fat running from its ribeye, salted potato, tarragon-heavy Bearnaise, and some decent petits pois Grandmere. Not only because I'm going to be in France for the rest of the week, but also thanks to recent reminders of the vitality of capital punishment. Dzhokhar Tsarnaev and Mohammed Morsi have both just been sentenced to death. One, a teenaged terrorist, part of a fraternal gang of 2, who placed his cooking-pot bomb behind an 8-year-old. The other, a deposed president, briefly seen as the success story of the Arab Spring. The latter's sentence was confirmed by a religious leader, in a country whose flirtation with (terrorism-based) democracy was quashed by the return of military rule, and where human rights are in free-fall. The former's was determined by the federal court of a country claiming to lead the developed world. Death is incomprehensible. It's the absence of life, and the end of possibility. It's nothingness, not another valedictory milestone. And, no matter how clever we've become, how much we can learn from Wikipedia, we still don't know anything about it. Where do we go when we die? Umm, we don't go anywhere, do we? We're not 'we' anymore. Surely, it's this end to existence - this substantial change - with which we struggle. The, 'Can I get a self-charging iPhone for my coffin, in case I wake?' And the swabbing of the inmate???s arm with antiseptic before injecting pentobarbital or sodium thiopental. In the midst of life, the uncertain certainty of death is an easily exploitable fear. How acceptable it is to use this returns us to classic antagonism between the state and the individual: the extent to which we abdicate liberty in order to gain corporate security. The death penalty is the ultimate form of state control - and the ultimate form of state protection. (Some might argue that torture has more potency, but there's not time to discuss that here.) Debate abounds as to whether, and in which combinations, punishment should aim for retribution, restitution, or deterrence. And - particularly when dealing with a penalty as irreversible as death - surrounds its efficacy, not just in terms of the message sent to other potential criminals. We've all read about the innocent people who have mistakenly been killed, and the occasional sickening failures of the methods used. (If you haven't, you should - sorry, in advance.) But - like the specific atrocities of those facing this form of punishment, and whether the ability to commit these atrocities might better place them in need of medical help - failures aren't the point. If people keep breaking the speed limit, we should educate them more and enforce it better, not change it! Laws should be put and kept in place because we are convinced that they are right. We must hope for the continual refinement of our country's justice system, wanting to make it as fair and good as possible. Yes, apocryphal support for capital punishment is often used to decry referenda. Guy in pub: 'Ha, but if we allowed everyone a say on stuff, we'd bring back hanging, yeh?' But recent polls suggest that Britons are decreasingly in favour. And shock, rather than satisfaction, has resounded at Priti Patel's seeming refusal to deny her previous pro-death penalty position. On topic, I'm convinced that Michael Gove's 1-time advocation simply exemplified the journalistic use of a sensationalist position to strengthen a quite different argument. It is difficult - even for those who currently support it - not to consider the eventual abolition of capital punishment a sign of a country's progress. Most human rights organisations uphold this as a leading goal for society. In 1998, the final civil and military exemptions (treason, piracy, mutiny, etc) from Britain's 1965 Murder (Abolition of Death Penalty) Act were removed. The 6th Protocol of the European Convention of Human Rights enforces this stance for member states of the Council of Europe. To me, the correctness of this comes down to the difference between necessity and luxury. Taking another's life can - sometimes - be a necessary act for an individual or state: during moments of self-defence, or war. This doesn't make it good, but it does make it justifiable, at the time. It should then also be examined and judged in retrospect. The state's role is to protect its citizens; when it's the only option, it is acceptable for the state to do this by killing others, which is why war can be right. (The difficulty with the Tsarnaev case is the complication of modern terrorism. Might this make our Just War Theory dated? Should he have been tried as a war criminal? A prisoner of war? An enemy combatant, in a time of war? On limited reflection, probably no.) Regardless, from the position of relative luxury - with space to think in safe surroundings, and your potential victim already under arrest - how can killing someone be necessary? Death shouldn't be playable; it's not just another option. To end another human being's life is, as someone once said, to end the world. The casual, Akond of Swat-esque approach of 'Would you rather be chopped in pieces, or hung, or shot?' or, 'What would you like for your last meal?' is wrong. It's calculated. It's an abuse of power. It's why you thought my opening paragraph was in bad taste. America should know better. (source: Column; Rebecca Coulson is a freelance classical musician and writer, and was Parliamentary Candidate for the City of Durham at the 2015 General Election----conservativehome.com) **************** Why no outcry over death penalty in the US? When the Indonesian government executed 2 Australian drug runners it was big news, but when an United States court announced the death penalty for the Boston bomber, the media and the politicians had moved on. Has the Australian government, the Catholic Church or others lodged a complaint with US authorities? I do not doubt the principled position taken strongly by politicians and the media over the execution of Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran. To the contrary, I ask the question because the issue of the death penalty cannot be forgotten while the latest political kerfuffle takes centre stage in Canberra and the death penalty issue subsides for the time being. Needless to say, the next case after Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran may not be far away. A federal jury in the US has sentenced Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev? to death. For some that may raise issues from an Australian perspective. Do we really think it makes any difference if an execution involves an Australian citizen or not? And, given the possibility of extremists operating in our region, does it matter if the perpetrator fails to seek forgiveness? Maybe it's time for some introspection, a general discussion within the Australian community and some bipartisan discussions at the political level on how the government will handle similar issues in the future. Understandably, discussions on the death penalty can be highly emotional. Anybody listening to the media recently would think that all Australians are opposed the death penalty. However, a Morgan poll taken in late January, showed that 52 % were in favour of the death penalty for those convicted overseas for drug offences. Of Australians, a larger majority (62 %) said the Australian government should not do more to stop the execution of Myuran Sukumaran and Andrew Chan, while 38 % said the Australian government should do more to stop the execution. I understand that on 2 separate occasions in the weeks leading up to the execution, MPs raised their concern in the party room that the government had taken too strong a line with the Indonesians. Their concern was not surprising. Public support for the death penalty was about 80 % in the 1970s, so even if public opinion is likely to slowly move away from the death penalty, it will be divided for a long time yet. In those circumstances, rather than trying to keep supporters of the death penalty out of the public discussion, it would be wise to encourage more forums to debate the issues. And this should be a task not so much for the government but the churches and other community organisations. However, the government should consider how it will handle the issue in future. The approach taken on behalf of Chan and Sukumaran was unquestionably a new approach for the Australian government. I don't see that the government can take a less active role in the future for drug smugglers. It is certainly possible that extremist terrorists operating in Indonesia with Australian citizenship could in the future also face the death penalty. The Indonesian president is not about to abandon his policy promise to remain strongly in support of the death penalty for drug runners. Therefore, another execution may be even more difficult than the recent situation. I do think that the Indonesians failed badly in handling the situation, and these matters should be discussed with them at the diplomatic level. At least we have a starting position; both countries want to maintain our relationship. I would also say that we must make abundantly clear that we respect Indonesian sovereignty, including the right to make decisions with which we disagree. The US also don't like be told how to run their own country. Views are strong, as demonstrated by the US Attorney-General Loretta Lynch who said of the Boston bomber: "The ultimate penalty is a fitting punishment for this horrific crime and we hope that the completion of this prosecution will bring some measure of closure to the victims and their families". Many in the US will agree with her. The Boston bomber used pressure-cookers stuffed with gunpowder taken from fireworks. Glued all over them were ball-bearings and nails, shrapnel designed to cause as much carnage as possible. The killing and the maiming was shocking. And when asked, the bomber said he couldn't stand to see the US government "go unpunished". He showed no remorse and wrote: "We Muslims are one body, you hurt one you hurt us all". I hope we never face this situation in Australia, but if we do the application of reason and humanity is what we will need more than ever. (source: Column; Peter Reith was a Howard government minister and is a Fairfax columnist----The Age) ******************** America's vicious cycle of murder: Dzhokhar Tsarnaev & the totalitarian logic of our death-penalty obsession ---- The dark truth about our country's adherence to the vigilante justice of state-sanctioned executions Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the 21-year-old American convicted for setting of bombs in Boston two years ago, is to be murdered by his government. One can almost imagine the scene: On a sunny day in the near future, Tsarnaev being hauled out on to a platform in central Boston, his crimes repeated aloud by a masked executioner so the gathered crowd can hear it, before multiple poisons are injected into his veins; after writhing and shuddering, a white-coated doctor checks his pulse, before declaring the terrorist dead. The crowd dissipates, onlookers returning to their daily lives, while the media returns to the latest campaign-trail blunder. Of course, in reality, only the murder is to happen. It will happen in secret, far from the public view. Since 1976, 1,408 Americans have been put to death by the state. Of these, 1,233 people have been given lethal injections, 158 electrocuted, 11 put in gas chambers, 3 people hanged, and 3 killed by firing squad. Only since 2002 has the execution of mentally impaired inmates been considered cruel and unusual punishment. (44 mentally impaired inmates were executed between 1984 and 2002, including Ricky Ray Rector, put to death by then-Governor Bill Clinton in Arkansas in 1992.) And only in 2005 did the Supreme Court rule that executing minors was unconstitutional. In the words of Justice Henry Blackmun, the ship of state moves slowly when it comes to tinkering with "the machinery of death." Advocates of state murder and human sacrifice - much more accurate terms than the euphemistic "capital punishment" - point to science's pacification of the entire ordeal. With advanced chemicals capable of numbing and disabling the body in seconds, the prisoner may die "with dignity" (as the papers so often say). Last year, former Texas Governor Rick Perry, one of the most prolific executioners in American history, justified the killings administered in his state as "appropriate and humane." However, while there may be such a thing as humane death, lethal injection is the very opposite of it. Last year, a man named Clayton Lockett writhed for minutes after the poisons has been injected into his groin. He raised his head and groaned, "Oh man." When Michael Lee Wilson was executed last year, he was reported to have cried out: "I feel my whole body burning." Charles Warren's final words were: "My body is on fire." In some cases, more than 30 minutes passed between the injection of poisons and the pronouncement of death, a harrowing length of time filled with convulsions and tremors. 4 years ago, the sole U.S. manufacturer of sodium thiopental - the executioners' preferred drug - stopped producing it, and the European Union banned the export of chemicals that could end up in execution chambers. Several states then began creating secret cocktails of drugs and did not disclose the names of the pharmacies supplying them. Missouri went so far as paying cash for the drugs lest their makers be held accountable. The FDA, in a gutless capitulation, facilitated the importation of these untested cocktails for the killing industry, which the D.C. District Court overturned, berating the FDA for its "callous indifference to the health consequences of those imminently facing the executioner's needle." There are plenty of other reasons, apart from its inherent immorality, why state murder has no place in modern societies. It costs hundreds of millions of dollars more than life imprisonment. It does not deter crime. It targets the poor and singles out African-Americans. These are all sufficient reasons for dispensing with the death penalty, but an even more fundamental reason for banning it is that the death penalty is a totalitarian institution that gives the state the power to decide who will live and who will die by the officers and doctors of the state. This is why, when France did away with the guillotine in 1981- the only constitutionally valid method of execution since the French Revolution - its Justice Minister Robert Badinter said that state murder "expresses a totalitarian relationship between citizens and the state." If there is anything that should be considered the very antithesis of American values, it is this dystopic nightmare of organized government killing, done in cramped rooms, using mysterious drugs supplied by unregulated companies. Orwell and Kafka would recognize this killing machine in an instant. But did Dzhokhar Tsarnaev not intentionally try to kill as many people as possible in Boston 2 years ago? Did he not target his fellow citizens and blow some of them to pieces without even a hint of remorse? The answer is yes. Dzhokhar Tsarnaev is an adult, he made a horrible decision, and he should be punished by society for his crimes. But to reduce the law to a simplistic eye-for-an-eye logic - Tsarnaev killed and so he must be killed - is to reduce civilization and society to a barbarous state, one that the rule of law is meant to overcome. Murder is wrong whether done by the individual or the collective (with caveats around self-defense and just wars). And since the question is coming, I will pre-empt it: If my (Muslim) mother had been killed in Boston on that tragic day 2 years ago, I would lose my sanity. But I would hope an impartial legal system would not mete out justice the way a vengeful and vindictive individual would. This is the purpose of criminal law: To punish, and to rehabilitate, not to torture and murder - and torture cannot be extricated from lethal injection. The death penalty transforms the democratic republic into a vigilante state, with supposedly enlightened governments clinging to a relic from our lesser-evolved days. Indeed, the death penalty, as Albert Camus wrote, is actually "the most premeditated of murders." Imagine for a moment that the state putting its citizens to death were an individual, detailing the exact date and time of his impending killing, the method that would be employed, the room in which the deed was to be done, the options of the final meal that would be allowed. Horror films are made about such people. The fate that awaits Tsarnaev is the same fate that awaits Western hostages in the captivity of terrorists. The difference is that the American justice system is suppose to aspire to higher ends, and should be judged by higher standards than that of warlords. The United States understandably wishes to keep this state murder hidden behind walls. If it was revealed to the public just what Tsarnaev was about to face, if Americans could read with their morning coffee the details and images of Tsarnaev's coming murder, they may rethink support for this peculiar institution. (source: Omer Aziz is a writer and student at Yale Law School; salon.com) ****************** Tsarnaev, the Death Penalty, and the Eyes of the World 4 days before a jury sentenced Dzhokhar Tsarnaev to death for his role in the 2013 Boston marathon bombing, the United States was roundly criticized by dozens of countries for using the death penalty. At last Monday's Universal Periodic Review, a process through which each United Nations member country has its human rights record periodically reviewed by other member countries, 36 countries called for the US to reconsider its use of capital punishment. The US, a country that carried out among the greatest number of executions in 2014, is one of a dwindling number of countries that use the death penalty. The death penalty is at odds with the primacy of human dignity and the right to life. It is inherently cruel and irreversible. In the US, its imposition is inseparable from issues of race and poverty. Also, the US's criminal justice system is fallible - since 1973, 153 death-row inmates have been exonerated. Beginning in 2007, the UN General Assembly has endorsed a world-wide moratorium on the use of the death penalty. 81 countries have ratified a treaty abolishing the practice. Friday's verdict not only went against this international trend, but also against the values repeatedly expressed by Bostonians in polls following the bombings. The most recent Boston Globe poll on the issue found that 66 % of Boston residents, and 63 % of state of Massachusetts residents, favored a life sentence for Tsarnaev. Massachusetts abolished the death penalty in 1984. The jury in this case had the option to sentence Tsarnaev to death because the US federal government, rather than state authorities, prosecuted him, and the federal death penalty has yet to be abolished. At the Universal Period Review, the US delegation responded to international criticism by pointing out that no federal defendant had been executed in over a decade. But this response glosses over the fact that the federal government has sought death sentences in at least 200 cases since 1988. The verdict in the Tsarnaev case further highlights the temerity of this response. If the US wishes to strengthen its standing as a rights-respecting nation, an abolition of the death penalty is long overdue. (source: Human Rights Watch) ************************** Aurora shooting jury quizzed after Tsarnaev sentence Defense attorneys in the Aurora theater shooting trial had the judge poll jurors to ensure they weren't affected by the death-penalty sentence in the Boston Marathon bombing case. Jurors told Judge Carlos Samour that they could still be fair to James Holmes, who faces the death penalty in connection with the July 20, 2012, shooting inside a suburban Denver movie theater that killed 12 and injured 70 others. Police and prosecutors say Holmes also rigged his apartment with homemade explosives and incendiary compounds, along with gasoline and napalm made from Styrofoam cups. Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was condemned to death by a jury in Boston on Thursday. With no court in the Aurora trial on Friday, Monday was the 1st day back after that decision. "Obviously, there are a number of parallels to that case and this case," Holmes defense attorney Kristen Nelson said in court. Prosecutors argue Holmes is a highly intelligent young man who secretly plotted the attack for months as his professional and personal life unraveled. Defense attorneys say Holmes suffers from schizophrenia and was delusional, and that his mental illness prompted him to plan and execute the shooting without understanding that what he was doing was wrong. The trial is in its 4th week, and is expected to last another 4 months. (source: USA Today) From rhalperi at smu.edu Tue May 19 12:08:24 2015 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Tue, 19 May 2015 12:08:24 -0500 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide Message-ID: May 19 EGYPT: UN chief expresses concern over Morsi death sentence UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has voiced serious concern over the death sentences handed down to Egypt's ousted president, Mohamed Morsi, and more than 100 others. Ban's deputy spokesman Farhan Haq said on Monday that the UN chief is worried about the death penalties, adding, "The secretary general understands that the verdict is still subject to an appeal." On May 16, an Egyptian court sentenced Morsi, Egypt's 1st democratically-elected president, along with the other 105 defendants to death for a mass prison break during the country's 2011 revolution against long-time dictator, Hosni Mubarak. Haq also noted that the UN chief will precisely monitor the appeals process. "The secretary general underscores the importance of all parties taking steps to promote - and avoiding those that could further undermine - peace, stability and the rule of law in the region," he stated. (source: Press TV) ************** Calgary holds rally condemning 106 death sentences handed out by government in Egypt About 15 people gathered in front of Calgary's Municipal Complex Monday to protest death sentences recently handed to more than 100 people in Egypt. The group stood holding signs of protest while chanting messages such as "Down, down, military coup," and "Why why, innocent people have to die." An Egyptian court recently recommended ousted president Mohamed Morsi, along with 105 others - which includes senior members of the Muslim Brotherhood led by Morsi - be sentenced to death. They were found guilty mass prison breaks which took place in the country's January 25 revolution of 2011. Morsi had been elected president in summer 2012. A military backed government ousted him from power a year later. His recent death sentence, issued Saturday, will be sent to the grand mufti (highest religious authority) for advice - mandatory in Egypt. Earlier, in April, Morsi was handed a 20-year prison sentence for clashes that took place outside the presidential palace in Dec. 2012. (source: Calgary Sun) ************ Turkey to take Egypt's Morsi verdict to UN----Egypt''s ousted Islamist president Morsi and other 106 defendants were ordered by a court on Saturday to face the death penalty for their role in a mass jailbreak during the 2011 uprising. Turkey will take to the UN Human Rights Commission the verdict of death sentences on former Egyptian president Mohamed Morsi and 106 supporters of his Muslim Brotherhood, Turkish presidential spokesperson Ibrahim Kalin said on Monday. "We are continuing our consultations firstly with Saudi Arabia, Qatar and other Gulf countries. We are reviewing current mechanisms for international initiatives. We plan to start necessary initiatives soon, to at the UN Human Rights Committee at first hand," Kalin told reporters in a press conference. "We call on the Egyptian administration to reverse the sentence," Xinhua quoted Kalin as saying. Those sentences and carrying them out will push the Middle East into further chaos, the spokesperson said, calling on international community to speak out more strongly against the verdicts. Egypt's ousted Islamist president Morsi and other 106 defendants were ordered by a court on Saturday to face the death penalty for their role in a mass jailbreak during the 2011 uprising. Morsi was also accused of escaping prison with the assistance of domestic and foreign militants during the January 25 uprising that ousted former president Hosni Mubarak in 2011. Turkish President Recep Erdogan on Saturday condemned Egypt for sentencing Morsi to death. "Egypt is returning to ancient Egypt," Erdogan said, adding that "the West, unfortunately, is still turning a blind eye to (Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah) Sisi's coup." Erdogan is a vocal supporter of Morsi, and relations between Turkey and Egypt have been strained since Morsi was ousted by the army in July 2013 after mass protests against his 1-year rule. Ankara accused the army, and new Egyptian president of carrying out a coup against Morsi from Muslim Brotherhood, a political organisation with close ties to Erdogan's Justice and Development Party. However, Egypt condemned the Turkish government for interfering in its domestic affairs. (source: greaterkashmir.com) ****************** 1 sentenced to death, 3 to life in prison for forming 'terrorist cell' in Egypt An Egyptian court sentenced a man to death and 3 others to life in prison Monday on charges of forming a terrorist cell, state news agency MENA reported. The case stems back to when security forces arrested the 4 defendants in August 2014 in Egypt's Nile Delta city Mansoura, accusing them of forming a terrorist cell that aims to kill all those against ousted Islamist president Mohamed Morsi. The Mansoura criminal court issued its verdict on Monday after referring the death penalty to the Grand Mufti in March 2015. Life in prison sentences carry up to 25 years in jail, according to the Egyptian penal code. The 4 convicted men were described by MENA as members of the banned Muslim Brotherhood. The defendants were also accused of the "use of force, receiving military training outside the country and damaging the property of a Bahraini real estate company." The verdict came a day after Egypt's prison authorities carried out 6 death sentences early Sunday in the case known as "Arab Sharkas," where the convicted were tried over connections with the Sinai-based Islamist militant group Ansar Beit Al-Maqdis. The men were charged with planning terrorist operations, shooting at security forces, attacking military facilities and naval ships and being members of Ansar Beit Al-Maqdis. The death penalty in Egypt have been met with widespread criticism especially after another Egyptian court issued a preliminary death sentence to former Islamist president Morsi and 105 other defendants. The trial is known in the Egyptian media as the Natroun jailbreak case. However, Egypt insists all of its convicts were given fair trials. (source: Albawaba news) ***************** Sudan describes death sentence against Egypt's Morsi as "internal matter" The Sudanese government has described the decision by an Egyptian court to refer the ousted president Mohamed Morsi to Egypt's top religious authority to consider death penalty against him as an "internal affair". On Saturday, a court in Cairo sentenced to death Morsi and 105 co-defendants for allegedly taking part in a mass jailbreak during Egypt's January 2011 uprising that ousted then president Hosni Mubarak. Sudan's foreign ministry spokesperson, Ali al-Sadig, said in press statements on Monday that "ongoing trials in Egypt are an internal matter and the [Sudanese] government does not interfere in the internal affairs of other countries". The government's reaction contrasted sharply with that of the opposition Popular Congress Party (PCP) led by Hassan al-Turabi who denounced the court's decision and warned that Egypt would witness a strong internal strife if Morsi and his companions were executed. In 2013, Khartoum sought to strike a neutral tone following the move by the Egyptian army to overthrow Morsi after unprecedented multi-million strong demonstrations against him before it returned and described it as an "internal affair" that concerns Egypt's people, national institutions and political leadership. Morsi is the 1st president to be referred to the mufti in Egypt's history. The opinion of the mufti is not binding to the court, but Egyptian law makes it necessary for judges to seek a religious point of view on any death sentence. The court decision against Morsi and his aides drew condemnation from US, Turkey, Germany and the European Union (EU) with the rights group Amnesty International describing it as "nothing but a charade based on null and void procedure". (source: Sudan Tribune) BANGLADESH: 4 get death penalty for Gazipur murder A Gazipur court has sentenced 4 men to death for killing one Morsheda Akhter 7 years ago over conjugal dispute. 1 of those convicted is the victim's husband Abu Ayub Lalon. Gazipur Additional District and Sessions Court and Special Tribunal-2 judge Md Fazle Elahi Bhuiyan delivered the verdict on Tuesday. The others convicted are Mulluk Hossain Bhuiyan, 30, Md Rana, 34, and Hanif Mia, 32. All of them have been fined Tk 10,000 each. They can challenge the sentence in a higher court within 7 days. The plaintiff, Akhter's uncle Shawkat Ali, said he was satisfied with the verdict and demanded its swift execution. But the defence counsels said they had been denied justice. They said they would move the High Court against the death sentences. According to case details, several years after their marriage in 1998, Lalon started demanding dowry and physically abusing Akhter regularly. He even threatened to kill her. Ali said Lalon had an extra-marital affair with his neighbour's wife that led to conjugal discord. "Lalon's friends hacked her on the night of Nov 5, 2008 at his behest. She succumbed to her injuries the following day at the Dhaka Medical College and Hospital," he added. Akhter, a mother of 2, was 5 months into pregnancy at that time. He filed a case with Joydebpur police on Nov 8. Locals nabbed Hanif and handed him over to police while the law-keepers arrested the other 3 later. (source: bdnews24.com) IRAN: Iran Is Executing Hundreds For Drug Crimes -- And The U.N. Is Backing Its Anti-Drug Efforts In the first five months of the year, Iranian authorities may have executed nearly 250 people for drug offenses, according to multiple human rights organizations. That's almost 2 people a day. And despite the alarming frequency with which alleged drug offenders are being put to death in the country, the United Nations is readying a multimillion-dollar package to continue helping Iranian authorities with their anti-drug efforts -- a move that critics say stands in violation of the U.N.'s own human rights policy. Of the estimated 347 executions Iran has carried out since the beginning of the year, between 220 and 241 have been of people accused of drug-related violations. Many of those people were low-level and nonviolent drug offenders, the human rights groups say. Drug-related executions appear to be on the rise, with at least 41 -- but possibly as many as 50 -- taking place in April alone, according to data provided to The WorldPost from the groups Amnesty International and Reprieve, as well as the most current public data from Iran Human Rights. If Iran continues to execute people convicted of drug-related offenses at this rate, the country will by the end of the year have put nearly twice as many people to death for such charges as human rights groups say it did in 2014. Much of the data on this issue consists of unofficial estimates, because Iranian authorities generally announce far fewer executions than actually take place, the rights groups claim. Iran has only officially acknowledged about 100 executions so far this year, and in 2014, while rights groups counted as many as 753 people put to death in Iran, the state only officially acknowledged 291 executions. Iran has a long history with the death penalty, especially for drug crimes, and for years it has been a leading executioner in the Middle East and the world. China is believed to be the only country that executes more people than Iran, with most rights groups estimating more than 1,000 total executions in 2014 -- but China keeps its death penalty program shrouded in secrecy, so exact numbers are, again, difficult to come by. Iran's draconian Anti-Narcotics Law levies the death penalty against offenders who have been convicted multiple times of planting opium poppies, coca plants or cannabis seeds with the intent to produce drugs. Execution is also imposed after multiple convictions of smuggling more than 5 kg of opium or marijuana into the country, or for buying, possessing, carrying or hiding more than 5 kg of those drugs. Other acts that carry the death penalty include smuggling, dealing, producing, distributing or exporting more than 30 grams of heroin, morphine, cocaine or their derivatives. In close proximity to Afghanistan and its booming opium supply, Iran has become a key transit route for narcotraffickers moving the crop into Europe and the United States. Iran also has one of the highest drug addiction rates in the world, with opium, meth and heroin among the most popular drugs of choice. And while Iranian authorities claim that many of the people put to death are involved in organized crime or armed smuggling, human rights groups contend that the country's judicial system -- which is marred by corruption and a lack of transparency -- frequently targets members of the most marginalized and vulnerable groups in the nation. According to various rights groups, the system is particularly unforgiving toward poor people and ethnic minorities, particularly Afghans, who arrive from countries where employment opportunities are limited and who are sometimes coerced into confessions. "It is pretty murky exactly what involvement in the drug business a lot of these defendants have," Elise Auerbach, an Iran specialist for Amnesty International, told The WorldPost. Faraz Sanei, a researcher with the Middle East and North Africa Division of Human Rights Watch, said these alleged violations of due process, combined with a "very low threshold for drug possession, which may qualify a defendant as a 'trafficker,'" has raised serious alarm among rights activists. Some activists, he said, suspect that Iranian authorities may be using drug prosecutions in part "to target and execute political dissidents or others who speak out against the government." One case that's fanned the flames of those suspicions involves Zahra Bahrami, an Iranian-Dutch woman who was arrested in 2009 for her participation in a protest over that year's presidential election, which protesters claimed was rigged. After Bahrami's initial arrest and charges over protesting, she was later charged with possession of large amounts of cocaine and opium -- an offense that is punishable by death in Iran. Human rights groups claimed the drug charges against Bahrami were fabricated, but she was nevertheless executed in 2011, with the state maintaining that she'd been part of an international drug smuggling gang. In addition to putting adults to death, Iran remains one of the few countries that executes juvenile offenders and executes adults for crimes committed while they were juveniles. Hamid Ahmadi, 24, is 1 such adult. According to Amnesty International, Ahmadi is at imminent risk of execution, although his case is currently under judicial review and concerns a crime he was allegedly involved in when he was only 16 years old. No human rights groups could confirm to The WorldPost that any juvenile offenders have been executed in Iran this year for drugs, but according to an Amnesty International report, Iran executed at least 14 people in 2014 for offenses they allegedly committed as juveniles. As Iran continues to execute citiziens for drug-related charges, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) has offered support to the country to fight drug trafficking. UNODC and Iran are in the final stages of developing a multiyear, multimillion-dollar program aimed at combating the country???s illicit drug trade, The Guardian reported in March. It's a move that Reprieve says is in conflict with the U.N.'s stance on the death penalty, because those funds, Reprieve says, are likely to lead to more arrests -- and some of those arrests will likely lead to hangings. U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has said the U.N. opposes the use of capital punishment for drug crimes. The U.N.'s own human rights guidance is clear on the issue as well: "If, following requests for guarantees and high-level political intervention, executions for drug related offences continue, UNODC may have no choice but to employ a temporary freeze or withdrawal of support." Still, the U.N. carries on with its anti-drug program in Iran, though it's 1 of more than 30 countries around the world that put people to death for drug offenses, according to the Lawyers Collective, a human rights group based in India. "If the UNODC followed its own human rights policy it would have ended funding for Iranian drug raids years ago," said Dan Dolan, who works with Reprieve's death penalty team, in an email to The WorldPost. "Instead it is lining up a generous 5 year funding deal for Iran's brutal drug police, despite a near doubling in the rate at which Iran is hanging drug offenders. This represents a shameful disregard for human rights on the part of the UNODC, which publicly claims to oppose the death penalty while funding aggressive raids which send drug mules to death row." In February, Yury Fedotov, executive director of UNODC, championed what he described as the anti-drug efforts Iran has made over the decades. He added that UNODC and Iran were partnering in the fight against drugs in the region. "The UNODC and Iran will finalize a 5-year anti-drug plan in the next 2 months," Fedotov said, according to Fars News Agency. Fedotov also said that UNODC would try to supply Iran with various equipment needed to fight against narcotraffickers -- equipment that the country hasn't been able to secure for itself due to Western sanctions. David Dadge, a spokesman for Fedotov, declined to confirm the details of the U.N.'s 2015 anti-drug program with Iran. He did, however, refer The WorldPost to the organization's public documents about the multifaceted anti-narcotic program that the U.N. pursued in Iran between 2011 and 2014. Dadge declined to confirm the dollar figure of the more recent Iran plan or say whether it's been finalized. The U.N.'s current anti-trafficking program in Iran is due to end in early June, and most human rights groups and other observers expect the new program to be in place by then. Between 2011 and 2014, the U.N. spent roughly $5.5 million to secure Iran's borders and fight drug trafficking in the country. That money came from multiple European partner nations. Dadge declined to name the European nations funding the 2015 program. "If [international donors] are to avoid direct complicity in grave human rights abuses, donors should make their support to UNODC programs strictly conditional on recipient states abolishing the death penalty for drug offenses," Dolan said. Earlier this month, 2 U.N. human rights experts sharply condemned Iran's rising execution tally. They called on the Iranian government to cease executions immediately and fall in line with the U.N.'s 2007 urging that member nations suspend the death penalty. "When the Iranian government refuses to even acknowledge the full extent of executions which have occurred, it shows a callous disregard for both human dignity and international human rights law," said Ahmed Shaheed, a U.N. special rapporteur on human rights in Iran, in a statement. Iran has flatly rejected the allegations of an increase in executions, with Marzieh Afkham, the spokeswoman for Iran's foreign ministry, calling the U.N. criticism a "downright lie" and claiming that Iran only uses capital punishment for the "most serious crimes, including narcotics trafficking." (source: Matt Ferner, Huffington Post) From rhalperi at smu.edu Tue May 19 14:38:20 2015 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Tue, 19 May 2015 14:38:20 -0500 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----VA., USA Message-ID: May 19 VIRGINIA: Column: Bishops' Statement on Death Penalty Debate----To build a culture of life we must respect the sanctity of even "unlovable" lives. This year, through the advocacy of the Virginia Catholic Conference, our Church spent considerable time opposing legislation related to the death penalty. The proposed measure would have permitted the Commonwealth to arrange with compounding pharmacies to mix drugs for use in executions, hiding from the public the identities of the pharmacies and materials used. Thankfully, this bill was defeated. So, too, was a measure the Virginia General Assembly considered last year - also opposed by the Conference - that would have forced death row inmates to be electrocuted if lethal injection drugs are not available. Meanwhile, Pope Francis delivered a message which sharply contrasted these disturbing debates. "There is discussion in some quarters about the method of killing, as if it were possible to find ways of 'getting it right' ....," the Pope wrote in a recent letter about the death penalty. "But there is no humane way of killing another person." Pope Francis' keen observation adds an exclamation point to the rejection of these "method of execution" bills. In Virginia, we are indeed having the wrong debate - a reality clearly visible in light of all we celebrate during this Easter season. In these final joyful weeks of Easter, the Church continues to celebrate the gift of eternal life offered through the Resurrection. In our pilgrimage to that life, we follow Jesus, who loved and forgave us from the Cross, by living out the teaching of our faith that all human life is sacred, from the moment of conception until natural death. This conviction is reflected in our understanding that the poor and vulnerable have the 1st claim on our consciences, in our opposition to abortion and euthanasia, and in our responsibility to welcome immigrants and refugees. But our faith also challenges us to declare sacred even the least lovable among us, those convicted of committing brutal crimes which have brought them the ultimate penalty, the penalty of death. The Church's teaching on the death penalty is succinctly stated in a 2005 U.S. Bishops' statement, "A Culture of Life and the Penalty of Death:" "No matter how heinous the crime, if society can protect itself without ending a human life, it should do so." This statement is the teaching of the Catechism, and for decades Popes John Paul II, Benedict XVI, and Francis consistently have urged us to embrace it. To be sure, this teaching challenges many people, including ourselves when we reflect on violent crimes and lives lost in senseless and unimaginable ways. The deep pain, grief, and suffering of those who have lost loved ones to violence cry out for our care and attention. More killing, though, is not the answer: The death penalty does not provide true healing for those who mourn, nor does it embody the Gospel of Life, which each of us is called to affirm even in the most difficult circumstances. It is also important to note that people have been executed despite serious doubts about their guilt, and inmates who languished on death row for decades have been freed after their innocence was proven. Since 1973, some 152 death row inmates nationwide - including 1 in Virginia - have been exonerated. We must also be aware of the racial inequity inherent in the system, and that the death penalty has been administered to individuals with severe intellectual disabilities. These circumstances further illustrate that, in Virginia and elsewhere, we are having the wrong debate. We should no longer debate which inmates we execute or how we execute them. Instead, we should debate this: If all human lives are sacred and if a civilized society such as ours can seek redress and protect itself by means other than taking a human life, why are we continuing to execute people? By ending the use of the death penalty we would take one important step - among significant others we must take - to abandon the culture of death and embrace the culture of life. As Pope Francis reminds us, there is no humane way of taking a life. Let us not choose whether to use lethal drugs, electric chairs, gas chambers, or firing squads. Let us take the more courageous step and choose life instead, even when it seems "unlovable." (source: Bishop Francis X. DiLorenzo And Bishop Paul S. Loverde, Catholic Diocese of Arlington---- connectionnewspapers.com) USA: Death Penalty There was little surprise in a federal jury voting death for Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, and little ground for sympathy to be found in the record of the defendant himself beyond his sheer youth. While the evidence presented at trial seemed to confirm the picture of his enraged older brother Tamerlan as the radicalized instigator of their brutal and nihilistic marathon plot, Dzhokhar's protracted and active role ahead of time, and his stone-cold activities in the hours following the bombing - calmly cruising the dairy aisle at Whole Foods - are not the material from which a strong mitigation case is made. To spare him, the jury would have had to vote against capital punishment itself; since they were "death qualified" ahead of time in the selection process this was never in the cards. But while perhaps inevitable, Tsarnaev's federal-court death sentence is still profoundly unsettling for most Bostonians - and should be unsettling nationwide too. Tsarnaev was sentenced to death in a state which had abolished capital punishment 31 years ago; in a city whose residents had overwhelmingly preferred him to be imprisoned for life; and in a courtroom in which sat survivors and family members left bereft by the Tsarnaevs' warped jihad who themselves were deeply divided about his fate. What does it mean that a killer is sentenced to die by lethal injection against the wishes - expressed in law, polls and the words of many survivors - of the very community he injured? What is the purpose of a federal prosecution imposing capital punishment on a region which wants none of it, at a moment when capital punishment has been abandoned by more than one third of all states? State death-penalty law, for better or worse, is usually a deep reflection of local history, culture and debate. That's true in the states which still routinely execute prisoners - Texas, Oklahoma and the deep-South death penalty strongholds; those which shut their death rows decades ago, such as West Virginia and Michigan; and of the nine states which have abolished capital punishment since 1980, including Massachusetts. The federal death penalty, on the other hand, is a different story: largely a recent invention, radically expanded during a few brief years of Bill Clinton's presidency. Ever since, the federal death penalty - both in the laws passed by Congress and the cases selectively pursued by U.S. attorneys - has been all about politics of the most cynically expedient variety. Most relevant to the Tsarnaev case, the federal death penalty has been a convenient vehicle for Washington Republicans and Democrats alike to profit from the same terrorism panic which after 9/11 saddled us with the Patriot Act. Up until 20 years ago, the federal death penalty was limited to treason and a handful of other rare offenses not covered by state criminal laws. But in 1994, the Clinton administration - responding to the 1st World Trade Center bombing and otherwise hoping to burnish its tough-on-crime credentials - radically expanded capital punishment, writing terrorism in among dozens of new federal death-penalty offenses into that year's sweeping criminal-justice reform package. It didn't do much good; 7 months after the bill was signed, Timothy McVeigh and 2 co-conspirators bombed the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City (a tragedy whose 20th anniversary was marked during the Tsarnaev trial). So the next year, Clinton and Congress went even further, pushing through the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act. This package - surely one of the most deceptively-labeled bills of all time - limited habeas corpus and otherwise weakened the protections offered to state and federal death-row prisoners alike, most having nothing to do with terrorism, national security or anything other than conventional murder. Between them, these two reforms gutted the federal appeals rights of conventional death-row prisoners. By putting crimes previously prosecuted by states onto the federal books, they also enabled U.S. attorneys to push capital trials into non-death-penalty jurisdictions, occasionally leading to notable conflicts. In 2011, for instance, federal prosecutors in Rhode Island - a state without capital punishment since the 80s - insisted on pursuing capital charges against a gas-station robber who would otherwise have been tried, convicted and sentenced in state criminal courts. Then-Governor Lincoln Chafee, incensed at this imposition of a death-penalty trial on his state, committed a singular act of civil disobedience: for almost 2 years he refused to hand the offender over to the feds. The dispute was only settled when the robber pleaded guilty in return for life without parole. But terrorism? As far as national security is concerned, the federal death penalty has been meaningless. It did nothing to deter Oklahoma City, the 9/11 attacks, or ideologically motivated lone-wolves like Nidal Malik Hassan, the Fort Hood shooter, or the Tsarnaevs. Meanwhile Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and other 9/11 conspirators won't even be tried under the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act, since the same politicians who clamor for the death penalty for terrorism suspects are unwilling to entrust Guantanamo prisoners to U.S. courts. In 1994, the death penalty could at least be claimed as policy in the overwhelming majority, if not totality, of states. The Clinton administration's promotion of capital prosecution could perhaps be defended as effective electoral politics. Now, with the death penalty abolished in 18 states, that consensus is over. Whether the federal government will even have a mechanism for eventually executing Tsarnaev is now in a matter of debate. The last time a terrorist bomber was executed was McVeigh, killed by lethal injection in Indiana in June 2001. At his execution, news reporters noted tears streaming from one otherwise-immobile eye as the court-approved 3-drug poison regimen pumped through his veins. Those tears caught the attention of a Columbia University anesthesiologist named Dr. Mark Heath; from operating room experience Heath recognized it not as a sign of emotion but as a classic scientific indication that the pain-masking sedative in the federal government's killing cocktail was wearing off, with McVeigh still paralyzed but now in unspeakable agony. From McVeigh's teardrop and Heath's diagnosis flowed 15 years of medical journal and law review articles, lawsuits and worldwide alarm about the procurement of drugs for America's lethal injections. International pressure led drug companies to refuse to supply state corrections departments with the cocktail's ingredients. During the Tsarnaev trial, the lethal-injection debate reached the Supreme Court, with a fractious and macabre argument among the justices over whether the injection of substitute death-row cocktails, improvised from shadowy suppliers, amount to cruel and unusual punishment. It should be clear by now that the federal death penalty, far from reflecting social consensus or meaningful deterrence, is entirely political in nature - designed to sell the capital punishment back to states that clearly rejected it, and to inoculate Democratic and Republican presidents alike in the country's most ardently pro-execution regions. But the criminal-justice culture war has turned around. In a new libertarian wave, Congress, the president and state legislatures are variously ratcheting down the drug war, reversing 3-strikes criminal laws and trying desperately to empty overcrowded, expensive and dangerously ill-functioning prisons. In 1994, Bill Clinton Democrats played the federal death penalty card to retain their hold in divided states. But since then 6 states, including four that today have Republican governors - New Jersey, New Mexico, Maryland and Illinois - have since turned back from the death penalty. Please support our journalism. Get a digital subscription for just $9.50! It's a different time. 3 of Hillary Rodham Clinton's Democratic rivals - Chafee, Maryland's former Governor Martin O'Malley and Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders - are death-penalty opponents. Chaffee, who 4 years ago had taken that principled stand against federal prosecutors, and O'Malley, who as Governor abolished capital punishment in Maryland, made statements of respect for the Boston jury, but made clear their determination to stay the abolitionist course. Sooner or later the federal death penalty will be a Democratic campaign issue, and Hillary Clinton will be challenged on her views. While Boston Mayor Marty Walsh and Governor Charlie Baker both expressed hope that the verdict would bring, in Baker's words, "some kind of closure," they, like the rest of Boston, kept their response low-key. They understood that this verdict is not one that most people in their city and state would seek. They clearly did not want to be part of any national cheering section. And while closure may be what politicians are expected to seek, there's no evidence the federal death penalty - or any capital punishment law - provides it. For Boston Tsarnaev's federal death sentence can only prolong the agony, keeping the bomber front and center for years to come. In the words of Bill and Denise Richard, whose son was killed and daughter maimed in the Marathon bombing, "As long as the defendant is in the spotlight, we have no choice but to live a story told on his terms, not ours." (source: Bruce Shapiro, The Nation) From rhalperi at smu.edu Tue May 19 14:39:05 2015 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Tue, 19 May 2015 14:39:05 -0500 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide Message-ID: May 19 HUNGARY: Hungarian PM defends death penalty debate Hungary's PM Viktor Orban on Tuesday (19 May) brushed aside mounting international criticism against state discussion on migrants and the possible reintroduction of the death penalty. "Not everything is inscribed in stone. These rules are created by men and can therefore be changed by men. This is freedom, this is democracy," he told MEPs at the Strasbourg plenary. The prime minister in April said capital punishment should be kept on the agenda in Hungary despite an EU-wide ban. He said Hungary is not making any formal moves to reintroduce it but said there is no EU law that bans them from discussing such issues in public. His conservative government, which in recent years has been at the receiving end of sharp criticism from the European Parliament and the European Commission, has also equated the migration crisis with terrorist threats. Last month, Orban announced plans for a "national consultation" on immigration and terrorism. The consultation is part of a larger legislative initiative to detain and return irregular migrants and asylum seekers. The questions ask people to agree or disagree with statements such as "economic migrants jeopardise the jobs and livelihoods of Hungarians" and if "mismanagement of the immigration question by Brussels may have something to do with increased terrorism." Orban on Tuesday reaffirmed his hard stand against plans by the EU commission to impose a quota system on asylum. "I think it is insane to propose letting in all immigrants into Europe and then introducing some artificial quotas on how to divide them between member states. Quotas are only going to bring more people to Europe, it is an incentive for human traffickers," he said. The nuclear option But Frans Timmermans, the EU's vice-president, was having none of it. He said any plans to reintroduce capital punishment would trigger the EU Treaty's article seven procedure, which can lead to the suspension of a country's voting rights in the EU Council. "If the Hungarian government were to take steps to reintroduce the death penalty, let me underline, that the commission is ready to use, immediately, all the means at its disposal to ensure that Hungary complies with its obligations," he said. "We will not hesitate 1 second on a such a case." He noted that article 2 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights prohibits any person from being condemned to death or executed. "The abolition of the death penalty is a condition, which states are required to meet in order to become members of the Council of Europe or of the European Union," he said. Timmermans noted that Hungary's public consultation on migrants is based on bias and on misleading questions. "[It] can hardly be considered a fair and objective basis for designing sound policies," he said. "Framing immigration in the context of terrorism, depicting migrants as threat to the livelihoods of people, is malicious and simply wrong." Centre-right defends Hungary But for his part, German MEP Manfred Weber, who heads the centre-right EPP group, pointed out that Hungary's 2.8 % GDP growth is putting it "in Europe's driving seat." He said the figures, and Orban's repeated victories at the ballot box, shows it is doing better than many of the "left-governed countries in Europe." Hungary's ruling Fidesz party is a member of the EPP. Despite the praise, Weber said there is no question of capital punishment ever being reintroduced. "Any talk about it [death penalty] is dangerous and damaging," he said. The Council, representing member states, said it had no position on the matter. (source: euobserver.com) SAUDI ARABIA: Headhunting in Saudi: Executioners wanted 2 years after Saudi Arabia nearly had to end beheadings due to a shortage of swordsmen, the oil-rich nation of 30 million people is taking a new tack. Help wanted ads. This week the Saudi Ministry of Civil Service began advertising for 8 additional swordsmen to conduct executions, lob the hands off of thieves, and perform similar duties. Beheadings are actually mandated under Sharia Law, although Saudi leaders considered adopting firing squads as an alternative in 2013 due to a lack of swordsmen. No previous experience is necessary, the ministry notes. The job description, which mentions "religious functions," includes "implementation of the rule of murder by Islamic law after the issuance of the Islamic ruling," and "functions of the perpetrators of retribution." Human Rights Watch reports that the Saudis already have beheaded 85 people this year, just a few short of the nation's total for all of 2014. The United States, with about 10 times the population, executed 35 people last year. Execution is not a punishment limited to murderers in Saudi, however, Crimes punishable also include rape, adultery, blasphemy, drug crimes and sorcery. It's not clear what the pay is, but The New York Times reports that in Qassim Province, north of the capital, Riyadh, the swordsman has a full time job guarding the region's prince and carries out executions on the side -- at more than $1,000 per head. (source: USA Today) From rhalperi at smu.edu Wed May 20 08:48:44 2015 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Wed, 20 May 2015 08:48:44 -0500 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, MISS., OKLA., NEB., CALIF., USA Message-ID: May 20 TEXAS: Death penalty still a blight on the soul of Texas The death sentence handed down by a jury to Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev has brought the issue of capital punishment to the forefront of the nation's conscience once more. Of course, here in Texas, executing people has become so common that most people barely take notice anymore. Shortly after Tsarnaev was charged with capital murder, I proclaimed that then-Attorney General Eric Holder was wrong in seeking the death penalty in the case, and I had hoped that the Boston jury would agree instead on a sentence of life in prison. Just as Holder was wrong, so is our new Attorney General Loretta Lynch in saying that death for Tsarnaev is a "fitting punishment." Capital punishment should never be "fitting" in a civilized society. Yes, the Boston bombing was a horrible crime and no doubt Tsarnaev was guilty. But neither a state nor the country ought to be in the killing business, which is why I oppose all executions, including those of other notorious criminals like: Timothy McVeigh, the Oklahoma City bomber; John Allen Muhammad, the Washington-area sniper; Nidal Hasan, the Fort Hood shooter; and Saddam Hussein, Iraq's brutal dictator. With that in mind, you should understand why I've opposed all 525 executions carried out in Texas since 1982, when the state resumed putting prisoners to death. And with 2 more men scheduled to die next month - the 8th and 9th this year should their punishments be carried out - I once again raise objection to this brutality of the state. The executions set for June also allow us to focus on a dilemma the state faces as more drug manufacturers refuse to sell the lethal products to be used in executing individuals, giving some of us hope that the unavailability of the proper pharmaceuticals might be the way to stop capital punishment. Texas and some other states, however, have begun using unidentified pharmacies with the ability to compound drugs, with the states refusing to make known who the suppliers are. Although a judge has ordered that Texas must identify its drug suppliers, that case is being appealed and the court order is on hold. An execution this month had left Texas with only 1 remaining dose of its lethal drug, meaning it would have had only enough to kill 1 person in June, not 2, Michael Graczyk of The Associated Press reported. But it seems a new supply has been purchased, meaning the deaths of Gregory Russeau and Lester Bower won't be stopped - that is, for the lack of drugs. The Bower case is particularly interesting because he has been on death row for 31 years this month. Only 1 other man spent 31 years on Texas death row before being executed. An Arlington resident accused of killing 4 men in an aircraft hanger near Sherman in 1983, Bower has maintained his innocence. 6 times his pending execution has been halted, the last time in February when the Supreme Court decided to take up his latest claims that included his being subjected to cruel and unusual punishment because of his length of time on death row and the number of times he faced imminent execution. In March the high court turned down his appeal, paving the way for his seventh scheduled date with the executioner. At 67, Bower would become the oldest man to be executed in Texas, another one for the record books in the country's leading death penalty state. (source: Column; Bob Ray Sanders, Fort Worth Star-Telegram) MISSISSIPPI: Condemned Mississippi inmate wants mental health hearing Attorneys for a Mississippi death row inmate asked the state Supreme Court on Tuesday to order a hearing on his mental health as a possible step toward overturning his conviction. The attorney general's office opposed the request, saying a trial judge properly handled the capital murder case against Erik Wayne Hollie, who pleaded guilty in the 2009 killing of a pawn shop owner. After listening to more than an hour of arguments, justices gave no indication of how or when they might rule. Hollie, now 30, was sentenced to death by a Copiah County jury in 2010 after he pleaded guilty to capital murder in the killing of Wesson Pawn Shop owner Denmon Ward. Hollie's public defender, Alison Steiner, who came to the case years after Hollie was convicted, told justices that shortly after Hollie was sent to prison, he was found to be suffering from "a bipolar-type situation." She said the condition could not have developed quickly, and indicated Hollie had been mentally incompetent at the time of trial, when he waived the assistance of another defense attorney and pleaded guilty. "There were times he could appear perfectly normal and times he could appear completely irrational," Steiner said. She said that during sentencing, Hollie underwent an evaluation by a psychiatrist who was agreed upon by prosecutors and defense attorneys. Steiner told justices that she believes Hollie was "faking" good mental health so he could "go to a proceeding where he could commit suicide by jury." In a videotaped discussion with investigators, Hollie said God had told him to kill Ward, she said. A circuit judge should have held a hearing to more fully examine Hollie's mental health, she said. Steiner said medical records from prison show doctors have treated him for depression and other mental disorders with psychotropic medications including Prozac and Remeron. Jason L. Davis, a special assistant attorney general, argued said the issue of Hollie's mental competency was "completely abandoned" by this original defense attorney long ago. Davis said that although opponents of the death penalty might not like the circumstances, "this is a case of an individual who took responsibility - who took responsibility for his actions, who pled gulity and asked to be sentenced to death." Mississippi law says a person can be sentenced to death for killing someone if there is another felony involved. Steiner said jurors in Hollie's case were told about 2 possible other felonies that could be used to make his a death-penalty case. One was a robbery that prosecutors said took place during the killing of Ward at the pawn shop. The other was Hollie's guilty plea to an earlier armed robbery. She said jurors used his record from the previous armed robbery as the reason for setting a death penalty. However, she questioned whether that was proper. She said the trial court had not fully finished processing the earlier armed robbery plea before he was sentenced to death in the capital murder case. (source: Associated Press) OKLAHOMA: Man will face death penalty in 2009 'Cathouse' killings trial in Oklahoma A man accused of the killing of a drug dealer and 3 women - including 2 who were pregnant - will face the death penalty at trial. Russell Lee Hogshooter, 37, will be tried on 6 counts of 1st-degree murder and 1 count of conspiracy, Oklahoma County Special Judge Fred Doak ruled Tuesday. Hogshooter is 1 of 2 men charged with the 2009 slayings in November. The other man, Jonathan Allen Cochran, 35, has pleaded guilty and is serving a 25-year prison sentence for his role. 1 of the victims, 22-year-old Brooke Phillips, was a prostitute featured on "Cathouse," a reality television show about a Nevada brothel. Cochran testified Tuesday to what prosecutors have long alleged - Casey Mark Barrientos, 32, was the target of the attack. Phillips, Jennifer Lynn Ermey, 25, and Milagros "Millie" Barrera, 22, were killed to eliminate them as witnesses, Cochran testified. Phillips and Barrera were pregnant. The initial plan was to rob the house of money and drugs while nobody was home, but the assailants agreed to kill anyone they found inside the home and armed themselves before leaving Salina, OK, for Oklahoma City, Cochran said. (source: The Oklahoman) ***************** Miles Bench Awaits Execution in Oklahoma Convicted Stephens County killer, Miles Bench is now in his new cell awaiting execution on Oklahoma's death row in McAlester. The death warrant was signed by the judge last week. Bench was found guilty of the beating death in 2012 of 16-year-old Braylee Henry in the convenience store in Velma where he worked. His execution is set for the 1st week of August. However, his attorneys have filed papers to appeal the sentence. The Stephens County jury recommended the death penalty on march 6, after finding him guilty. Before and during his trial, his attorneys had attempted to have him declared mentally incompetent, but failed. Oklahoma's executions by lethal injection were put on hold after problems, but last month the governor signed a bill to allow use of nitrogen gas for executions if lethal injection is not reinstated. (source: texomashomepage.com) NEBRASKA: Nebraska lawmakers out of touch with rest of state, Gov. Ricketts says Gov. Pete Ricketts said Tuesday that state lawmakers are "out of touch" with their fellow Nebraskans on several fronts. Ricketts said lawmakers were not listening to the public when they passed a hike in the gas tax. And he said they're not listening to the public each and every time they advance a bill to repeal the death penalty. "The Legislature is out of touch with what Nebraskans believe," Ricketts said during an appearance on "The Bottom Line," The World-Herald's Internet radio show. Nebraska has 11 men on death row. The last time the state executed anyone was in 1997. Ricketts said he believes that most Nebraskans continue to support the ultimate punishment for those people who commit the worst crimes. He also said prosecutors often use the death penalty as leverage to negotiate plea deals with murderers, and it helps protect prison guards because inmates with life sentences otherwise would have nothing to lose if they killed while in prison. "We use it judiciously (in Nebraska)," said Ricketts. "We don't overuse it." Ricketts said the state will eventually have all the drugs needed to perform its first execution by lethal injection. 3 inmates on death row have exhausted their appeals. In the past, the state has had trouble acquiring all 3 drugs needed to perform an execution by lethal injection. But last week, Ricketts announced that a drug distributor in India, HarrisPharma, agreed to sell 2 necessary drugs to Nebraska. Once the drugs are delivered, Ricketts said, the state will be ready to push for those executions. He said Attorney General Doug Peterson also believes that the state will be able to perform its 1st execution in 18 years. "We are all in lockstep with our ability to do this," said Ricketts. Of the 3 drugs in Nebraska's lethal injection protocol, sodium thiopental has been the most difficult to obtain because U.S. manufacturers have quit making it, and several foreign suppliers have banned its use for executions. (source: omaha.com) CALIFORNIA: DA: Ernesto Martinez will still face death penalty Riverside County prosecutors have decided they will continue to seek the death penalty for Ernesto Salgado Martinez, an Indio man who has already been sentenced to execution for killing a policeman in Arizona. District Attorney Mike Hestrin held a meeting with his top prosecutors on Monday to strategize about how to best prosecute Martinez, but ultimately decided to stay the course in the killer's stagnating court case. "During the discussion of the factual and procedural history of this case, several questions arose that I believe need to be answered before I can come to a final decision," Hestrin said in an emailed statement to The Desert Sun on Tuesday. "The nature of the information I needed to make my decision was such that I directed my staff to take more time to research and gather the requested information. We plan to reconvene the staffing in the near future but, at this point, I have not changed our current position that we are seeking the death penalty for Mr. Martinez." Martinez, 39, is in jail in Riverside awaiting trial in the death of Blythe storekeeper Randip Singh nearly 20 years ago, on Aug. 15, 1996. Martinez is simultaneously on death row in Arizona, where he has been previously convicted of murdering Arizona Highway Patrolman Bob Martin, about 8 hours before Singh was shot. Martinez shot Martin on the edge of State Road 87, then drove across the state line into Blythe, where police say he killed Singh in a robbery after running out of gas. Martinez was extradited to California in 2010, and has since defended himself in county court, delaying his trial in the Blythe shooting. Today, Martinez, who has spent more than 1/2 of his life behind bars, is one of the most dangerous inmates in Riverside County. Currently, Martinez has a pending appeal in federal court in Arizona, so the pending California trial is not delaying his execution. However, the local case is keeping Martinez in Riverside County, where he is absorbing tax dollars and endangering other inmates and jail staff. Riverside County has spent more than $230,000 to jail Martinez since he was extradited in 2010. In addition, Martinez's court case has demanded countless hours from prosecutors and court employees. Martinez has also tricked an Indio judge into appointing his mistress as his government-funded paralegal, and allegedly stabbed one of his cell mates more than 50 times in 2011. The complexities of Martinez's unusual court case were recently explored in an in-depth Desert Sun investigation, published earlier this month. During an interview for that investigation, Hestrin said he would consider abandoning the pursuit of the death penalty in this case, which would allow the case to proceed quicker, and for Martinez to return to Arizona sooner. "He is incredibly dangerous because he is so bright," Hestrin said. "I would like to get him out of our system and out of our jail. And one of the ways to do that is to get this case to trial as quickly as possible." Statements like that one led Sandi Martin, the window of Arizona Officer Bob Martin, to expect local prosecutors would change course in the Martinez case. On Monday, Martin said she was "surprised" when prosecutors confirmed they would continue to pursue death. "It sounded crazy to me," Martin said, adding later, "I thought they would settle for life ... but I think they are erring on the side of caution. They said they want to make sure they want a death penalty hanging over his head." Martin said she was comforted by the fact that local prosecutors have assured her they will not allow Martinez's local trial to delay his execution. Prosecutors promised that, if Martinez's Arizona appeal is resolved before his California trial is finished, he will be immediately sent back to Arizona for execution regardless, Martin said. Still, Martin said she was concerned that Martinez would remain in Riverside. "He's dangerous no matter where he is at, but he's much more secure over here (in Arizona) because he's on death row and not in a county jail," she said. "That bothers me." The quickest way for Riverside County to end the Martinez case would be for prosecutors to simply drop the charges from the Blythe shooting. If this was done, Singh's murder would remain technically unsolved, but Martinez would immediately return to Arizona's death row, where he would await execution without draining Riverside County funds. Hestrin said earlier this month that, although dropping the charges would bring a speedy end to Martinez's quagmire case, prosecutors would be shirking their "obligation to seek justice." Martinez has declined to be interviewed by The Desert Sun. During his latest court hearing, on April 17, Martinez told a judge that he would like his case to be transferred to the courthouse in Indio, but he does not mind being jailed in Riverside. "I'm housed here in Riverside," Martinez said. "All is well. Living the dream." (source: The Desert Sun) USA: Don't expect executions to resume any time soon When the U.S. Bureau of Prisons began the process of designating a federal death row and execution chamber back in the early 1990s, the people of Terre Haute were mostly ambivalent about the prospect of the local federal prison being used for that purpose. That casual, pragmatic acceptance of the possibility of death row being placed here, combined with the rural prison's central geographic location within the federal system, led the riverside site on the city's south side to become the eventual choice. Convicted Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh was executed by lethal injection in June of 2001, the 1st federal prisoner put to death since capital punishment was reinstituted in 1976. (The death penalty had been ruled unconstitutional in 1972.) Even during that high-tension period when the national and international media descended on Terre Haute en masse to cover the event, the community mostly remained stoic in the midst of the media atmospherics. Since that 1st execution at the federal prison complex, it has become the place where condemned inmates come to die, even though few actually have. Only others have been executed here, one a week after McVeigh was put to death, and a second in 2003. In 2010, with controversy over the death penalty swirling nationwide, the U.S. Department of Justice effectively put a moratorium on executions in the federal system while all policies and procedures of the process are reviewed. Today, there are 55 federal inmates on death row at the Terre Haute prison. But no executions are scheduled. Don't expect them to resume any time soon. The most recent federal inmate sentenced to death is Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the convicted Boston Marathon bomber. The 21-year-old native of Kyrgyzstan conspired with his brother, Tamerlan, to detonate two powerful bombs loaded with shrapnel near the finish line of the Boston Marathon in 2013. The blasts killed 3 people and injured more than 200 others. While being pursued by police in the days following the bombings, the brothers killed a campus police officer at MIT. Tamerlan later was killed in a shootout with police, but Dzhokhar, although injured, was eventually captured, tried and convicted of a host of counts related to the bombings. The imposition of the death sentence by a jury last week once again placed Terre Haute and its federal prison in the limelight. We doubt the glow will last for long. Tsarnaev and his attorneys aggressively fought the death penalty and will undoubtedly appeal the sentence with equal vigor. Several of the current death row inmates have been living under their sentences for more than 15 years, and it is not uncommon for capital punishment appeals to last a decade or more. If and when Tsarnaev is housed at the local penitentiary, he will be among the more high-profile inmates on death row. Still, we doubt any future execution could surpass the level of interest the McVeigh execution did. Any fears that Terre Haute's image could somehow be defined, even tainted, by the presence of the federal execution chamber have been quelled. Given how things have evolved in the past 15 to 20 years, they are unlikely to re-emerge in the future. (source: Editorial, Terre Haute Tribune Star) ***************** The Fetishization of Revenge Dzhokhar Tsarnaev has just been sentenced to death by a federal jury for his role in the Boston Marathon bombings. The sentence has been met with a lot of discomfort in Boston and the surrounding environs. Massachusetts is predisposed to rejecting capital punishment as a general rule. Even in this case, where the terror and horror hit so close to home, the people of Massachusetts are leery of the death penalty. And for good reason. The application of the death penalty in the United States is rife with racism, false guilt, and corruption. The nation is slowly but surely moving towards abolishing the practice. But there are still many men (and a few women) on death row, and it stands to statistical reasoning that at least some are innocent. With an average of 4 people exonerated annually from death row, it's impossible to believe some have not fallen through the cracks. In light of the at best questionable guilt of many of the people facing execution or already killed, trusting the United States to apply the death penalty fairly requires a suspension of disbelief. This suspension of disbelief is as follows: the United States has the right to put people to death and even though it may have erred in the past, this time will be different. This time, the United States is acting in accordance to its own rules and justice will be served. Unfortunately for that point of view, the US has proven again and again that it has little to no understanding of or care for the rule of law when it comes to acts of oppression against its own citizens. From surveillance to torture to assassination, the US acts as it wishes in relation to its citizenry (to say nothing of the rest of the world). In this light, it's not hard to see where the American love affair with the death penalty comes from at the administrative level. What's even more disturbing is the fetishization of revenge that the American people take part in by endorsing the government's right to kill its citizens. Although support for the death penalty has fallen drastically in the last twenty years, a plurality of Americans still support it outright and many- paradoxically- support it with the caveat that it only be used on certain criminals for certain crimes. And this support comes from the public, those whose lives could be destroyed by false evidence or the whims of a prosecutor, the desire of the government to send a message or simply a misled jury. It boggles the mind. Even in the case of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, there are inconsistencies. Tsarnaez's guilt in the horrific attack on the Boston Marathon is not in question. He has admitted his role and culpability. In fact, if there were a case that the death penalty could be applied with little to no worry about innocence or questions of justice, this might be it. But of course this is hardly the whole story There are questions about how the jury reached the death sentence. The Intercept's Murtaza Hussain has already written a thorough article detailing the questionable practices of the judge in the case to force the jury to find for death. The federal government, prosecuting the case, acted to stymy any conceivable action by the defense to change the venue to one less emotionally resonant than Boston. Even in a case as open and shut as this, where the accused has admitted his guilt, the government feels it is necessary to lie and prevaricate to garner the public's support for killing. This should be a red flag for anyone still holding out hope that the death penalty is a legitimate punitive measure as applied by the government. Support for the death penalty is support for the government having the power of life and death over its citizenry. It's not a power the people should support, especially when the government in question has as troubled a record with legislative matters of life and death as the United States. Even when the accused is Dzhokhar Tsarnaev. (source: Eoin Higgins is a writer and historian from upstate New York. He is a recent graduate of the Masters in History program at Fordham University's Graduate School of Arts and Sciences----Huffington Post) **************** Dzhokhar Tsarnaev and America???s tortured death penalty system----The U.S. participates in a ritual that every other advanced democracy has abandoned and justice is rarely served It took only 14 hours of deliberations for the 12-member jury tasked with deciding the fate of Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev to pass down their judgment. 7 women and 5 men, all hand-picked because of their openness to capital punishment, concluded this past Friday that the 21-year old deserves death on 6 of the 15 counts in which death was an option. The sentence has ignited equal amounts of jubilation as it has anger. Some of the victims of the 2013 attack celebrated, others lamented the outcome. The array of emotions on display at a downtown Boston courthouse reflected the controversy surrounding this case, one in which a state that abolished the death penalty 30 years ago played host to a federal trial that resulted in the death penalty. The contradiction sits at the heart of the capital punishment debate in America today and has touched off a firestorm centred around why exactly the U.S continues to participate in a ritual that every other advanced democracy has abandoned. "Capital punishment in America today," writes sociologist David Garland in his book, Peculiar Institution: America's Death Penalty in an Age of Abolition, "is a story of a legal norm combined with its widespread evasion." The development of the institution since the 19th century, he argues, has been a process of the proceduralization of death ???not to terrorize onlookers with a spectacle of suffering but to carry out the court's death sentence in an efficient, humane manner." On the one hand, the majority of Americans demand retribution for the most heinous crimes while on the other, a legal system must prove its liberal democratic credentials, including its adherence to humanistic values. The lengths to which the system will go to avoid executing a death row inmate is astonishing. Of the 26 federal capital convictions since 1988, when the U.S. Supreme Court lifted a moratorium on executions, only three have been carried out. At the state level, besides Texas, executions are similarly rare. In Tennessee, for instance, where a moratorium on executions was lifted in 2000, more death row prisoners have died of natural causes than have been executed. The likelihood that Tsarnaev will actually be executed is extremely low, experts say. Occasionally, the aversion to executing death row prisoners slips into the surreal. In one case in Pennsylvania, a man convicted of murder in 2000 became so distraught with the time it was taking to have his death sentence overturned that finally, in 2009, he wrote a letter to the governor demanding his own death. In a Kafkaesque twist, his state-appointed defence lawyers then had him declared incompetent. As of last April, he was still demanding to die. Advocates of abolishing the death penalty point out that the dysfunction in the system undermines any notions of justice and retribution, and ultimately ends up costing taxpayers more than putting a person behind bars for life. Moreover, they argue, families must suffer through years of appeals that rehash the pain of the crime, meaning the closure they were promised when the death penalty was applied is never delivered. The parents of Martin Richard, the youngest victim of the Boston marathon bombing, made that point when they publicly opposed the death penalty for Tsarnaev. "We know that the government has its reasons for seeking the death penalty," they wrote in an open letter during Tsarnaev's trial, "but the continued pursuit of that punishment could bring years of appeals and prolong reliving the most painful day of our lives. We hope our 2 remaining children do not have to grow up with the lingering, painful reminder of what the defendant took from them, which years of appeals would undoubtedly bring." Closure, they went on to argue, would mean life in prison with no possibility of parole, which would allow Tsarnaev to "fade from our newspapers and TV screens." That remains a possibility, if the death sentence is overturned on appeal. Alternatively, Tsarnaev's fate could hang in limbo for decades, caught in a legal system committed to applying capital punishment but increasingly opposed to implementing it. Why that system still exists at all is a mystery to many. (source: macleans.ca) ********************** Debate Bigs Battle on UWS and Death Penalty Wins Stunning Victory----Scheck vs Blecker in a battle of rhetorical titans Hell almost froze over on the Upper West Side of Manhattan the other night at a 2-hour debate on a measure whether to abolish the death penalty. The debate was organized by Intelligence Squared, a non-profit, non-partisan group that has sponsored more than 100 such discussions since 2006. Lincoln Center's Merkin Hall was filled, in part because of the reputations of 2 of the 4 speakers. Barry Scheck was co-founder of the Innocence Project and a member of O.J. Simpson's Dream Team defense. His main opponent, Robert Blecker, a professor of criminal law at New York Law School and author of the book, The Death of Punishment, is generally considered the nation's leading proponent of the death penalty. Mr. Blecker had spent hundreds of hours inside the walls of some of the nation's toughest prisons interviewing death-row inmates and those condemned to life-without-parole. Under Oxford Union-style rules, it would be the shift in audience attitudes - as measured by pre-and-post debate electronic tabulators - that would determine the winner. The substance of the debate was familiar but passionately conveyed: Mr. Scheck and his partner, Diann Rust-Tierney, Executive Director, National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty, argued the death penalty was not an effective deterrent to crime, that it was racially biased, and that there is too large a risk of convicting - and executing - an innocent person. When Mr. Scheck reminded the audience that George Will has instructed conservatives that "Capital punishment is a government program, so skepticism is in order," the audience responded with the enthusiasm a boxing crowd exhibits when seeing first blood. Mr. Blecker and his partner, Kent Scheidegger, Legal Director, Criminal Justice Legal Foundation, argued the studies were flawed or biased, that there is risk in every human (and government) endeavor, but that the risks were offset by automatic appeals and capable legal representation all designed to ensure against executing someone falsely convicted. Most importantly, the death penalty must be reserved for the worst of the worst of the worst - justice demanded it. For most of the 2 hours the abolitionists seemed to have the upper hand, pounding home the question: how much risk that we'd execute an innocent man was acceptable? They cited the recent case of Cameron Todd Willingham, who was executed in Texas for an arson murder - based on what now is acknowledged by the state itself to be bogus arson evidence. The recent conviction of the Boston Marathon bomber, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, was mentioned only by one debater, Barry Scheck, who pointed out that several of the victims of the attack have called for sparing Tsanarev's life. The just punishment, the abolitionists argue, is life without parole. That is a fate, they repeat, that is worse than death itself. But it was that very alternative punishment - life-without-parole ??? that provided Mr. Blecker with the opening he seemed to be waiting for. Because he responded with the flurry of evidentiary and rhetorical punches that brought him back into the match. For more than 10 of the 25 years Mr. Blecker has been given access inside prisons, and he has been allowed to bring a video camera with him. And his recordings of life behind the walls - at least for those serving life sentences - are far different from the perceptions most of us have from watching Oz, Prison Break, or Orange is the New Black. While not quite leading country-club lives, prisoners serving life-without-parole often enjoy TVs in their cells, craft rooms, music recording studios, generous commissary choices, organized sports leagues and other privileges not normally associated with prison life. Blecker described visiting prison and seeing Joshua Komisarjevsky - sentenced to death for the rape and murder of 3 members of the Petit family in a horrific home invasion in Cheshire, Connecticut - sitting on his bunk eating a Hershey Bar while watching a ballgame on his personal TV set. The final round in the debate allowed each participant to make a closing statement. Barry Scheck pulled what seemed certain to be the trump card: he asked 2 members of the audience to stand. 2 middle-age African-American men stood, and Mr. Scheck introduced them. Both had been convicted of murder - 1 sentenced to death - and later exonerated by DNA evidence. Could anything better bring to life the risks of executing an innocent man? Mr. Blecker began his final rebuttal, and was gracious in his acknowledgement of the exonerated men's innocence and travesty of justice. But he quickly segued to his retributivist argument that "The past counts. It counts independently of the future benefits that derive from our actions." Justice and human dignity demand we honor the covenant with the dead, and he prodded the audience: "You're upholding the victim. You're upholding a sense of justice. You're upholding a sense of proportionality. You're ultimately upholding human dignity." This brought forth the largest burst of applause that night. Minutes later, the audience voted, and the result seemed to unbalance the otherwise capable moderator, John Donvan of ABC News: he had to re-record his concluding remarks twice. The winners were the pro-death penalty advocates, Mr. Blecker and Mr. Scheidegger. Fully 40% of the post-debate audience said they wanted to maintain the death penalty, up from only 17% before the discussion began. Abolition was supported by 54% up from 49%. In fairness, a larger number of the 400-plus people in Merkin Hall voted in favor of abolition. But under the rules, it was the shift in the audience attitudes that determined the winner. As people left Lincoln Center, the shock of what they had witnessed dissipated slowly. After all, this took place in the bluest of blue neighborhoods. Solid thinking and well-argued advocacy had jarred political orthodoxy. It didn't last long. 2 weeks after the live event, Intelligence Squared released an edited version of the debate for NPR radio and podcast. And although the website accurately reported the winner, 1 would never be able to understand why based on the edited audio posted. In an apparent effort to allot equal time to each participant, the editors excluded many of the most convincing arguments made by Mr. Blecker and Mr. Scheidegger. The edit was so obviously biased that an Intelligence Squared (IQ2) Board member who had been in the audience and later heard the truncated poscast, complained to the IQ2 management. He said it was a misrepresentation of what really happened in Merkin Hall that night. Still, the editors refused to re-edit the segment. Under the guise of being "balanced", Intelligence Squared abandoned fairness. Apparently, while the habitues of the famously liberal Upper West Side could withstand the shock of contested conventional wisdom, a guardian for the larger NPR audience could not. (source: Opinion...Steve Cohen is an attorney at KDLM in New York; observer.com) From rhalperi at smu.edu Wed May 20 08:50:08 2015 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Wed, 20 May 2015 08:50:08 -0500 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide Message-ID: May 20 IRAN----executions At least 5 People Executed in Iran Today - 1 Hanged in Public 5 prisoners were hanged in 2 Iranian cities Tuesday morning May 19, reported Iranian state media. According to the official website of the Iranian Judiciary in Fars province (Southern Iran), one man was hanged publicly in the city of Shiraz this morning. The man who was identified as "Hossein A" was sentenced to death convicted of rape, said the report which also mentioned that he was sentenced to 37 years in prison and 111 lashes for kidnapping and robbery. 4 prisoners were hanged in the prison of Arak (Central Iran) this morning, reported the official website of Judiciary in Markazi province. These prisoners were identified as "Abdolrahman Sh.", "Isa B." and "Alireza B." for participation in trafficking of 111 kilograms of heroin, and "Ahmadreza M." for selling 11 grams of the narcotic substance "crystal", possession of 601 grams of heroin and 79 grams of crystal. The above mentioned charges have not been confirmed by independent sources. The website of the "Human Rights Activists News Agency" (HRANA) reported about execution of 5 prisoners in the Adelabad prison of Shiraz. One of the prisoners was identified as "Mehdi Keshavarz" and all of them were convicted of murder, said the report. These executions have not been announced by the official sources yet. (source: Iran Human Rights) PAKISTAN----executions 2 murderers hanged in Machh, Faisalabad jails 2 death-row convicts were hanged to death in Machh and Faisalabad jails on Wednesday morning. Mohammad Musa was hanged in Balochistan's Machh jail for murdering a man named Liaqat Ali in Quetta's Alamadar road area. He was convicted by a sessions court judge in 2007. The appeals of the convict had been rejected by higher and superior courts and his mercy petitions was also rejected by President of Pakistan. The home department issued his black warrant yesterday and Musa was consequently hanged today. Another condemned prisoner Ali Gul was also scheduled to be hanged but he was pardoned by the victim's family. This was the 1st hanging at Machh jail since former Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) worker Saulat Mirza's execution. In Faisalabad's Central Jail, condemned prisoner Zulfiqar was sent to the gallows for murdering a taxi driver named Anwar in 2000 in the Thikriwala police station jurisdiction. In 2000, an anti-terrorism court (ATC) had sentenced him to death under the anti-terrorism act (ATA), whereas his black warrant was issued yesterday. Pakistan lifted its moratorium on the death penalty in all capital cases on March 10. Initially executions were resumed for terrorism offences only in the wake of a Taliban massacre at an army-run school in Peshawar which had claimed the lives of more than 150 persons, mostly schoolchildren, on December 16, 2014. The United Nations, the European Union, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have called on Pakistan to re-impose its moratorium on the death penalty. (source: Pakistan Herald) CHINA: RI woman to be executed in China Time is running out for Wanipah, a 28-year-old migrant worker from Indramayu, West Java, on death row at Hangzhou Penitentiary in China. According to her family's lawyer, Iskandar Zulkarnaen, Wanipah was convicted in April 2011 of smuggling 992.72 grams of heroin into China through Xiaoshan Airport in Hangzhou in December 2010. Wanipah was sentenced to death, with a grace period of at least 2 years before execution. The Indonesian Foreign Ministry informed her family of her situation in August 2011. Iskandar, speaking for her family, said that his legal team planned to take this urgent matter to House of Representatives Commission IX, which oversees manpower. He also plans to seek help from the Foreign Ministry and Office of the Coordinating Political, Legal and Security Affairs Minister to get a stay of execution from the Chinese authorities. Wanipah's family said they hoped the government could provide adequate assistance and save their daughter's life. "I hope Pak Jokowi can help resolve her case," Rusmini, Wanipah's cousin, said recently, referring to President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo. "At the very least, her sentence could be reduced," said Wanipah's mother, Nusriah. Iskandar said that Wanipah was likely a victim of human trafficking as there was evidence that her travel documents had been forged. On her family card, Wanipah is recorded as having been born on April 17, 1987. However, on her passport, her date of birth is May 1, 1978. "It is possible that she had fallen victim to trafficking. We can see it, at least, from the false data," Iskandar said. Based on data from the Foreign Ministry, 299 Indonesians are now facing execution overseas, 57 of whom were sentenced to death for drug offenses. At least 467 Indonesians have been executed abroad, including 168 in Malaysia, 28 in Saudi Arabia, 15 in China, 4 in Singapore, 2 in Laos and 1 in Vietnam. Most recently, migrant worker Siti Zaenab was executed last month in Medina, Saudi Arabia, after being sentenced to death in January 2001. She was arrested in October 1999 for stabbing her Saudi Arabian employer to death. Siti, from Madura in East Java, had worked in that country since 1997. Just days after Siti's execution, another migrant worker, Karni, was executed in Saudi Arabia. She received the death penalty in 2013 after killing her employer's child in 2012. The executions were carried out without prior notice from the Saudi Arabian government and despite requests for pardons filed by the Indonesian government earlier this year. (source: The Jakarta Post) EGYPT: Egypt Court Issues Death Penalty for Georgetown Political Science Professor Emad Shahin would be a dead man walking if he were in Egypt. Fortunately for him, he's in Washington, DC. Shahin was sentenced earlier this week to death in absentia by the Cairo Criminal Court along with 35 other defendants, including former Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi, on charges of espionage. "This amount of death sentences is unprecedented in Egypt's modern history," Shahin told VICE News. Shahin is a professor of public policy at the American University of Cairo, but is now a visiting professor at Georgetown University and Columbia University. He says he's embittered by the turn of events since President Abdel Fattah El Sisi rose to power in a military takeover in July 2013. Shahin first found out through Facebook that he faced criminal charges in December 2013. "I remember vividly I was giving a couple of lectures overseas and one night this person contacted me on Facebook in shock, I didn't know this person at all, and he said he knows of me and he found my name on the list of the people who are going to be in charged in the Grand Espionage case". Listed as defendant number 33, the evidence consists of being cc'd on emails of other co-defendants in the same case as part of a bid to undermine Egypt's national security by having contact with Hamas and Iran. "I didn't take it seriously and he kept urging me to take it seriously and not go back to Egypt" he explained to VICE News. The tenured professor at the American University in Cairo has been in self-imposed exile since January 2014, building on his impressive academic credentials gained at various universities such as Harvard, Columbia and Notre Dame. Shahin vehemently maintains his innocence and claims the authorities have not even contacted him regarding the specific charges. The trials have been criticized internationally, with the US State Department saying it was "deeply concerned" about the trials and Amnesty International calling the proceedings, "charade trials." The Egyptian government hit back immediately, maintaining that its judiciary is independent and releasing a statement condemning the international criticism as "an unacceptable intrusion into the work of the Egyptian judicial system" and that these harsh reactions "display a complete lack of respect for its procedures." "The judicial context and the political environment in general is not conducive to a fair trial and due process," Shahin said, adding that Sisi is "treating Egypt as an extension of the army and not the other way around." Shahin compares Sisi, who swept to power capturing 96 % of the national vote a year ago, to the ousted autocrat Hosni Mubarak. "Sisi is putting people in a tough choice the same way Mubarak did - either me or chaos, either me or insecurity and instability" he told VICE News. In the course of outlining the oppressive political climate in Egypt since July 2013, Shahin goes even further in his comparisons to say, "he (Sisi) is exactly like Saddam Hussein." With Sisi's ascent to power, state security forces have killed over 1000 people, over 40,000 are languishing in prisons including journalists and activists, protests have been effectively banned from public spaces, and a report released today by several women's rights organizations notes that state-sanctioned sexual violence has surged. "When Saddam Hussein got rid of enemies he asked others to get involved in the institutional process so everyone's hands were stained by blood and that's exactly what Sisi did to a large part of society," Shahin said. "It was his mandate to kill opponents and many people will wake up and regret this. This injustice is not going to last." Shahin's death sentence is not final until 2 June when the Grand Mufti, Egypt's highest religious authority, approves the court decision. The decision can still be appealed but Shahin is not even considering this. "This is a farce and these are sham trials. If I take them seriously that means I am vindicating the process and I am not going to do that. They are using their means and I am using mine. I know it's a state against individuals but what we stand for is democracy, human rights and rule of law." As the end of the semester approaches, Shahin is setting his sights on conducting more activism, informed by his scholarly work. "I wanted to be viewed as an academic and scholar solely but this is too much," he said, in reference to the death sentence hanging over his head. He is insistent that a political tipping point is imminent if the Sisi government continues to silence dissent. "They are acting on their madness so they have to be stopped, that's what I am trying to do" Shahin said. (source: vice.com) ************************ Egypt executions show 'profound disregard for human rights': ICJ The International Commission of Jurists (ICJ) condemned on Monday the "egregious human rights violations" of Egyptian authorities, including "the right to life." The statement was made in reference to Egypt's execution of 6 young men on Sunday, "following their conviction in an unfair trial by a military court". Meanwhile, the Egyptian administrative judiciary postponed to 2 June an examination of a lawsuit that demanded the halt of the executions and are yet to decide on whether the execution was legal. According to the ICJ, the military proceedings in the "Arab Sharkas" case in which these young men were executed, violated their right to a fair trial by "a competent, independent and impartial tribunal". Egypt's criminal law requires that those who receive death sentences are hanged. "Rights of defence were undermined, including the ability to have confidential access to a lawyer," while all of the accused alleged that they had been subjected to ill-treatment and torture while detained. The ICJ also condemned Egypt's mass-death sentencing of approximately 109 people, including former president Mohamed Morsi, in an espionage case. Additionally, according to previous statements to Daily News Egypt, families of the executed said that 2 of the defendants were arrested 3 days before the alleged "Arab Sharkas" confrontation took place, while 2 others had already been detained for 3 months. "Rather than contributing to serious human rights violations, Egyptian judges should preserve the dignity of their office and act in defence of the rule of law and human rights, not as a tool of repression," Said Benarbia, the Director of the ICJ Middle East and North Africa programme said. The ICJ added that it opposes the death penalty under any circumstances as a violation of the right to life while the African Commission on Human and People's Rights called on Egypt to "refrain" from carrying out the death penalty. Other local groups, including an Anti-death penalty group, has previously called for a halt to these executions and has met with the state-backed National Council for Human Rights in attempts to put an end to executions. The UN General Assembly has repeatedly called for a moratorium on the use of capital punishment. (source: Daily News Egypt) BANGLADESH: 4 to walk gallows for murder in Bagerhat A Bagerhat court yesterday sentenced 4 people to death and another to life imprisonment for killing a man in Morelganj upazila of the district in 2006. The death penalty awardees are Lavlu Kha, son of Afsar Ali Kha of Saprakhali village, Al Amin Hawlader, son of Tazel Hawlader of the village, Habibur Rahman Hawlader, son of Abdul Majid Hawlader of Pashchim Baharbunia village, and Bellal Hossain Hawlader, son of Abdul Majid Hawlader of Surjomukhi village. The lifer is Harun Sheikh, son of Abdur Rob Sheikh of Pashchim Baharbunia village. Judge Md Asifuzzaman of the Additional District and Sessions Judge's Court-2 also fined the death penalty awardees Tk 20,000 each in absentia. Meanwhile, the lifer was fined Tk 25,000. In default, he is to suffer another 1 year in jail. The court acquitted 6 other accused as charges brought against them could not be proved. They are Dulal Hossain, Masum Hawlader, Ujjal Hossain Hawlader, Lavlu Kazi, Mizanur Rahman and Mostafizur Rahman of the area. According to the prosecution, the convicts killed Sarwar Hossain Hawlader, son of Bashir Uddin Hawlader of Uttar Phulhata village, over a land dispute on February 20 in 2006. The following day, the victim's wife filed a murder case with Morelganj Police Station against 17 people. On October 30 in 2007, police pressed charges against 12 people. After examining witnesses and evidence, the judge found the 5 guilty and pronounced the verdict. (source: The Daily Star) SUDAN: Sudan Tries 2 Pastors on Charges That May Bring Death Penalty Sudan began the trial of 2 South Sudanese church leaders accused by authorities of espionage and undermining the constitution, charges that could carry the death penalty, a defense lawyer said. Yat Michael and Peter Yen attended proceedings at a criminal court in Sudan's capital of Khartoum on Tuesday, Mohannad Mostafa, a member of the defense team, said by phone. Officials from the National Intelligence and Security Service recited the claims against the defendants, Mostafa said. "The charges are fabricated by security," Mostafa said. "There is no evidence against them." Information Minister Ahmed Bilal Osman didn't answer 2 calls seeking comment. Amnesty International, the London-based advocacy group, in February said the two pastors were being held in secret detention and were at risk of torture. Michael was seized by men identifying themselves as security officers on Dec. 21 during a visit to Khartoum, Amnesty said. Yen, who'd sent a letter to Sudanese authorities inquiring about Michael, was arrested on Jan. 11 after being summoned to a security office, it said. (source: Bloomberg News) From rhalperi at smu.edu Wed May 20 13:08:34 2015 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Wed, 20 May 2015 13:08:34 -0500 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----NEB., NEV., CALIF., USA Message-ID: May 20 NEBRASKA: Nebraska set to repeal death penalty after legislature overcomes veto threat ----State set to become 1st conservative state to abolish death penalty in 42 years after lawmakers throw enough support behind bill to void governor's veto Nebraska lawmakers gave final approval on Wednesday to a bill abolishing the death penalty statewide - and with enough votes to override a promised veto from Republican governor Pete Ricketts. The vote was 32 to 15 in Nebraska's unicameral legislature. If that vote holds in a veto override, Nebraska would become the 1st conservative state to repeal the death penalty since North Dakota in 1973. The Nebraska vote is notable in the national debate over capital punishment because it was bolstered by conservatives who oppose the death penalty for religious reasons and say it is a waste of taxpayer money. Nebraska hasn't executed a prisoner since 1997, and some lawmakers have argued that constant legal challenges will prevent the state from doing so again. Ricketts, a death penalty supporter, has vowed to veto the bill. Ricketts announced last week that the state has bought new lethal injection drugs to resume executions. Ricketts, who is serving his 1st year in office, argued in his weekly column on Tuesday that the state's inability to carry out executions was a "management problem" that he is committed to fixing. Maryland was the last state to end capital punishment, in 2013. 3 other moderate to liberal states have done so in recent years: New Mexico in 2009, Illinois in 2011, and Connecticut in 2012. The death penalty is legal in 32 states, including Nebraska. Independent senator Ernie Chambers of Omaha, who sponsored the Nebraska legislation, has fought for 4 decades to end capital punishment in the state. Nebraska lawmakers passed a death penalty repeal bill once before, in 1979, but it was vetoed by then-governor Charles Thone. (source: The Guardian) ******************** Nebraska Poised to Abolish Death Penalty, Would Be First State Since 2013 Nebraska lawmakers gave final approval Wednesday to a bill abolishing the death penalty, with enough votes to override a promised veto from Republican Gov. Pete Ricketts. The 32-15 vote was bolstered by conservative senators who oppose capital punishment for fiscal, religious and pragmatic reasons. If that vote holds in a veto override, Nebraska would become the 1st conservative state to repeal the death penalty since 1973. Nebraska hasn't executed a prisoner since 1997, and some lawmakers have argued that constant legal challenges will prevent the state from doing so again. Ricketts has vowed a veto, and announced last week that the state has bought new lethal injection drugs to resume executions. Maryland was the last state to abolish capital punishment, in 2013. 32 states have death penalty laws. (source: NBC news) **************************** Nebraska Death Penalty Repealed: Legislature Votes To Abolish Capital Punishment, Governor Vows To Veto The Nebraska legislature voted overwhelmingly Wednesday to abolish the death penalty in the state. Gov. Pete Ricketts, a Republican who supports the death penalty, has promised to veto the measure, although lawmakers' 32 - 15 vote in its favor would be sufficient to override that, KETV reported. The approval came less than a week after Ricketts announced that state officials had bought supplies of the 3 drugs necessary for lethal injections. Throughout the United States, the death penalty has come under fire in recent months after a series of botched executions in 2014. States have also struggled to secure supplies of drugs needed to carry out lethal injections, due to a boycott by Europe on exporting such drugs to correctional facilities in the United States. No prisoner on death row has been executed in Nebraska since 1997, and since 1973, only 4 executions have taken place in the state, the Associated Press reported. The most recent state to ban capital punishment was Maryland in 2013. (source: International Business Times) NEVADA: Lawmakers approve money for new execution chamber in Ely Nevada lawmakers have given the green light to spending about $860,000 on a new execution chamber at the remote Ely State Prison. A joint Assembly and Senate budget committee voted Wednesday to approve the construction project. A subcommittee was split earlier this week on the matter. The state's existing death chamber at the shuttered Nevada State Prison in Carson City is not in compliance with the Americans With Disabilities Act. State officials have said for about four years that they wouldn't be able to carry out an execution there. Executions remain rare in Nevada, which has only carried out the death penalty 12 times since 1977. Department of Corrections officials say there are about 80 inmates on Nevada's death row, but the state hasn't executed anyone since 2006. (source: Associated Press) CALIFORNIA: Charles Manson's chaplain speaks out amid national death row debate American Christians were once strongly in favor of capital punishment, but now they find themselves increasingly conflicted. After a judge sentenced Dzhokhar Tsarnaev to death for his role in the Boston Marathon bombings, religious leaders in the city found themselves on both sides of the issue. Lawmakers in Nebraska are considering a bill to ban the death penalty there, which would make it the 1st conservative state to do so in four decades. And Christian leaders such as Jay Sekulow and Pat Robertson have provided support for movements like Conservatives Concerned About the Death Penalty. In such a moment, Reverend Earl Smith has decided to speak out. When Smith became chaplain of San Quentin in 1983, he was the youngest ever hired by the state of California. While there, he played chess with Charles Mansion, negotiated truces between gangs, and witnessed many executions. In 2000, he was named National Correctional Chaplain of the Year and now serves as chaplain of the San Francisco 49ers and Golden State Warriors. Here we discuss his views on justice, America's correctional system, and his new book, Death Row Chaplain: Unbelievable True Stories from America's Most Notorious Prison. RNS: Describe what day-to-day life is like for death row inmates at San Quentin. Would you consider it humane? ES: Each day on death row is different, yet each day is the same. Your lunch is served with your breakfast. Most days are spent watching television, sleeping or reading. Exercise is an option on certain days. Religious services are offered once a week on a rotating basis. The only area that actually has a chapel is East Block, which accommodates 24 inmates. Communication from cell to cell is done through yelling or an inmate mail system called a "kite" on a "fish line". In only 1 of the 3 areas in San Quentin housing condemned inmates, inmates are allowed some opportunities to mingle during various parts of the day. RNS: Tell us about your relationship with Charles Manson? What was your assessment of his spiritual state? ES: After each conversation I had with Charles Manson, I went away in awe of his ability to capture a moment and claim it as his. Charles Manson was exactly what he sought to be. Charles wanted people to see him, hear his name and fear him. The problem is that Charles is a little person who sees his height in terms of emotional and psychological dominance. Psychological warfare was his means of survival. He once told me, "this is my world, and I decide when you do what you do. The trees, the stars, the grass they all belong to me". Charles was interested in the manipulation of people for the sole purpose of seeing if he could manipulate them. RNS: You witnessed 12 executions. Describe briefly what it feels like to see that kind of thing? ES: To see a man strapped into a chair or on a gurney is actually a small part of the execution process. After the condemned man dies, the process of the execution lingers. The staff that walks the inmate into the chamber, the official witnesses, the victim's family members and the inmate's family members all are assembled in the same room. The administrative staff member assigned to the task of implementing the protocol has to disassociate themselves from the notion of death. The focus is turned to a person who is asked if he has any last words. People have asked me if lethal injection is more humane. My answer is capital punishment, via hanging, gas, firing squad, electrocution, guillotine all get the same result ... death. Seeing an execution is seeing death. You can never forget what you see. RNS: Since humans are created in God's image with inherent dignity, I don't think humans should be able to legally execute other humans like this. What do you think? ES: Sin is sin, and he that is without sin should be required to cast the first stone. If there is no one available, then perhaps we should come up with an alternative. God does not make mistakes, so the flaws witnessed in the process of the gruesome crimes which result in sentences of capital punishment are those of an infested society, not of a God who pronounced all creation "good". A reference point for the argument of support for capital punishment is found in the mandate to support the laws of the land. I believe there are just and unjust laws. Is capital punishment one such unjust law? I truly do not know. What I know is that the only deterrent is to the person executed. Murders still take place on the day of an execution, so clearly the focus has not presented a time of pause. RNS: How have your experiences on death row changed your thinking about the death penalty, if at all? ES: As a chaplain, my job is to represent hope. In the execution process, hope meets reality; you have to focus on the true hope of eternal life. The word "closure" doesn't belong in the dialog about capital punishment. Before I arrived at San Quentin, I was not sure what I thought about the death penalty. I would listen to the play-by-play of an execution as a young boy. That experience left me thinking that when you do enough wrong, people will get tired of you and perhaps execute you. After arriving at San Quentin and having men on my death row caseload be released into free society, my thought has never moved beyond what if one of those guys had been executed. The reality that death is final and the system can be flawed is where I arrived as a result of working there. (source: Religion News Service) USA: Why Is It So Easy for States to Execute the Mentally Ill? Long before he committed a vicious triple murder in Houston at the age of 19, Derrick Charles had shown signs of serious mental problems. Raised amid crippling poverty, domestic abuse, alcoholism and neglect, he watched his schizophrenic mother stab his abusive stepfather. He suffered from tactile and auditory hallucinations, and by the time he was 13, had been hospitalized twice for mental illness. While in juvenile prison for nonviolent offenses, he said he was hearing voices and asked for medication. The request was denied. Then, in July 2002, while high on marijuana laced with PCP, Charles beat and strangled his 15-year-old girlfriend, Myeshia Bennett, and her 77-year-old grandfather, Obie, then beat, strangled, and sexually assaulted Bennett's mother, Brenda. He confessed to police, saying he didn't know why he'd done it. None of Charles's lengthy and troubling history was investigated by his defense attorneys or presented at trial. Unaware of his documented mental illness - among mitigating evidence that would lessen his culpability for the crime - the Texas jury sentenced Charles to die. Charles was executed last week, on May 12, at the age of 32. His death by lethal injection went largely undiscussed, despite the compelling evidence of his mental illness. Yet it is far from clear that his execution was a legal one - whether Charles was so mentally ill that he was in fact incompetent to die at the hands of the state. The Charles case is not unique. It follows closely on the heels of other questionable executions of prisoners with mental problems. In January, the first execution of the year was Georgia's killing of Andrew Brannan, a decorated Vietnam veteran who had been diagnosed with severe mental illness prior to his killing a deputy sheriff during a traffic stop in 1998. And in March, Missouri executed Cecil Clayton, a man who was missing 20 % of his brain's frontal lobe - the brain's center for impulse control, problem solving and social behavior. There is no outright ban on executing the mentally ill. While the U.S. Supreme Court has barred the execution of the intellectually disabled and of juveniles, populations it deems so vulnerable that their execution would constitute cruel and unusual punishment, there has been no such determination when it comes to people with mental illness. Rather, the court has said only that the "insane" may not face execution, leaving the measure of insanity up to to the states. In 2007, the Supreme Court ruled that in order for a prisoner to be considered competent for execution, he or she must have a rational understanding of the state's reason for killing him or her. This notion of "competency" is the sole measure for defining what role mental illness might have played in the commission of a crime - from arrest through conviction and to execution. When it comes to determining whether a mentally ill person should be spared the death penalty, the standard is extremely loose and subject to nonscientific criteria that vary from state to state. What's more, in Texas, there is no right for a condemned, and likely ill, prisoner to even obtain the necessary resources to argue that he or she is too mentally ill to be executed. In the months leading up to Charles's execution, state and federal courts declined to appoint counsel or to fund an evaluation of Charles' mental health - a step necessary to raise a claim that he was incompetent and could not be executed. A state court judge told lawyers with the nonprofit Texas Defender Service that in order to be appointed and funded to represent Charles on an incompetency claim, they would have to show that Charles was currently incompetent. But in order to do that, the lawyers argued, they would need to be appointed and funded. "It's this total bizarre, Catch-22-land," said Kate Black, a TDS lawyer who worked on Charles's case. In the end, despite Charles's history, no court intervened to determine whether he was legally sane enough to die. Instead, they cleared the way for his execution. The number of mentally ill people on death row is unknown, in part because it is a prison population not often studied. But there is no question that mental illness is a pervasive problem throughout the criminal justice system. Texas's Harris County jail, where defendants from Houston and surrounding areas are detained, is the state's single largest mental health care provider. Nationally, more than 50 % of all jail and prison inmates suffer from mental health problems, a 2006 federal study found. More than 20 % of Texas's death row prisoners reportedly have mental illness, although that number seems low to Black. "I don't have any clients on death row who don't suffer from some significant mental illness or mental impairment," she said. Exacerbating the problem is that death rows are incredibly isolated places: In Texas, prisoners are housed individually in 6-by-10-foot cells for 23 hours each day, conditions that are similar to those in most death penalty states. (In Idaho, according to the Death Penalty Information Center, prisoners spend a full 24 hours a day in their individual, solid-door cells.) For those who are already mentally ill, solitary confinement often makes prisoners' illnesses worse, said Dr. Terry Kupers, a psychiatrist and professor at Berkeley's Wright Institute. For those who aren't already ill, the punishing isolation often leads to mental deterioration. It is precisely this cyclical nature of mental illness that can make determining "competency" so difficult, particularly in the absence of consistent and effective mental health care, which can be hard to come by in prison. The piecemeal, if not lax, standard for determining who is too ill to die (or even too ill to face questioning by police, stand trial, or to represent themselves at trial) is troubling to both mental health experts and to lawyers who regularly handle death penalty cases. "When we do a competency exam, it's always competency to do such-and-such," said Kupers. "And there are standards that are different. For instance, there is a standard for competency to stand trial; it's spelled out legally. Then there's another issue: if an individual wants to stand trial and act as their own attorney, then we have another level of competency," he continued. "Well, the lowest standard there is is the standard to be executed - it's just, basically, minimal." The ban on executing juveniles, those who committed their crimes prior to turning 18, is absolute. So is the ban on executing the intellectually disabled. The lack of a bright-line rule for determining who is too ill to die has resulted in a mishmash of expections that regularly lead to troubling results. (It should be noted that while the ban on executing the intellectually disabled is absolute, that doesn't mean standards developed by various states are uniformly robust, or even constitutional. For example, 13 years after the high court's ruling, Texas has yet to enact a statute that would impose a predictable structure for determining mental retardation, and instead continues to use criteria developed by the state's highest criminal court, known anecdotally as the Lennie Standard - a set of criteria for determining disability predicated on the mental abilities of fictional character Lennie Small from John Steinbeck's novel Of Mice and Men.) It is hard to know exactly how many death row inmates with serious mental illness have been executed, though Death Penalty Focus, an abolitionist group, reports that more than 60 mentally ill or retarded inmates have been executed since 1983. Texas has a particularly questionable record: Under Gov. Rick Perry in 2004, the state executed Kelsey Patterson - a documented schizophrenic who believed he'd been granted a permanent stay of execution by Satan himself - despite a rare recommendation from the state's Board of Pardons and Paroles to commute his sentence. Currently, the state remains unconvinced that Andre Thomas is too ill to die, even though Thomas clawed out both of his eyeballs, eating one of them, while incarcerated. Today, Texas continues to fight for the right to execute Scott Panetti, even though it was in his case that the Supreme Court ruled in 2007 that an inmate must have some rational understanding of the underlying basis for his or her execution. Indeed, Panetti's case exemplifies the relative ease with which the competency threshold can be breached. Panetti, who murdered his in-laws in 1992, is schizophrenic. Nonetheless, he was deemed competent to act as his own defense counsel at trial, where he dressed in a purple cowboy outfit and sought to subpoena Jesus Christ and Anne Bancroft (among nearly 200 others) to testify for his defense. Panetti has long said he believes that the state seeks to execute him for preaching "the gospel of the Lord King." The state has argued that Panetti is merely malingering. Crucially, as TDS attorney Burke Butler notes, Panetti's case only made it to the Supreme Court because he had appointed counsel and the resources needed to raise his claim. In Charles's case, while TDS lawyers had been appointed to handle his federal appeals and clemency bid, no lawyer had been appointed to look into his competency. Because a claim of incompetency cannot be raised until execution is imminent, it wasn't until the months leading up to his execution that his appointed lawyers could even argue he should not be put to death on the basis of his mental illness. At that point, the newest information lawyers had regarding Charles's mental state was roughly a decade old. Lawyers for Charles sought court-appointment to investigate competency, as well as resources to conduct a full psychiatric assessment. But their requests were denied. According to Butler, the courts "essentially" said that "in order to be entitled to be appointed counsel and [a] neuropsychological evaluation, we need ... to present evidence that could not be obtained without being appointed counsel and [given] a neuropsychological evaluation." She called the circumstances "tragic," as well as highlighting a "big constitutional gap." The Supreme Court says incompetent prisoners can't be executed, but "at the same time, apparently courts are not providing incompetent defendants the resources they need to show their incompetency, even in very compelling cases, like Mr. Charles's." In the absence of a lower threshold to allow prisoners like Charles an opportunity to mount an incompetency claim, Black and Butler suggest, the Supreme Court should simply ban execution of the severely mentally ill. "And that's kind of the argument we've been making in these cases," says Black, "which is, listen, the same rationale that you used in [banning execution of the intellectually disabled] - which is that there's no deterrent effect for someone who doesn't understand it, these people are at risk for having terrible counsel and of not being able to help counsel - all those things are also true about the mentally ill." (source: firstlook.org) From rhalperi at smu.edu Wed May 20 13:09:35 2015 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Wed, 20 May 2015 13:09:35 -0500 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide Message-ID: May 20 TAIWAN: Indonesian worker admits murdering Taiwan employer; blames bullying An Indonesian worker, known only as Ani, who allegedly murdered the owner of a breakfast shop where she was employed on Monday, revealed during police questioning yesterday that she carried out the homicide due to unfair working treatment and claimed that her former boss had slashed her salary. According to the police, Ani was introduced to the owners of the breakfast shop in Zhubei, Hsinchu City through an agent last August. She began working there illegally with a promised monthly wage of NT$26,000 (S$1,140), but was later fired in December. Ani admitted to stabbing Lin Ting-yi with a steak knife 3 times in the left chest before running off early Monday morning. The incident took place at the entrance of the shop. She was discovered by other shop workers, and was sent to the hospital. Lin later died from blood loss. Workplace Bullying Spawned Homicide? Ani claimed that she was taunted by the shop owners, who said that she had mental problems, and was often called "stupid," "trash" and "dog." Only recently did the Ani decide to carry out murder in revenge. The Indonesian worker said that the she had worked there for almost half a year, but had received only NT$22,000 per month in wages, lower than the discussed NT$26,000. Yet, she claimed that the main reason behind the murder was Lin's "workplace bullying." Lin's husband, said that after illegally employing Ani through an agent last August, she began to show disturbing signs of a mental disorder, such as often muttering to herself. In the end they decided to lay Ani off. The husband claimed that they had "never cut the worker's pay." A relative of Lin said that Lin gave Ani's wages to her agent every month on time, but did not know whether she received the money or not. Possible Death Penalty Police authorities yesterday found that the Indonesian suspect deliberately murdered her former boss after examining the corpse. The suspect not only stabbed Lin's heart, but twisted the knife as well. Officers also reported that the suspect had been wearing gloves at the time, and cleaned the steak knife after committing the murder. The Indonesian worker was sent to the Hsinchu District Prosecutor's Office yesterday afternoon suspected of homicide. Attorney Liao Fang-hsuan said that the worker could face the death penalty. The Labor Affairs Department in Hsinchu County said that fruit stands, restaurants, and construction sites cannot employ illegal foreign workers. (source: Asia One) NIGERIA: Murder charges against 15-year-old girl accused of using rat poison to kill a 35-year-old man she was forced to marry are dropped by Nigerian court Prosecutors had sought death penalty for accused Wasila Tasi'u Said it was 'with a heavy heart' they dropped the case against her Umar Sani, who had 2 wives, died days after marrying her in Kano state Human rights campaigners maintained she was victim of abuse A child bride accused of murdering her husband with rat poison has had the charges against her dropped, Nigerian prosecutors confirmed. Prosecutor Lamido Abba Soron-Dinki asked the High Court in Gezawa, Kano state, to 'terminate the case of culpable homicide against Wasila Tasi'u, who was 14 when she married Umar Sani. 'With a heavy heart, I apply that the accused be discharged,' he said. Legal sources in Kano said the country had been under pressure to drop the case which angered human rights groups. Police previously said Wasila had 'admitted' murdering her 35-year-old husband by signing a confession she could not read - with her thumbprint. Prosecutors had been seeking the death penalty for the teenager, whose farmer husband was found dead just days after marrying her in April last year. If she had been found guilty, the teenager - who is from a poor and deeply conservative Muslim family and cannot write - could have become the 1st child in Nigeria to be executed in 18 years. Human rights campaigners continually expressed outrage over her treatment, saying she should be seen as a victim of abuse. But the case prompted mixed reactions in her impoverished home state of Kano, where Sharia (Islamic) law is in place alongside the laws of the government. That, claim some followers, allows child marriage - and 14 is a normal age for a bride. She could not write her name so 'she had to use a thumbprint,' he added. One of the prosecution witnesses was the farmer's 2nd wife Ramatu, who told how her 'co-wife' prepared him dinner before being due to go to bed with him. The court had heard the murder victim had married Ramatu previously in the village of Unguwar Yansoro, which sits in a region where polygamy is widespread. Ramatu said she got along well with the 14-year-old and the two had prepared food together on April 5, 2014 the day Sani died. Because it was Wasila's turn to share a bed with her new husband, she was also entitled to serve him his meal. 'After putting the food in the dish I didn't see anybody put anything in it,' Ramatu said - but later she saw her husband foaming at the mouth and unable to walk. Previously a 7-year-old girl who Wasila allegedly sent to buy rat poison was called to give evidence. Identified only as Hamziyya, the young girl - believed to be Ramatu's sister - was living in the same house as the 14-year-old and her new husband at the time of his death. 'She said rats were disturbing her in her room,' Hamziyya told the court. Shopkeeper Abuwa Yusuf confirmed selling poison to the girl, and neighbour Abdulrahim Ibrahim said: 'When [Sani] brought the food I noticed some sandy-like particles, black in colour'. The neighbour ate 4 of the small balls made of bean paste but 'was not comfortable with the taste', he said, adding: 'It was only Umar (Sani) who continued eating.' Previous court reports suggested 3 other people had died after allegedly eating the contaminated food, but all 4 deaths had been combined into 1 murder charge. The case has raised the spectre of child marriage in Nigeria, where campaigners say almost 2/5 of children are married off before their 18th birthday. Some 16 per cent are married before they turn 15, according to the campaign group Girls Not Brides - and the rates are the highest in the north, near where Wasila lived. Hussaina Ibrahim from the International Federation of Women Lawyers (FIDA), who is representing the teenager, previously told The Guardian: 'We are against the trial. The whole process violates her fundamental rights. 'The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child says she should be in education. She should be in school'. But others including the 14-year-old's own relatives have rejected the notion she was forced into marriage. They have said that 14 is a common age to marry in the deeply impoverished region and that she chose Sani from among many suitors. A motion by defence lawyers to have the case moved to juvenile court was rejected, despite claims by human rights activists that she is too young to stand trial for murder in a high court. The use of Sharia law has also made the case more complicated, because there are no guidelines saying where Islamic law ends and state law begins. According to Human Rights Watch, Nigeria is not known to have executed a juvenile offender since 1997, when the country was ruled by military dictator Sani Abacha. (source: Daily Mail) SAUDI ARABIA: Saudi Arabia risks revolution with execution of activist Sheikh al-Nimr With over 30,000 political prisoners languishing in prison, Saudi Arabia has become the epitome of oppression. Now, newly crowned King Salman is set to paint the Kingdom red with the blood of Sheikh Nimr Baqir al-Nimr, a prominent Shia cleric. Sheikh al-Nimr, arguably one of the fiercest and most vocal critics of the monarchy, was condemned to death in October 2014 on charges of sedition. His crime: the denunciation of Saudi Arabia's brutal and reactionary theocratic system. A cleric, a man of letters and community teacher, Sheikh al-Nimr has dedicated his life to advocating peaceful change, interfaith tolerance, social justice and political self-determination. Born in a country that strictly segregates on the basis of one's social standing, religious affiliation and even gender, Sheikh al-Nimr has become both a symbol of resistance and a hope that peaceful change in the country is still possible. An independent mind and a charismatic man, Sheikh al-Nimr has never cowered before adversity, especially when it meant abandoning an entire people - his people - to suffer religious oppression at the hands of the Kingdom's Wahhabi establishment. In a country where all which is not Wahhabi Islam is considered heresy, Sheikh al-Nimr stood tall for Saudi Arabia's Shia population, a group that for centuries has endured a brutal and often bloody sectarian-motivated crackdown. In 2011, hope came to the Saudis by way of the Arab Spring as millions across the Middle East and North Africa rose in unison to depose autocracies, determined to reclaim power from their respective despots. And while revolution burned bright for a while, the grip on power was but briefly displaced. As people's resolve wavered and democracies faltered, chaos spread and military leaders stepped out of the shadows and into the revolutionary vacuum. From Egypt to Libya, Tunisia, Syria, Bahrain and Yemen popular rule remains an elusive concept. Saudi Arabia never got its revolution! Sheikh al-Nimr is one of the unwarranted casualties of a movement that bore such promise and yet fell flat on its face under the weight of political manipulation. For daring to speak against the monarchy and demanding equal rights for all Saudis, Sheikh al-Nimr was struck down by the regime, branded to suffer the wrath of a system that only tolerates absolute submission. Keen to make an example out of him and stifle dissent through his trial, al-Saud's Royals handed this one cleric a punishment worthy of the Spanish Inquisition. Al-Nimr was not just condemned to death, he was sentenced to be beheaded, then crucified in a public square; his body to be paraded before all, as one would do a hunting trophy. But Saudi Arabia's clear desire to punish those who defy its authority could actually end up costing the monarchy more than it bargained for. Again, Sheikh al-Nimr is more than just a political dissident; he has become the vessel of Saudi Arabia's discontent, an inspiration for all those men and women who continue to oppose al-Saud's hegemony in the region. As Ali al-Ahmed, an expert on Saudi Arabia from the Institute for Gulf Affairs, warned in comments to MintPress, the killing of al-Nimr will likely mark a point of no return for the Kingdom. "You'd see huge protests, you'd see huge clashes ... This would be a turning point." Amid the warnings and cries for reprisals, Western powers have retreated behind their walls of silence, the public's apathy only broken by the admonition of rights organizations. "Saudi Arabia's wave of executions since the start of this year has provoked widespread disgust. But these killings, if they are allowed to go ahead, will mark a new low," said Maya Foya, director of Reprieve's death penalty team, in a post to the NGO's website. With a new generation of princes holding the rod of power in Riyadh, the Kingdom has become, if ever it was possible, a much darker and oppressive place indeed. As Prince bin Naif now heads the Interior Ministry, any form of activism, whether political or religious, has been construed as terrorism; at the same time, calls for democratic reform are likened to treason. Utilizing specialized criminal courts and a terrorism law that effectively criminalizes free speech, Prince bin Naif, the new darling of the United States, has worked to squash the very concept of civil liberties. With rights advocates such as Fadhil al-Manasif, Waleed Abu al-Khair, Raif Badawi and Sheikh al-Nimr now languishing behind bars, one could argue the Kingdom is at war with its own people. But as is usually the case where repression has become the main institutional axis, the opposition needs only to find a rallying cry, one pivotal moment where the collective fear of persecution is overcome to turn one movement into a revolutionary storm. While 2011 provided an opportunity to break the shackles that burdened millions across the Middle East and North Africa, Saudi Arabia needs its revolutionary spirit to come alive. As it stands, Sheikh al-Nimr could become that impetus the Saudis have been waiting for. If Saudi Arabia often presents itself as an oasis of calm and stability against the tumult of a region racked by wars, poverty and terror, we might want to consider the fact that it could be because it stands at the epicenter of such ongoing chaos - the generator of violence that has swept the region and brought misery to millions. When political power can only be asserted through the spilling of blood and gruesome displays of violence, when legitimacy can only be gained through vicious oppression, it is often such regimes that are on the brink of collapse. Change is inherent to the reality of our universe, and not even the Kingdom will be able to weather that storm. And it's coming! (source: Catherine Shakdam is a political analyst and commentator for the Middle East with a special emphasis on Yemen and radical movements; rt.com) From rhalperi at smu.edu Wed May 20 15:23:21 2015 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Wed, 20 May 2015 15:23:21 -0500 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, MO. Message-ID: May 20 TEXAS: Death penalty appeal denied ---- Court rejects arguments from Balch Springs Subway killer A federal appeals court on Tuesday denied the appeal of a man facing the death penalty for his role in the 2002 killings of 2 workers at a Balch Springs sandwich shop. Terry Darnell Edwards, 41, was convicted in November 2003 of capital murder in the July 2002 deaths of Subway manager Tommy Walker and store employee Mickell Goodwin. No execution date has been set. Edwards had been fired from his job at the Subway less than a month before the killings. He and co-defendant Kirk Edwards - his then-32-year-old cousin - went to the Subway on the morning of July 8, 2002 as it was opening and robbed the store of about $3,000. Police were able to arrest him the same day after he was spotted dumping a .38 caliber handgun into a trash bin outside a nearby cafeteria on Lake June Road. Edwards - 30 years old at the time and a Lancaster resident - had already served a stretch in state prison before the robbery and murders. He was sentenced in 1997 to concurrent 5-year terms for theft and for possession of cocaine with intent to distribute. He was paroled in 1999. He had argued that he was denied a fair trial because of the judge gave improper instructions during jury selection. The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected the argument. Defense attorneys said during the trial that Kirk Edwards was the shooter. (source: ionmesquite.com) MISSOURI----new execution date Man who killed southwest Missouri woman in 2001 gets execution date The Missouri Supreme Court has set an execution date of July 14 for David Zink, convicted of abducted and killing a southwest Missouri woman in 2001. The court set the date Wednesday for Zink, who is 56. Missouri has executed 3 men so far this year, and Richard Strong is scheduled to die June 9. Zink killed 19-year-old Amanda Morton after rear-ending her car on Interstate 44 near her hometown of Stafford. He defended himself at his own murder trial, then appealed on grounds that the judge shouldn't have allowed him to do so. At trial, he tried unsuccessfully to win a voluntary manslaughter verdict by claiming that he didn't deliberate before killing Morton. (source: Associated Press) From rhalperi at smu.edu Thu May 21 14:29:45 2015 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Thu, 21 May 2015 14:29:45 -0500 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, N.C., S.C., FLA., LA., IND., ARK. Message-ID: May 21 TEXAS----3 new execution dates Daniel Lopez has been given an execution date for August 12; Bernardo Tercero has been given an execution date for August 26, and Juan Garcia has been given an execution date for October 6. All these dates should be considered serious. ************************ Executions under Greg Abbott, Jan. 21, 2015-present----7 Executions in Texas: Dec. 7, 1982----present-----525 Abbott#--------scheduled execution date-----name------------Tx. # 8----------June 3--------------------Les Bower------------526 9-----------June 18-------------------Gregory Russeau------527 10---------August 12-----------------Daniel Lopez---------528 11---------August 26-----------------Bernardo Tercero-----529 12---------October 6-----------------Juan Garcia----------530 (sources for both: TDCJ & Rick Halperin) NORTH CAROLINA: N.C. House bill would loosen execution restrictions Although 149 criminals sit on North Carolina's death row, not one inmate in the state has been executed in 9 years. A bill in the N.C. legislature seeks to restart executions by making changes to the protocol that has been one of the major obstacles to the process for nearly a decade. House Bill 774, which was passed by the N.C. House and is currently under consideration in the Senate, would allow medical professionals other than licensed physicians to oversee executions. Under the bill, the presence of physician assistants, registered nurses, nurse practitioners and emergency medical technicians would also suffice to perform a legal execution. Brian Bechtol, a North Carolina physician assistant and owner of Urgent Care of Mountain View in Hickory, N.C., said physician assistants are just as qualified to perform an execution. "I think it's good that our roles are expanding. I just don't like the topic that is being discussed right now," he said. "No matter what your personal belief is, and I absolutely believe in the death penalty, as a medical professional - where we swear to save lives when possible - that sort of goes against our ethical principles." The American Medical Association assists with the credentialing of physician assistants as well as physicians. The association strongly encourages physicians not participate in executions. In 2007, the North Carolina Medical Board banned providers from giving lethal injection to inmates. Although the N.C. Supreme Court ruled in 2009 that the board could not take away physicians' licenses for participating, physicians have since been highly discouraged from doing so. UNC political science professor Frank Baumgartner said the attempt by legislators behind the bill to move forward with the death penalty goes against national trends. According to his research, only 43 individuals have been executed of 401 death sentences in North Carolina since 1977. Compared to the amount of money and time spent on the trial and appeals process, he said the sentence is a wasteful process. He also said the inherent flaws in the justice system are extremely problematic when applied to executing individuals. "Why would anyone want to bring this beast back from the dead?" he said. Even if the law did pass, the executions would not resume due to litigation obstacles, including cases involving the repealed Racial Justice Act and nationwide concerns with the constitutionality of lethal injection. The bill would still require a licensed physician to be on the premises to announce the person dead. Tarrah Callahan, executive director of the N.C. Coalition for Alternatives to the Death Penalty, pointed to the two exonerations in North Carolina last year as proof of the problems with the justice system. Half-brothers Henry McCollum and Leon Brown were declared innocent and released in September 2014 after serving 30 years in prison. McCollum spent those 3 decades on death row. "The governor hasn't even made steps on granting them a pardon. And here we are, instead talking about how to rush executions to restart," Callahan said. "It just doesn't match." (source: Daily Tar Heel) SOUTH CAROLINA----female to face death penalty Death penalty sought for mother in death of Hartsville toddler Prosecutors will seek the death penalty against the mother of a toddler killed in 2013 in Hartsville. In a press release Wednesday, Fourth Circuit Solicitor Will Rogers said his office will seek death against April Dixon for the December 2, 2013 murder of Madison Dolford. Authorities say Timothy Sanders shot and killed the 21 month old. The solicitor's office announced it would seek the death penalty against Sanders in December, 2014. Prosecutors said Sanders' case was eligible for the death penalty because he killed the child for money or something else of value, and on behalf of another person. Both Dixon and Sanders are charged with murder. No trial date is set for either person. (source: WBTW news) **************************** Could the firing squad be a new death penalty in South Carolina? Death row inmates, on average, spend 15 years there before they are executed. Much of that time is spent appealing their sentences. "I talked to each person that I was responsible for executing. I went down on my own time and talked to them, made sure they were spiritually ready to go." Former State Corrections Director John Ozmint says in the 8 years he was on the job, 15 of his inmates were put to death. 2 of those were done in the electric chair. "I said, 'I gotta ask ya', and he said 'I know what you're gonna ask me, Mr. Ozmint'. And I said, 'well, why?' He said '2 reasons. One, I deserve it. I killed 2 people. And 2, I just want you all to know I can take it'." South Carolina is 1 of 14 states where an inmate can choose how they are put to death. Inmates on death row can choose one of two methods to end their life: lethal injection and the electric chair: South Carolina being one of four states that still uses the chair. Lethal injection is the primary execution method used in all 33 death penalty states. Death by firing squad- an execution method now legal in four states, could soon be an option in South Carolina. "A firing squad would be the most humane way of executing someone's life." State Representative Joshua Putnam introduced a bill last month that would bring back the firing squad as a 3rd option in South Carolina. He's been hammered by critics that say the method is inhumane. "That would be ridiculous for the state of South Carolina to start with the firing squad," said State Representative Carl Anderson. John Ozmint says no Supreme Court has ever found it to be cruel and unusual. Representative Putnam is pushing the firing squad option because South Carolina's supply of lethal injection drugs has run dry. Supplies ran out in 2013. Multiple states are facing the same situation- essentially taking the death penalty off the table. "My limited discussions with the Directors across the country is that there are no supplies left to be had," said Ozmint. Representative Putnam says "If you elect lethal injection, you know you're not gonna be put to death." Manufacturers are no longer selling it to states, and pharmaceutical companies are not required to sell states the necessary drugs. "Where the drugs have been administered wrong in other states, and you have excrutiating pain for that individual that's sentenced to death." Putnam says if he had to choose a method for himself, he would choose death by firing squad. "There's not really much of a way to mess up a firing squad." Utah recently became the 4th state to make firing squads an execution option. "These are heinous crimes. These are the most nasty, the most evil people of our society," said Putnam. "I've talked to men as they've gone to their death who would look you in the eye and tell you 'I deserve the death penalty for what I did'," said Ozmint. No one has been executed in the state of South Carolina since 2011. The last sentence was carried out by lethal injection. With that no longer being an option for the forseeable future, state lawmakers continue to search for other options. Ozmint says the State Supreme Court will not issue an execution warrant while there's still uncertainty about how it can be carried out. Meanwhile, death sentences are rapidly declining as the cost of capital punishment cases dramatically increases- costing the state millions for a sentence that may never happen. "I don't wanna see those people- those horrible people out there that just get a pass because we can't figure out another solution." It's not likely lawmakers will get to debate the death penalty issue before this legislative session ends, but House Representatives say it's an important discussion that needs to happen when the next session starts in January. (source: WACH news) FLORIDA: State Seeks Death Penalty in Barry Davis Murder Trial Wednesday began the 3-day penalty phase in the Barry Davis murder trial. Monday, a jury found Davis guilty on 14 counts for murdering John Hughes and Hiedi Rhodes in 2012. During the penalty phase, jurors will hear from Davis' family and the victims' families, who will recommend or not recommend the death penalty for Davis. The judge will make the final decision. Davis' father took the stand and talked about his son being award with the Bay County Sheriff's Office "Do the Right Thing Award" for saving a drowning man. "They gave him like a $500 scholarship and a certificate," Barry Davis, Sr. said. "It was on television and the newspaper and everything. Actually they interviewed him." "Did he maintain a relationship with that man," asked Davis' defense attorney. "Yes, yes," Davis, Sr. said. Davis' uncle also took the stand. Mental health experts for both the defense and prosecution will testify during this process. (source: WJHG news) LOUISIANA: Working on death row: 'We're all going to die - but we do choose whether to kill' ---- Richard Bourke, who gave up a career in Melbourne to work with death penalty cases in Louisiana, says in his TEDx talk that the work has moments of beauty Australian lawyer Richard Bourke, who works to save prisoners from death row in the US, has told of moments of spirituality, dignity and beauty in some of the toughest legal cases. The former Melbourne lawyer, currently the director of the Louisiana Capital Assistance Center, returned to Australia to speak to audiences at TEDxSydney about his work saving clients from the death penalty. He reflected on 20-hour work days, last-minute appeals, frantic searches for new evidence and, in unsuccessful cases, the difficulty of witnessing final moments his clients spent with their loved ones. But he said there were happy moments too, when he would meet people who chose not to kill. Several years ago he worked on a drug case involving a triple homicide. He described his client, Chuck, the convicted party, as a "kind, remorseful and spiritual man". Bourke said for lawyers working in the US justice system, the key to seeking any penalty less than death is securing the agreement of the families of the victims. In this case all had consented but the mother of the youngest victim, a 17-year-old girl whose last words were "please don't shoot me I'm pregnant". A private meeting was arranged between the mother and her daughter's killer, at the end of which she hugged him. In court the mother spoke about her loss but also her desire that Chuck be spared the death penalty. "It was a moment of unparalleled dignity and beauty," Bourke said. "We're all going to die - we don't have a choice about that - but we do choose whether to kill or not." Much of Bourke's work in Louisiana could not be done without the assistance of Australian volunteers. In late 2013, Guardian Australia visited Bourke in his New Orleans office. The legal centre had once been a recording studio and Bourke was dressed casually in a t-shirt and jeans despite it being December in the northern hemisphere. A former Melbourne lawyer, he first went to New Orleans in 1998 to volunteer on death row cases at the Louisiana Capital Assistance Center (LCAC) - a non-profit organisation assisting prisoners on death row. Co-founded in 1983 by Briton Clive Stafford Smith (dubbed by the Telegraph in Britain as the "Knight of the Living Dead" after he was awarded his OBE), the LCAC is often the last hope for prisoners who are facing the death penalty. The centre represents inmates at trial level, and for those already on the row (there are 88 men on death row in Louisiana) investigates the circumstances of their cases - sometimes discovering new evidence and launching appeals. Beyond the casework, the LCAC also undertakes large-scale projects that have strategic importance. For its Black Strikes project Australian volunteer Ursula Noyes travelled around Louisiana for 9 months investigating instances where prosecutors struck out black jury members to achieve all-white or near all-white juries in death penalty cases. Much of the LCAC's work is under-resourced and needs to be propped up by Australian volunteers, says Bourke. There are usually at least 2 Australians assisting on cases at any 1 time. "Coming out here [New Orleans] in 1998, talking to clients and seeing the paltry resources given to their cases was terrible," he said then. "But seeing what I was able to do as a volunteer made me aware of how great a contribution volunteers could make." After volunteering, Bourke returned to Melbourne for a career as a barrister and co-founded Reprieve Australia with Nick Harrington. The organisation manages a volunteer program that has to date sent more than 100 Australian volunteers to work on death penalty cases in the southern US states. In 2002, Bourke gave up his career at the Melbourne bar to relocate to Louisiana and work full-time on death penalty cases. "It's been a life-changing experience for some volunteers," he says. "Some have gone on to do this work full-time and it's changed the course of their careers. The ability to participate in this kind of work - for poor people who the state are trying to kill - is transformative. The clients are so deprived of voice, of advocates, of their families and their communities, so for volunteers it's a tremendous opportunity to make a real difference." (source: The Guardian) ********************** Lawsuit Filed Against Angola Prison and Louisiana Department of Public Safety and Corrections Over Unconstitutional and Deficient Medical Care Prisoners at the Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola (Angola) filed a lawsuit today alleging that they needlessly suffer from chronic pain, permanent injury, and preventable sickness and death as a result of prison officials' failure to provide constitutionally adequate medical care. Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll PLLC serves as counsel for the plaintiffs in this litigation. The Promise of Justice Initiative (PJI), the law firm Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll PLLC (Cohen Milstein), the Advocacy Center (AC), and the American Civil Liberties Union Foundation of Louisiana (ACLU-La) filed a complaint against the Louisiana Department of Public Safety and Corrections (DOC) and Angola's wardens alleging violations of the Cruel and Unusual Punishment clause of the Eighth Amendment and federal disability statutes. The complaint, titled Lewis et al. v. Cain et al., was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Louisiana. In challenging the inadequate medical care, the complaint alleges that the prison's more than 6,000 prisoners are all at risk of serious harm, while scores of men have already experienced unnecessary injury, suffering and death. The class action complaint details several problem areas at the prison: delays in evaluation, treatment, and access to specialty care; denial of medically necessary treatments including surgeries, medication, medical devices, and physical therapy; inappropriately managed medications; poor follow-up care; and a lack of qualified staff. The complaint also details the way these medical problems impose hardship on prisoners in other areas such as work duties and housing assignments. Prisoners report horror story after horror story: a man denied access to a specialist for 4 years while his throat cancer advanced; a man denied medical attention 4 times during a stroke, which left him blind and paralyzed; a blind man denied even a cane for 16 years. In many cases, only the specter of legal action spurred the prison to provide long-delayed medical care. The complaint contends that Angola's medical care worsened when Earl K. Long Hospital in Baton Rouge, which used to serve prisoners with medical emergencies, was closed during the reorganization of the state's Charity Hospital System. Even basic screenings and treatments are now being broadly denied. "The grave systemic deficiencies in the delivery of medical care at Angola lead to appalling outcomes," said Jeffrey Dubner, an attorney at Cohen Milstein. "Preventable illness, injury and death are not part of a prison sentence, yet Angola officials are pervasively subjecting the men in their custody to these risks." The complaint also alleges that disabled prisoners are especially hard-hit by the inadequate delivery of care. Miranda Tait, Managing Attorney for AC, said, "Because prisoners with disabilities generally require stabilizing care and management of chronic conditions, the failure of the prison to deliver adequate care heightens the chance that a prisoner with disabilities will be condemned to increased misery and exacerbated disabilities." The investigation into the delivery of medical care at Angola began more than 2 years ago as a result of multiple prisoners' reports of grossly inadequate medical care. Attorneys interviewed more than 200 men in connection with this investigation and found scores whose problems echo those of the plaintiffs named in the complaint. The class action seeks an injunction that will bring the prison in line with constitutional standards in the delivery of medical care. The Promise of Justice Initiative is a private, non-profit organization that advocates for criminal justice reform and abolition of the death penalty on behalf of indigent defendants and prisoners who seek fair and equal treatment under the law. Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll PLLC has been a pioneer in class action lawsuits on behalf of individuals and small businesses for over 40 years. It has 80 attorneys and offices in Washington, D.C., New York, Philadelphia, Chicago, Denver, and Palm Beach Gardens, Florida. The Advocacy Center of Louisiana is a statewide non-profit organization dedicated to assisting people with disabilities and seniors in Louisiana to achieve maximum potential and independence. The Advocacy Center of Louisiana employs 50 people statewide who assist people to achieve employment, education, housing, and health care goals. The American Civil Liberties Foundation of Louisiana has been Louisiana's guardian of liberty since 1956, working daily in courts, legislatures and communities to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties that the Constitution and laws of the United States guarantee everyone in this country. (source: globenewswire.com) INDIANA: Indiana Supreme Court upholds Lake County death-penalty conviction The Indiana Supreme Court has upheld the conviction and death-penalty sentence of Kevin Charles Isom for the murders of his wife and 2 stepchildren. The 30-page decision released Wednesday in the direct appeal to the verdict and 3 consecutive death sentences comes nearly 1 year after the state's highest court heard oral arguments. Isom was sentenced in 2013 for the Aug. 6, 2007, murders of Cassandra Isom, and her 2 children, Ci'Andria Cole, 13, and Michael Moore, 16, at their apartment at the Lakeshore Dunes complex in the Miller section of Gary. Cassandra was shot in the head at close range with a 12-gauge shotgun and was also shot with a .40-caliber handgun. Ci'Andria was shot with a .357-Magnum revolver, the .40-caliber handgun and the shotgun, and Michael was killed by a shotgun blast to his chest and side. He also was shot with the .40-caliber pistol. Isom told police he had lost his job as a security guard a few months before the killing and that his wife had informed him she planned to file for divorce. Among the issues raised in the appeal was whether the trial court judge, Lake Superior Court Judge Thomas Stefaniak Jr., improperly denied a defense motion for a mistrial after the testimony of a downstairs neighbor who said he called 911 after hearing gunfire in the apartment above his. While being questioned by prosecutors, the witness said he heard a girl say, "Daddy," and that he heard Isom's daughter talking inside the apartment just before the shooting began. The judge sustained a hearsay objection by defense counsel and told jurors to disregard the "Daddy" or "daughter" testimony. The highest court determined that Stefaniak's final instructions addressed the issue of how jurors may not consider testimony that had been stricken from the record. The court wrote that it assumed the jury obeyed the judge's instructions in reaching its verdict. The appeal also challenged the judge's refusal to allow Cassandra Isom's sister to respond to a jury question about whether the victims' family forgave Isom. The question came after a defense witness, one of Isom's cousins, testified that she had spoken to Cassandra Isom's parents and said they forgave him, and a second cousin who said that Cassandra Isom's parents didn't want the death penalty. The appeal described forgiveness as a "potentially a significant piece of evidence that should have been considered by the jury before it make its recommendation to the court." While expressions of forgiveness by a crime victim may be considered mitigating circumstances, the court said that the appeal didn't outline how forgiveness by her family is a mitigating factor. The court remanded the case back to Lake County with instructions to issue a new sentencing order consistent with the court's opinion. (source: Ruth Ann Krause is freelance reporter for the Post-Tribune.) ARKANSAS: Sentencing phase focuses on memories of slain girl Jersey Bridgeman loved to chase butterflies and feed ducks, her mother, DesaRae Crouch, told a packed courtroom Wednesday. A jury earlier had found Zachary Holly, 30, of Bentonville guilty of capital murder in 6-year-old Jersey's death. The girl's body was found in the closet of an abandon house next to Holly's residence on Southeast A Street on Nov. 20, 2012. Pajamas were wrapped around her neck. The jury of 7 men and 5 women began to deliberate at 11 a.m. Wednesday and returned hours later with its verdict. Holly stood between his attorneys as Circuit Judge Brad Karren read the verdict. Jersey's family members hugged during a break after the verdict was read. Crouch testified during the sentencing phase that it was fun to be Jersey's mother. "She had stories," Crouch said. "She was a very colorful character." Jersey loved being a big sister. She and her younger sister, Leah, were sidekicks, Crouch said. Jersey loved to eat french fries, Crouch said. "She liked McDonald's," Crouch said. "What kid doesn't?" Sniffles could be heard around the courtroom as Crouch testified, but that comment drew laughter from some in attendance. Holly rocked in his chair as a tearful Crouch described Jersey. Vickie Price, Jersey's grandmother, called her daughter and 2 granddaughters "The Three Musketeers." Price told jurors that she missed hearing Jersey's voice and getting hugs from her. "I will never hear her yell 'Memaw' to me ever again," Price said. Prosecutors also called Amanda Gatwalt as a witness. She was Jersey's kindergarten teacher at Sugar Creek Elementary School. She told jurors that Jersey had learned to spell her last name, and that Jersey had a story to tell her almost every day. Gatwalt described the last time she saw the child, who had won an 8-pound turkey at school. Jersey had the turkey in her backpack and was dragging it across the floor. Jersey was concerned that she wouldn't be able to get on the bus with the turkey, and the 2 laughed about it, Gatwalt said. "The last time I saw her was when she was all hunched over with a big turkey in her backpack," said Gatwalt, drawing a laugh from people in the courtroom. Nathan Smith, Benton County prosecuting attorney, rested the prosecution's case after Gatwalt's testimony. Smith asked jurors in his opening statement in the sentencing phase to impose the death penalty on Holly. Holly also was found guilty of rape, kidnapping and residential burglary. Robby Golden, one of Holly's attorneys, described Holly's childhood to the jury. Holly lived in 39 different homes and attended 23 different schools during his childhood, Golden said. The California Department of Human Services was contacted 16 times about neglect, along with physical and sexual abuse complaints concerning Holly, Golden said. The defense will begin to call witnesses this morning in an attempt to persuade the jury to spare Holly's life. Holly could be sentenced to life imprisonment without parole or the death penalty for the capital-murder conviction. (source: Arkansas Online) From rhalperi at smu.edu Thu May 21 14:31:15 2015 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Thu, 21 May 2015 14:31:15 -0500 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----OKLA., NEB. Message-ID: May 21 OKLAHOMA: Anti death penalty coalition announces former State Senator Connie Johnson as new board chair The Oklahoma Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty has announced the election of its new Board Chair, former Oklahoma State Senator and candidate for Oklahoma Democratic Party Vice Chair, Constance "Connie" Johnson. Also newly elected is OK-CADP Vice Chair Samuel Jennings, a member of the Oklahoma State University History Department in Stillwater. "We at the Oklahoma Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty are overjoyed at the election of our new Chair-person, Senator Connie Johnson," said Adam Leathers, OK-CADP spokesperson. "We are grateful for everything that our exiting Chair-person, Marilynn Knott, has done for our cause and are pleased she will still be a part of our coalition. "We welcome Senator Johnson and believe she will be a superb leader," Leathers added. "She has the gifts, passion, and experience to lead the coalition in the fight against our state-sponsored murder and by God's grace and her leadership, we believe we will make a real difference." Johnson recently retired after 33-years in the State Senate, representing Oklahoma City's predominantly African American "Eastside," where she pursued a game changing focus on health/mental health/human services issues that disproportionately affect the economic and social well-being of the poor, minorities, women, children, and people with disabilities. The 1st woman and Black in Oklahoma's history to win a major party's US Senate nomination in 2014, Johnson contends her aggressive proposals on sentencing reform and abolishing the death penalty are beginning to gain traction in Oklahoma's conservative climate. Johnson's advocacy grew out of her Master's Thesis on Women and Incarceration in Oklahoma, which is reflective of the high cost and impact on the state's budget. While in the Senate, Johnson served on full Senate Appropriations, Health and Human Services Appropriations Subcommittee, and was the ranking Democratic member of the Health and Human Services Committee. She also served on Public Safety, Veterans, Energy, Finance, and Rules standing committees. Johnson was the 2014 Oklahoma Democratic Party Veteran's Committee "Legislator of the Year," and presently chairs the ODP State Affirmative Action Committee. She was the 2013 recipient of the OK-CADP Phil Wahl Abolitionist of the Year Award. Johnson is a native Oklahoman, mother of three and grandmother to Savannah and Rhyan. A University of Pennsylvania graduate, Johnson has a Master's Degree in Rehabilitation Counseling from Langston University in Langston, OK. "I am privileged to serve as the 2015-2016 chair of the Oklahoma Coalition to Abolish The Death Penalty, for such a time as this in Oklahoma's history," Johnson said. "Our Board's 1st action of the year was unanimously agreeing to pursue a statewide aggressive education and awareness campaign, including reinvigorating and holding accountable our member organizations to join in acting, and establishing chapters throughout the state, as we work to defeat an upcoming state question." "This is an exciting time in Oklahoma; when everything we've advocated will become front and center," Johnson added. "I am both honored and excited about the opportunity to be a part of the movement and to continue to use my voice to bring about solutions for all people." Jennings' work at OSU focuses on the Catholic Church's challenges in responding to modern life. He lives in Oklahoma City with his wife, Angela, who works as an immigration attorney for Catholic Charities. Together they have 3 children: Robert, Grayson, and Joseph. "Serving as the Vice-Chair of the OCADP is a great honor and a sizeable responsibility," Jennings said. "I look eagerly to working with this wonderful community of abolitionists in ridding Oklahoma of Capital Punishment." Jennings has been an active participant in local politics since college and is a member of St. Francis of Assisi Catholic Church. Other officers of the 2015-2016 OK-CADP Board include Secretary, Susan Bishop, a member of the Social Justice Committee of Oklahoma City's First Unitarian Church; and Treasurer, Mary E. Sine, an educator at Oklahoma City Public Schools. OK-CADP is a grassroots membership organization working to end the death penalty in Oklahoma. It engages in outreach, education, and advocacy aimed at raising awareness of issues related to the death penalty. For more information, visit okcadp.org. (source: city-sentinel.com) NEBRASKA: Reactions: Lawmakers and officials on the death penalty repeal vote Quotes from from state lawmakers and other officials on Wednesday's debate on repealing the death penalty. Sen. Ernie Chambers of Omaha, who has worked for 40 years to repeal the death penalty: "Nebraska has a chance to step into history, the right side of history." Sen. Dave Schnoor of Scribner, death penalty supporter, said: "You'll be known to have taken the side of a senator who said the police is his ISIS, and he'd shoot first and ask questions later." Sen. Laura Ebke of Crete, repeal supporter: "If government shouldn't be trusted to manage our health care ... why should it be trusted to carry out an irrevocable sentence of death?" Sen. Mike Groene of North Platte, death penalty supporter: "We have lilly-white society, middle class people in here who've never seen evil. We can't pull the lever. God made people who will." Sen. Tanya Cook of Omaha, repeal supporter: "It is indeed a historic day and greetings from lilly-white Nebraska who does not support the death penalty." Sen. Kate Bolz of Lincoln, repeal supporter: "The way that we can make an impact on public safety is not by taking a life." Sen. Lydia Brasch of Bancroft, a death penalty supporter: "Lady Justice does hold an unsheathed sword to carry out justice." Sen. Matt Williams of Gothenburg, a repeal supporter: "Is it vengeance? Is it retribution? Is it punishment? Is it revenge? We have an alternative in our state, in our modern society today, that has not always been there. That alternative protects society." Sen. Beau McCoy of Omaha, who led the filibuster in the failed effort to kill the repeal bill: "The death penalty should be reserved for those who've committed the worst of the worst offenses against their fellow Nebraskans." Sen. Les Seiler of Hastings, chairman of the Judiciary Committee and a repeal supporter: "In north Omaha there's been 21 murders since Jan 1. 21 murders with the death penalty on the books. What a great deterrent that is." Reaction to Legislature's vote Nebraska Attorney General Doug Peterson: "There have been prior criminal acts in our communities, and I know there will be future criminal acts in Nebraska that will clearly warrant the use of the death penalty as a consequence of the criminal???s heinous, murderous acts. Without the ability to utilize the death penalty, the state has weakened its ability to properly administer appropriate justice." Stacy Anderson, executive director, Nebraskans for Alternatives to the Death Penalty: "We are thrilled that once again legislators from across the political and ideological spectrum have joined together to pass a law repealing the death penalty. Nebraska???s death penalty is broken. It is time to let it go and refocus on meaningful responses to violence." Statement from Nebraska Catholic Conference: "The Catholic bishops of Nebraska commend the Nebraska Legislature for voting (Wednesday) to pass LB 268 and replace the death penalty with life in prison without parole. Our support for LB 268 reflects the teaching of our faith and our prudential judgment that the death penalty cannot be justified in Nebraska at this time. Our support for this bill also flows from our prayerful reflection on the words of Jesus Christ himself: 'Love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your heavenly Father.'" (source: omaha.com) ************************** Nebraskans React to Death Penalty Repeal Several groups are speaking out after the Nebraska Legislature voted to repeal the state's death penalty Wednesday. LB268 passed with a 32-15. Nebraska Catholic Conference: "The Catholic Bishops of Nebraska commend the Nebraska Legislature for voting to pass LB 268 and replace the death penalty with life in prison without parole. Our support for LB 268 reflects the teaching of our faith and our prudential judgment that the death penalty cannot be justified in Nebraska at this time. Our support for this bill also flows from our prayerful reflection on the words of Jesus Christ himself: 'love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your heavenly Father.'" Nebraska Attorney General Doug Peterson: "There have been prior criminal acts in our communities, and I know there will be future criminal acts in Nebraska that will clearly warrant the use of the death penalty as a consequence of the criminal's heinous, murderous acts. Without the ability to utilize the death penalty, the State has weakened its ability to properly administer appropriate justice." Stacy Anderson, head of Nebraskans for Alternatives to the Death Penalty: "We are thrilled that once again legislators from across the political and ideological spectrum have joined together to pass a law repealing the death penalty. Nebraska's death penalty is broken. It is time to let it go and refocus on meaningful responses to violence." (source: Nebraska.tv) ************************ Nebraska death penalty repeal: Are Republicans shifting their stance? Nebraska lawmakers on Wednesday approved a bill to abolish capital punishment. The vote marks a shift toward greater Republican support for ending the death penalty. Nebraska's days as a death penalty state may be coming to an end. Lawmakers on Wednesday approved a bill to repeal capital punishment, making Nebraska the 1st conservative state to do so in more than 40 years. The vote - which marks a shift toward bipartisan agreement about policy surrounding the death penalty - could pave the way for similar decisions in other Republican states, as support for capital punishment continues its slow decline across the United States. "The conservative Republicans' positions as expressed in Nebraska are basically a microcosm of what's going on with conservatives about the death penalty nationwide," says Robert Dunham, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, a national nonprofit that provides information and analysis related to the death penalty. "Abolition in Nebraska could empower conservatives in other 'red' states to move forward because they know it can be done." Procedural, fiscal, and religious concerns are driving the shift, Mr. Dunham says. In Nebraska, where lawmakers voted 32 to 15 in favor of abolition - enough to override an expected veto from Gov. Pete Ricketts - the bill's Republican supporters appeal to fiscal conservatism, casting the death penalty "as a waste of taxpayer money and question whether government can be trusted to manage it," the Associated Press reported. Studies have shown that the costs associated with cases that seek the death penalty are often far greater than in cases that don???t. One Seattle University report published in January estimated that death penalty trials and subsequent appeals can cost taxpayers up to $1 million more. "What this provides is evidence of the costs of death-penalty cases, empirical evidence," the study's lead author Peter Collins told the Seattle Times. "We went into it [the study] wanting to remain objective. This is purely about the economics; whether or not it's worth the investment is up to the public." Some Republican lawmakers have also questioned whether support for the death penalty conflicts with conservative values about preserving life and opposing government intervention. "It's certainly a matter of conscience, at least in part, but it's also a matter of trying to be philosophically consistent," Sen. Laure Ebke, (R) of Crete, told the AP. "If government can't be trusted to manage our health care ... then why should it be trusted to carry out the irrevocable sentence of death?" The system that makes the death penalty possible has also come under scrutiny in the face of the scarcity of lethal injection drugs and recent botched executions. Nebraska, for instance, lacks the drugs it needs to execute any of its 11 death-row inmates, and the last execution in the state was in 1997, The Wall Street Journal reported. "If any other system in our government was as ineffective and inefficient as is our death penalty, we conservatives would have gotten rid of it a long, long time ago," Sen. Colby Coash, (R) of Lincoln, told the Journal. Some victims' families have also recently come out against the death penalty, saying that the years of appeals did little to help them heal or move forward. During the trial of convicted Boston marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, Bill and Denise Richard, whose 8-year-old was killed in the attack, publicly spoke against the prospect of a death sentence for Tsarnaev. "The continued pursuit of that punishment could bring years of appeals and prolong reliving the most painful day of our lives," they wrote in an essay for The Boston Globe. "The minute the defendant fades from our newspapers and TV screens is the minute we begin the process of rebuilding our lives and our family." Not everyone is in favor of abolition. Nebraska Gov. Ricketts, who announced last week that the state had bought new lethal injection drugs, has pledged to veto the bill, requiring an override vote. "This is a case where the Legislature is completely out of touch with the overwhelming majority of Nebraskans that I talk to," Ricketts told the AP. The most recent Pew Research Center numbers also show that nationally, more than 3/4 of Republicans still favor capital punishment, compared to only 40 % of Democrats. Still, conservative opposition to the death penalty is increasingly present. Even in Texas - the top state for executions, with more than 400 since 1976 - death sentences have been on the decline: The state executed 35 people in 1999 compared to 10 last year. "There is no doubt about it. We're seeing a reduction in the use of the death penalty in Texas," Kathryn Kase, executive director of the nonprofit Texas Defender Service, told The Dallas Morning News earlier this month. "Here it is May, and we have had only 2 death penalty cases in Texas," Ms. Kase added. "And in both, the jury chose life without parole instead. That strikes me as really significant." (source: Christian Science Monitor) ************************* If repeal bill becomes law, Nikko Jenkins' death penalty hearing would be moot Nikko Jenkins has served as the face of many things in the past 20 months: a coldblooded killer, a troubled inmate, a defiant defendant. Now he holds this distinction: His death penalty hearing is the next one scheduled for a convicted Nebraska killer - and it's in obvious jeopardy after the Legislature voted Wednesday to repeal the death penalty. Jenkins, 27, is awaiting a hearing July 7 to determine whether he would receive the death penalty for shooting and killing Juan Uribe-Pena, Jorge Cajiga-Ruiz, Curtis Bradford and Andrea Kruger in August 2013. A 3-judge panel is to decide his fate after a weeklong hearing. , But if the death penalty repeal survives, Douglas County Public Defender Tom Riley said, Jenkins' hearing is a moot point. Solicitor General James Smith of the Nebraska Attorney General's Office said that if a death sentence is not "final," it would become a life sentence if Legislative Bill 268 becomes law. A death sentence does not become final, he said, until the State Supreme Court affirms it in the automatic appeal afforded for such cases. The new law would affect anyone awaiting trial or sentencing for 1st-degree murder who faces the possibility of a death sentence. In addition to Jenkins, that would include Anthony J. Garcia, a former Creighton pathology resident charged with killing 4 Omahans connected to Creighton's pathology department. His trial is pending. Prosecutors also have said they would seek the death penalty against Roberto Martinez-Marinero, who is accused of killing his 45-year-old mother earlier this month, dropping his 11-month-old half brother in a dumpster in La Vista, then tossing his 4-year-old half brother into the Elkhorn River, where the child drowned. For Jenkins, if LB 268 becomes law, it wouldn't necessarily mean the end of his case. If he has no death penalty hearing to face, Jenkins is expected to try to withdraw his no-contest pleas - which judges rarely allow. In turn, Jenkins would face a mandatory life sentence. (source: omaha.com) ******************************** A century of death penalty support leads to historic repeal vote Nebraskans hoping to abolish the state's death penalty cautiously celebrated after the historic vote supporting Legislative Bill 268. With a governor's veto looming, another round of debate and a last vote is expected next week. The history of previous attempts to end the capital punishment in the state makes clear final passage is never a sure thing. Below is a review of this century-long debate, along with some efforts to expand the types of crimes worthy of execution. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1900's: Death to Kidnappers! Since becoming a state, Nebraska law not only specified which crimes deserved the death penalty, but the method of execution. State lawmakers, tired of botched hangings by county sheriffs and the ugly spectacle of public executions, opened the new century by modernizing its method. Lawmakers gave the warden of the state penitentiary sole responsibility for carrying out executions. Gottlieb Niegenfind was the 1st and news reports indicate everything went according to plan. There was little talk in the Capitol of ending the death penalty. Some states, including neighbors Kansas and Colorado, repealed capital punishment but were debating the merits of returning to state-sponsored executions. Bills introduced in Nebraska attempted to add, or at least specify, crimes worthy of a death sentence. Train robbery and kidnapping were both considered candidates for that list. (At the time the Legislature still consisted of 2 chambers, the House and Senate.) Big money kidnappings became a cause for politicians after a sensational Nebraska case caught the attention of the entire nation. In 1900 the teenaged son of a wealthy Omaha couple was snatched off the street. His father quickly paid the $25,000 ransom and his son was returned. State lawmakers responded by specifying kidnappers who demanded money would face a death sentence. (Kidnappings of those who didn't have the means to pay a ransom were apparently considered lesser crimes.) Sen. Frank T. Ransom, the Omaha lawyer who wrote the bill, determined existing law was "regarded as lame and good authorities question whether ... a long conviction would be possible." One unidentified "prominent member of the Senate" quoted in the McCook Tribune stated "to restore capital punishment for any crime less than murder in the 1st degree would be a distinct step backward." The law passed. These days kidnapping would be including among many 'aggravating circumstances' considered when the courts determined a sentence in a capital murder case. 1910s: The Problem with Pardons Can you be against the executions but in favor of the electric chair? Apparently a handful of Nebraska legislators felt they could hold both opinions on a single day. An editorial cartoon from the 1913 Omaha Bee shows capital punishment vying for the attention of a state legislator along with 2 other issues of the day, giving women the right to vote and legalizing baseball games on Sundays. The electric chair had become the method of choice in most states where capital punishment was legal. Nebraska was one of the few left which relied solely on hanging, and State Rep. August Reuter of Otoe County felt it was time to modernize its execution chamber. At the same time Rep. John McKissick of Gage County sought to end use of the death penalty in most cases. Both bills were heard on the same day. According to the correspondent for the Omaha Bee, "the house went on record as being opposed to capital punishment and then turned around and recommended for passage a bill to electrocute condemned prisoners instead of hanging them." Eventually both the House and Senate kept capital punishment as the law of the land and approved the electric chair. An editorial in the Lincoln State Journal approved. The editor wrote: "The substitution of the electric chair as the instrument of death will put Nebraska in the company of perhaps a dozen states that have accepted what is considered on all sides as a more humane method of inflicting the death penalty." There were still regular attempts to repeal capital punishment, but the controversial and apparently too frequent use of pardons for criminals by Nebraska's governors gave supporters of capital punishment ammunition against their opponents. Starting in 1893 the state's governors held the power to parole any prisoner who had at least served the minimum sentence permitted by the court. Those committing murder could be sprung from jail after 25 years. With a commutation, a prisoner could be set free if the governor, and the governor alone, felt a sentence had been unfair. Each year governors wielded the authority more and more freely. A study completed by the warden of the state penitentiary revealed so loose were penalties "a life sentence has meant only about 7 or 8 years and the longest term served by any man was only 15 years." State legislators created the State Prison Board in 1911 to advise the governor. That seemed to do little to reduce the number of prisoners being released early, and at times without adequate review. Exclusive pardon power was taken from the governor in 1920 and decisions were given to a 3-member Board of Pardons made up of the governor, attorney general and secretary of state. 1920s: Old Time Religion and New Era Women Grass roots opposition to the death penalty was a rarity in Nebraska so it was news when the Women's Christian Temperance Union joined the fight. The WCTU, energized by its victory over liquor in America and the arrival of Prohibition, making liquor illegal, turned its attention to other causes in its moral crusade. "We are also opposed to prize fights, to lynching, to anarchy and to capital punishment," read the national organization's annual report. In January of 1920 a mass meeting was held in Omaha to create an organization to muster support and circulate petitions. The initiative was not directed at the Legislature but at delegates to the state's constitutional convention. Nebraska's constitution had not been updated since 1893 and it was viewed as an opportunity to repeal the death penalty. The campaign had little impact. Shortly after delegates convened, the North Platte Tribune reported they had "apparently taken a definite stand to refuse to knock out the death penalty from the constitution." In December Nebraska used its electric chair for the 1st time. 2 men involved in the same crime were executed within 20 minutes of each other. Alson Cole and Allen Grammer of Howard County conspired to murder Grammer's mother-in-law for her inheritance. 3 years of appeals, stays of executions and legal maneuvering outraged death penalty supporters demanding justice be carried out. The Temperance Union didn't give up, shifting its pressure to state legislators. "I think murder is murder, whether committed by the state in punishing a crime or by a person in anger or revenge," said Mrs. C.W. Hayes, state superintendent of moral education for the WCTU, according to the Dakota County Herald. The group sent out at least 100 petitions for signatures. Gov. Samuel McKelvie supported the bill and recommended once the court issued a death sentence it could not be altered. The bill failed within a month. By 1923 a similar bill did not even make it out of committee. While he opposed the death penalty, Gov. McKelvie still carried out the law of the state of Nebraska, signing the death warrants for 3 men during his term. More executions were carried out in the 1920s than in any other year after the state took responsibility for carrying out the sentence. 1930s and 1940s: The Quiet Decades By the beginning of the 1930s Nebraska's death row was empty. Not only would there not be a single execution for the next 13 years, there is no record of a single murder case ending with a death sentence in the state during the entire decade. It's a remarkable fact, considering across America this was the era of bootleggers defying Prohibition, gangsters like John Dillinger and Bonnie and Clyde, and an epidemic of bank robberies born of the desperate times of the Depression. 1945: MacAvoy & The Sanity Test The case of Joseph MacAvoy unnerved the state in a couple of ways. He was convicted of raping and murdering a 16-year old girl in tiny Sutton, Nebraska. At a time when pride in the troops headed overseas was at a peak, it was a shock to learn the suspect was a military police officer stationed at the Harvard Air Base training facility. After MacAvoy's execution the warden of the state penitentiary told legislators it was time to review how the state determined if a person was insane prior to facing the electric chair. From the beginning Nebraska law prohibited the execution of those diagnosed as mentally incapable of understanding or controlling their own actions. State law left the decision as to whether to conduct a sanity test up to the discretion of the person in charge of the prison. The Omaha World-Herald reported Warden Neil Olson testified that put "too much responsibility on 1 man." Olson said he felt MacAvoy was sane and had "no feelings of remorse" about the execution, but felt the 3-member Pardons Board should take over that responsibility. The bill passed and the discussion foreshadowed what would become one of the most contentious policy issues for lawmakers, attorneys and judges. There was also little activity in the State Capitol related to the death penalty. Headlines about local government were dominated by responses to the economic crisis and the headaches of enforcing the national ban on liquor. One of the few bills introduced during the 1930s reflected the times. Sen. Arthur Newman of Oakland introduced a bill singling out bank robbery as an offense worthy of execution. Newman, not coincidentally, ran the bank in Oakland. Discussion about the merits of capital punishment didn't resume until 1949. By then World War II had ended and a handful of sensational murder cases made headlines and stirred public emotion again. 1950s: Reconsidering the process Sen. Hugh Carson made yet another attempt to end the death penalty, but there was little popular sentiment to reduce the penalty for 1st-degree murder. Another senator, the fiery representative from Scottsbluff, Terry Carpenter, even proposed making a 3rd violation of the state's narcotic laws punishable by death or a life sentence. In 1955 Gov. Victor Anderson, after witnessing an ugly, 3-day prison riot at the Nebraska State Penitentiary, told the press the uprising made him "a firm supporter" of capital punishment. 2 murder cases brought new issues about the legal system and capital punishment in the state. In 1954 Loyd Grandsinger, a Sioux Indian, had been sentenced to die for allegedly participating in the murder of a Nebraska state trooper in Cherry County. Grandsinger was released from prison after a federal judge determined the trial was unfair because his defense attorney had been incompetent. After a 2nd trial the jury found Grandsinger innocent, sparing him the electric chair. No one doubted the guilt of a second murderer, Stanley Nowicki. In 1956 he earned the death penalty for hacking his wife to death on a South Omaha sidewalk. Because his attorney failed to file his appeal paperwork on time Nowicki did not have the chance to challenge the verdict. The courts, and later the State Legislature, agreed a paperwork mistake shouldn???t result in an automatic death sentence. Nowicki's sentence was changed to life and a change in law required all death sentences to be given a review by the state's Supreme Court, even without an attorney filing the paperwork. By the end of the decade some state senators reconsidered their stands on the value of the death penalty. Another attempt was made to have the punishment removed from state statute. Most notably, Sen. Carpenter, just a couple of years after suggesting repeat drug offenders deserved to die, sponsored his own bill replacing capital punishment with mandatory life in prison. Sen. Carpenter, according to the Omaha World-Herald, "argued that life imprisonment, forcing a murderer to live with his conscience, is a greater penalty than death." A death penalty supporter, Sen. Don Thompson of McCook, replied such a person "has no conscience to live with." The vote was not close. Only 3 of 26 legislators voting supported ending the death penalty. 2 years later Charles Starkweather and Caril Ann Fugate began a mass murder spree in Nebraska leaving 11 people dead. It turned international attention on the state and its justice system. The execution of Starkweather in 1959 became an emblematic case for capital punishment. It would also be the only use of the electric chair in the state for another 3 decades. 1960s: An Advocate Governor Rarely has a Nebraska Governor used the office to campaign against the death penalty. Even while the state's chief executives rarely pushed to advance executions during their terms of office, most made it clear they supported and would not interfere with the legal process when capital cases came before them for a final review. In 1903 Gov. Erza P. Savage told the Legislature, "in our day of boastful enlightenment, we find employed instruments which in the darkest ages represented the most vicious form of punishment, human savagery, and barbarism." Savage took the unusual step of issuing a 6 month stay of execution for William Rhea, age 19, sentenced to hang for murdering a saloonkeeper during a drunken robbery attempt. 3 older men involved in the case all blamed Rhea and avoided the death sentence. Public opinion was divided. One petition drive asked he be spared while another asked justice be done at the gallows. The Legislature failed to act and the state executed Rhea later that year on the orders of the next governor, William Mickey. It would be 60 years before another chief executive took action to stop capital punishment. Frank Morrison, a Democrat from McCook, started his political career as a county prosecutor. He became governor in 1960 and held the office for 3 terms. Initially he took no strong stand. Early in his 1st term Morrison told the Omaha World-Herald his mind "hasn't been irrevocably made up" about abolishing the death penalty but added if the Legislature passed such a bill, he wouldn't veto it. "There is no existing evidence available that capital punishment reduces the crime rate or protects society," Morrison said, adding "at least none has been called to my attention." In 1965, Morrison's 2nd term in office, he threw his full support behind a bill to end the death penalty sponsored by Sen. John Knight of Lincoln. A similar bill had not even made it out of committee 2 years earlier. This time Morrison testified before the Judiciary Committee, calling capital punishment "nothing more than legalized murder." The leader of the Police Officers Association of Nebraska, Robert Guenzel, was outraged by Morrison's statements, telling the senators "there are certain psychotics in crime who are not wanted by society. Execution is the proper way to rid the state of these individuals." Even with the support of Gov. Morrison, there was no support for ending the death penalty at a time when crime rates were on the rise in the state's largest cities. The Judiciary Committee killed the bill with a 5-1 vote. The following year Sen. Knight gave up his fight and didn't even submit a death penalty bill. He told the World Herald "I'd feel like I'd be batting my head against the wall." 1970s The Veto Historic rulings by the United States Supreme Court did more than any act at the State Capitol to dictate law and delay executions during the 1970s. In some of the 39 states where the death penalty was in use at the time (most notably in the South) attorneys successfully argued capital punishment was not being applied equally and fairly. In 1972 the Supreme Court issued a ruling in Furman v. Georgia which temporarily invalided the death penalty nationwide. To retain capital punishment state laws had to be rewritten to include guidelines for judges and juries specifying what made a specific crime worth of a death sentence. The Nebraska Legislature acted quickly and in 1973 it overwhelmingly passed LB 268, which established, according to the Legislative Research Division, "mitigating and aggravating circumstances to be weighed in determining whether a murder merits the death penalty." A 2nd bill provided for a sentencing trial in capital murder cases. Once someone was found guilty, a 2nd hearing would be held to review whether the acts were sufficient to rise to the level of a death sentence. 4 years later Nebraska law added a requirement to compare death penalty cases to see if offenses and punishments were comparable. If the changes in law were considered to be legal reforms, they did not quiet those who felt the state had no role in taking the life of a person. Sen. Ernie Chambers had made eliminating the death penalty one of his highest priorities since he was elected to the Legislature to represent his North Omaha district in 1970. His efforts were mostly futile until 1979. It would be the closest the state ever came to ending capital punishment. Several very influential senators, all moderate Republicans, reevaluated their position on the issue. Chambers' bill would replace the sentence in capital murder cases with a mandatory prison term of 30 years to life. When the bill reached the full Legislature for debate "the atmosphere ... was remarkable because of the quiet and the attention given to senators who spoke," according to the Omaha World-Herald. Sen. Loran Schmit, after 11 years of firm opposition, told the hushed chamber "I do not make this decision lightly," as he announced he would support the repeal. Sen. Jerome Warner noted the new prison being built in Lincoln included a death chamber, which he called "a monument to the past" and said he had decided to change his stand on the issue as well. Supporters of the death penalty, including Sen. Chris Beutler, spoke of "the human apprehension of death" as a reason having a death sentence available prevented violent crime. On the 1st round of voting the bill passed 25-17, but once it reached Gov. Charles Thone it was vetoed immediately. There were not enough votes to override the veto. 1980s: Holding Steady Nebraska had never executed or even issued a death sentence to a minor, but there had been cases in which it might have been considered. Caril Ann Fugate, the 14-year-old girlfriend went on trial for murder along with her boyfriend Charles Starkweather for their killing spree. Starkweather, 5 years older than his companion, got the electric chair while Fugate was spared. Nonetheless, there was a consensus in legal circles juveniles should not be executed and in 1982 the Legislature agreed, passing a law excluding offenders under 18 from the risk of a death sentence. (In 1998, in compliance with a U.S. Supreme Court ruling, Nebraska also prohibited the execution of mentally retarded individuals involved in capital crimes.) Sen. Elroy Hefner made legislative history in 1983 by making the 1st effort to end the use of the electric chair and replacing it with lethal injection, a new method gaining support in death penalty states. Hefner contended it "would be more humane." The bill never made it out of committee. 1990s: Taking Time to Study In 1994 the State of Nebraska resumed executions for the 1st time in nearly 30 years. Harold Otey died in the electric chair after exhausting his appeal process. Convicted murderers John Joubert and Robert Williams would follow him over the next 3 years. The introduction of a bill to abolish the death penalty became an annual affair in the statehouse. During every legislative session between 1976 and 2008 Sen. Chambers introduced a bill calling for an end to executions. They would not take hold and on most occasions they did not get to a vote by the full Legislature. 2 initiatives in the 1990s brought the issue back to the forefront. When Sen. Chambers introduced LB 327 to end the death penalty in 1992 it arrived with 25 co-sponsors, surpassing early support for the similar bill passed (but vetoed) 13 years earlier. After the Judiciary Committee refused to advance the bill for a floor vote, a majority of senators rallied to have it debated. Politically, the timing proved to be bad to maintain support for the bill. Larry Koch, in his book "The Death of the American Death Penalty" wrote the horrific crimes placing Otey, Joubert and Williams on death row loomed large in newspapers and television news at the time. Efforts to proceed with their long-delayed executions were gaining momentum and the families of their victims were lobbying state senators. It only got worse for supporters. 2 years earlier Sen. Chambers wrote a letter to Harold Otey on death row, hinting the killer might not have to spend the rest of his life in prison if the death penalty were repealed. "The 'without parole' won't mean much in reality," Chambers wrote, "because the Pardons Board always will have the power to reduce any sentence." After the letter was made public early supporters abandoned the bill. If the state would not end capital punishment, opponents of the practice asked if the state would at least be willing to hold off on any executions until there was a study of how fairly it was applied and its costs. The American Bar Association made the request of all death penalty states. Nebraska state senators would not vote to stall executions, but they did agree to fund a study. The research completed by University of Iowa death penalty researcher David Baldus showed there was little evidence of racial discrimination at the time, but defendants from the state's population centers were more likely to face a capital murder charge than those in rural areas. Also, cases where the victim was poor were less likely to see the defendant get the death penalty. Few state senators felt the research provided any evidence the death penalty needed to be reconsidered. 2000 to Present: Lethal Injection The biggest change in death penalty law did not originate in the State Legislature, but from the Nebraska Supreme Court. In a landmark, forcefully worded opinion in the case of Mata v. Nebraska the justices ruled the use of the electric chair violated the state's constitutional ban on "cruel and unusual punishment." In order to maintain the death penalty the Legislature quickly changed the state's method to lethal injection. That change opened up a new battlefield in the appeals courts for everyone facing a death sentence in the state. Since 2000 8 men were added to the population of death row in Nebraska, but not a single execution was carried out. A variety of legal challenges accomplished what death penalty opponents promoted unsuccessfully in the Legislature: blocking, if not actually ending, the death penalty. Sen. Chambers had one other near miss for his annual capital punishment bill in 2007. Speaker of the Legislature Mike Flood, a death penalty advocate, admitted he was caught off guard by the vigorous floor debate. Ultimately the bill failed before the full Legislature by a one-vote margin. Because Nebraskans approved limiting the terms of its state senators, Ernie Chambers introduced what some called his last death penalty bill in 2008. It also failed. Before departing the capitol that year the senator wished "someday people in the Legislature would reach the point where they realize, as those in other industrialized countries have, that the death penalty does not advance the cause of civilization." The state moved ahead with plans for its first execution by lethal injection, unveiling a new death room in the state penitentiary in Lincoln. The cost of switching from electric chair to lethal injection: $50,000 Famed cult-killer Michael Ryan became the scheduled execution using the new system. With just weeks before it was scheduled to take place, the Nebraska Supreme Court agreed to address concerns about how the death-inducing drugs were obtained. Ultimately all legal paths were cleared but revelations the state had improperly obtained its original drugs from a foreign dealer left the corrections director without a reliable source. The process was stymied. Gov. Pete Ricketts announced just days before the latest vote in the Legislature he had obtained a new batch of drugs. In 2013 Chambers was returned to the Legislature by his North Omaha district and immediately introduced the bill a new bill to repeal the death penalty. It passed on final reading. The legislation was vetoed by then Governor Dave Heineman and supporters were unable to gain the support needed for an override. At the start of the 2015 session it was not clear how a new batch of freshman senators might deal with the same issue. Some were surprised support for ending executions built over the session, especially among some staunch conservative members. On May 20, just after 11 in the morning, 32 state senators voted to end capital punishment in the state of Nebraska and send the bill to Gov. Ricketts who promised his veto. An override would require at least 30 votes, but the 1st hurdle could be a cloture vote to end an anticipated filibuster, needing as many as 33 senators to agree. (source: netnebraska.org) From rhalperi at smu.edu Thu May 21 14:32:06 2015 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Thu, 21 May 2015 14:32:06 -0500 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----CALIF., USA Message-ID: May 21 CALIFORNIA: When it comes to the death penalty, California should follow Nebraska If 32 members of the Nebraska legislature hold firm, the Cornhusker State could become the 19th state to end the death penalty, a slow but important step - I hope - toward nationwide abolition (an effort in Delaware recently stalled, unfortunately). It's also significant that Nebraska is a conservative Republican state, and the vote reflects a bit of ground-shifting in that political sector. "I'm a conservative guy - I've been a Republican my whole life," Sen. Colby Coash, a sponsor of the bill, said before the vote. "A lot of my conservative colleagues have come to the conclusion that we're there to root out inefficient government programs. Some people see this as a pro-life issue. Other people see it as a good-government issue. But the support that this bill is getting from conservative members is evidence that you can get justice through eliminating the death penalty, and you can get efficient government through eliminating the death penalty." However the Nebraska legislators reached the decision, they wound up in the right place. And the California Legislature should take note, because no system in the nation seems to be as dysfunctional as ours. To remind, California has by far the nation's largest death row, with 750 people awaiting execution. Yet the state hasn't carried out that sentence since 2006 because of legal challenges to its three-drug lethal-injection protocol. The state finally stopped defending it two years ago and announced that it would try to develop a new single-drug protocol. But the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation has been silent on where it stands, and no timetable has been announced. Meanwhile, U.S. District Judge Cormac J. Carney ruled last July in the Ernest Dewayne Jones v. Ron Davis case that the state's death penalty system was so dysfunctional it arbitrarily selected who died when, and thus didn't clear constitutional muster. The "random few" who ultimately get executed, he wrote, "will have languished for so long on death row that their execution will serve no retributive or deterrent purpose and will be arbitrary." He added: "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." As I wrote at the time, California's system is underfunded, under-staffed, and all but stalled. Yet juries keep sentencing people to death. Death penalty proponents argue that the solution is to streamline the process and execute the condemned faster. The problem with that, though, is the growing realization that the judicial system is so flawed that there are innocent people on death row. One study estimates (conservatively) that at least 4% of condemned inmates nationwide are innocent of the crimes for which they have been convicted. That means of the 750 people on California's death row (many of whom are severely mentally ill), at least 30 are likely not murderers. And this is where I would hope more conservatives would come to realize that the system is too flawed. Once the penalty is exacted, there is no way to reverse it should the errors come to light, as they have here and here. If people distrust government to get most things right, why is there faith in its ability to get the death penalty right? Especially in a legal system that is based more on advocacy than on achieving justice? California voters rejected a 2012 initiative to repeal the death penalty, but that was before the flood of exonerations began headlining the news. It's not an often-polled subject here, but support seems to be waning. It's been a hard sell in the legislature, too, as detailed in this amicus curiae brief filed by state Sens. Loni Hancock and Mark Leno and former Assemblywoman Nancy Skinner in the Jones v. Davis. But the legislature should take it back up. Beyond the pragmatic arguments against capital punishment - add in the absurdly high costs to taxpayers - there's the underlying immorality of it all. If it's wrong to kill, it's wrong to kill. Executing murderers, no matter how heinous the crime, is still state-committed homicide, and out of step with the rest of our sentencing (do we rob robbers? Embezzle from embezzlers?). The death penalty doesn't deter - if it did, our murder rate wouldn't be what it is - it comes too long after the crime to be considered punishment, and it is not justice. It is vengeance. And we need to end it. (source: Opinion; Scott Martelle----Los Angeles Times) USA: Appealing the death sentence? "On a good day it's at least a 10 year process" The Federal Penitentiary in Terre Haute is home to more than 1,000 of the country's most hardened criminals. An official with the United States Department of Justice confirms approximately 60 of those inmates await their fate on death row. "Terre Haute has the only federal execution facility in the country," said Louis Reeves, National Dean of Criminal Justice at Harrison College. Perhaps the most infamous to be executed was Oklahoma City bomber, Timothy McVeigh. The American terrorist bombed an Oklahoma City Federal building in 1995, killing 168 people and injuring more than 600 more. "There was a fear of what could happen." Reeves recalls his time working at a security company in the early 2000's. "It was a hyped up time in town, because it kind of thrust the city on a national stage." Once again the city is in the national spotlight. The federal prison is where Boston marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev will likely spend his remaining days, but Reeves said, "You could be looking at several years actually," before Tsarnaev will be sent to Terre Haute. First, a judge will formally sentence Tsarnaev, that decision is expected sometime in June. Survivors of the bombing will be given a chance to give victim impact statements. Tsarnaev also will be allowed to speak if he chooses. It's unclear how many victims the judge will allow to make statements. The U.S. Bureau of Prisons will then decide where Tsarnaev will be housed, but he could spend years appealing his death sentence. "On a good day it's at least a 10 year process," said Reeves. Reeves continued by saying most likely the appeals process will start immediately. A change-of-venue issue could be 1 ground for appeal. "Whether or not the judge should have granted the change of venue in the case and whether there really was a sense of impartiality having the trial in Boston, whereas in the McVeigh trial they moved in out of Oklahoma City," explained Reeves. The death penalty was re-instated in 1988, seventy-four people have been sentenced since then only 3 have been executed. "The McVeigh it seems like they came up with a sentence and then he was executed in a short period of time that was just simply because he dropped his appeals," said Reeves. Reeves continued by saying Terre Haute will fade in and out of the spotlight during as the process runs its course. "People should recognize Terre Haute is part of that process of delivering fairness and justice." Now, 21-year-old Tsarnaev could be the youngest federal inmate on death row. (source: WTHI TV news) ******************* Does death penalty bring closure? Last week a federal jury sentenced Dzhokhar Tsarnaev to death, and Boston Mayor Martin J. Walsh issued a statement expressing "hope [that] this verdict provides a small amount of closure" to everyone affected by the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing. His words were echoed by other officials and victims. "The verdict, undoubtedly a difficult decision for the jury, gives me relief and closure as well as the ability to keep moving forward," said transit police officer Richard Donohue, who was seriously injured during a shoot-out with Tsarnaev and his older brother in Watertown, Massachusetts. Most everyone wants this to be true: We hope that the victims of the bombing --- including the families of the four people murdered by the Tsarnaev brothers --- can find some relief from their anguish. Will this death sentence for Dzhokhar Tsarnaev help them? For months, many people close to the case have been ambivalent about this outcome. A poll in April found that only 15% of Boston residents said they wanted Tsarnaev to receive the death penalty. Also last month, Bill and Denise Richard, whose 8-year-old son was killed in the bombing, wrote an open letter in the Boston Globe urging the Justice Department to take the death penalty "off the table." "The continued pursuit of that punishment could bring years of appeals and prolong reliving the most painful day of our lives," wrote the Richards, who suffered severe injuries from the bombing; their 7-year-old daughter lost her left leg. Their position is supported by scientific research. While it's easy to understand why people would seek the harshest punishment possible after a terrible crime, studies cast doubt on whether harsh punishment in general, and capital punishment in particular, actually brings the relief and peace of mind the victims deserve. A 2008 study published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology found that people who were taken advantage of financially by someone else thought they would feel better if they exacted revenge. In fact, punishing the offender actually made them feel worse, apparently because meting out a punishment caused them to think about the offender more and dwell on the negative incident. They didn't feel as bad when someone else did the punishing for them --- but even then, they felt no better than people who didn't pursue punishment at all. Of course, there are other important considerations in criminal cases, such as the moral priority of justice. But in this study, there was no evidence that the punishment improved a victim's emotional state. Other research suggests this might hold true in capital punishment cases. A 2007 study by criminologist Scott Vollum, now at the University of Minnesota, examined media interviews with family or friends of murder victims, conducted around the time the murderer was being executed. Vollum found that the victims' loved ones reported experiencing feelings of peace or relief in only 17% of the more than 150 cases in which they made public statements; they reported feeling a sense of closure in only 2.5% of those cases. By contrast, in 20% of cases, they explicitly said the execution did not bring them healing or closure. Bearing out the concerns of Bill and Denise Richard, many of these friends and family members cited lengthy appeals processes as a barrier to their recovery. "You're trying to move on with your life," said one of them, "but you keep being dragged back into it." That finding resonates with another study, published in the Marquette Law Review in 2012, that involved in-depth interviews with people in two states, Texas and Minnesota. All those people had survived the murder of a loved one, and the murderer had received the harshest sentence possible: In Texas, this was the death penalty; in Minnesota, life in prison without the possibility of parole. Tracking these survivors for years, the researchers found that over time the people in Minnesota reported better physical and psychological health, and more satisfaction with the criminal justice system. The researchers attribute these results, at least in part, to the lack of control that the Texas residents felt while death penalty cases were tied up in appeals. Even beyond the appeals process, it's still hard to say whether Tsarnaev's death sentence will provide closure for his victims. According to Nancy Berns, a professor of sociology at Drake University and the author of "Closure: The Rush to End Grief and What It Costs Us," a lot may depend on how they define the term. "If they're defining closure as, 'This is an end to the trial itself,' then yes, maybe they can find closure," she told me. "But if they're thinking that closure means, 'Oh, my grief is done,' then absolutely not." "In some cases, the end of the trial --- or even the execution --- can make them feel worse," she added, "because they've been focused on the trial, and when all that gets moved away, the grief sets in in a different way." For many victims, feelings of pain and loss may never go away, regardless of how Tsarnaev is punished. But psychological research has found that one way to achieve greater peace of mind is through forgiveness. Of course, forgiving an offender can seem inconceivable, especially when his or her crime is as monstrous as Tsarnaev's. But researchers stress that forgiving does not mean absolving an offender of guilt; it doesn't even require reconciling with that person. Instead, it means deliberately letting go of feelings of anger and vengeance toward the offender --- a way to stop ruminating on the offense and free yourself of the power it has over you. "It's a way of saying, 'I'm going to take my life back because I'm getting swallowed up by hatred,'" said Loren Toussaint, an associate professor of psychology at Luther College, who studies forgiveness. "It's an act of transformative empowerment ... that allows someone to move forward." The process of forgiveness can be long and difficult, and experts warn that it can't be rushed. But Toussaint said there's a risk to making forgiveness contingent on whether you feel justice has been served. It may take years before you get the outcome you want, if you get it at all. "So you're waiting, and you don't necessarily enjoy any relief," he said. By contrast, research by Toussaint and others suggests that forgiveness can improve the forgiver's mental and physical health, even for crimes as horrible as incest and atrocities committed during Sierra Leone's civil war. As a powerful example, Berns points to Brooks Douglass, who she interviewed for her book. When Douglass was a teenager, 2 men barged into his home, took his family hostage, raped his sister and killed his parents in front of him. Years later, he became an Oklahoma state senator and wrote the legislation that gave him the right to watch one of those men, Steven Hatch, be executed; he confronted the other man, Glen Ake, in prison, and ultimately forgave him. (source: Opinion, Jason Marsh; KESQ news) **************************** apital punishment's slow death Without a definitive judicial ruling or other galvanizing event, a perennial American argument is ending. Capital punishment is withering away. It is difficult to imagine moral reasoning that would support the conclusion that an injustice will be done when, years hence, the death penalty finally is administered to Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the Boston Marathon terrorist who placed a bomb in a crowd and then strolled to safety. Sentencing to death those who commit heinous crimes satisfies a sense of moral proportionality. This is, however, purchased with disproportionate social costs, as Nebraska seems to be concluding. Nebraska is not a nest of liberals. Yet on Wednesday its 49-member unicameral legislature passed a bill abolishing the death penalty 32 to 15. Gov. Pete Ricketts, a Republican, vows to veto it. This comes at a time when, nationwide, exonerations of condemned prisoners and botched executions are dismayingly frequent. Nebraska's death penalty opponents, including a majority of Nebraskans, say it is expensive without demonstrably enhancing public safety or being a solace to families of murder victims. Some Nebraska families have testified that the extended legal processes surrounding the death penalty prolong their suffering. That sentiment is shared by Bill and Denise Richard, whose 8-year-old son was killed by Tsarnaev. Last month, the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments about whether one component of a 3-drug mixture used in lethal injection executions - and recently used in some grotesquely protracted ones - is unreliable in preventing suffering that violates the Eighth Amendment proscription of "cruel and unusual punishments." States use the drug in question because more effective drugs are hard to acquire, partly because death penalty opponents are pressuring drug companies not to supply them. For this, Justice Antonin Scalia blamed a death penalty "abolitionist movement." Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. asked, "Is it appropriate for the judiciary to countenance what amounts to a guerrilla war against the death penalty, which consists of efforts to make it impossible for the states to obtain drugs that could be used to carry out capital punishment with little, if any, pain?" Justice Anthony M. Kennedy wondered, "What bearing, if any, should be put on the fact that there is a method, but that it's not available because of opposition to the death penalty? What relevance does that have?" The answers are: Public agitation against capital punishment is not relevant to judicial reasoning. And it is not the judiciary's business to worry that a ruling might seem to "countenance" this or that social advocacy. The conservative case against capital punishment, which 32 states have, is 3-fold. First, the power to inflict death cloaks government with a majesty and pretense of infallibility discordant with conservatism. 2nd, when capital punishment is inflicted, it cannot later be corrected because of new evidence, so a capital punishment regime must be administered with extraordinary competence. It is, however, a government program. Since 1973, more than 140 people sentenced to death have been acquitted of their crimes (sometimes by DNA evidence), had the charges against them dismissed by prosecutors or have been pardoned based on evidence of innocence. For an unsparing immersion in the workings of the governmental machinery of death, read "Just Mercy" by Bryan Stevenson, executive director and founder of the Equal Justice Initiative. 3rd, administration of death sentences is so sporadic and protracted that their power to deter is attenuated. And the expensive, because labyrinthine, legal protocols with which the judiciary has enveloped capital punishment are here to stay. Granted, capital punishment could deter: If overdue library books were punishable by death, none would be overdue. But many crimes for which death is reserved, including Tsarnaev's crime of ideological premeditation, are especially difficult to deter. Those who favor capital punishment because of its supposed deterrent effect do not favor strengthening that effect by restoring the practice of public executions. There has not been one in America since 1937 (a hanging in Galena, Mo.) because society has decided that state-inflicted deaths, far from being wholesomely didactic spectacles, are coarsening and revolting. Revulsion is not an argument, but it is evidence of what former chief justice Earl Warren called society's "evolving standards of decency." In the essay "Reflections on the Guillotine," Albert Camus wrote, ???The man who enjoys his coffee while reading that justice has been done would spit it out at the least detail." Capital punishment, say proponents, serves social catharsis. But administering it behind prison walls indicates a healthy squeamishness that should herald abolition. (source: Opinion, George Will; Washington Post) ********************* Nebraska, and the conservative case for opposing the death penalty Lawmakers in Nebraska voted to abolish the state's death penalty on Wednesday. And if the legislature overrides a likely governor's veto in the next few days, it could become the 1st conservative-leaning state in more than 40 years to do so. So how did this happen? While the legislature is technically nonpartisan, it is for all intents and purposes under GOP control. And Republicans in Nebraska are successfully arguing that getting rid of the death penalty is a fundamentally conservative position. In the face of botched executions, a shortage of lethal injection drugs and decades-long appeal times (Nebraska hasn't executed someone on death row in 20 years), lawmakers like state Sen. Colby Coash say keeping people on death row is a classic case of big, ineffective government. "Its something that's been on the books. It's not being implemented. It is costing our state money," Coash told Robin Young of Here & Now. "So we're approaching this from a good-government perspective and saying, 'Look, this is a program that's not working. We should just get rid of it.'" Coash and other lawmakers in the unicameral legislature have apparently rallied enough support to avoid a veto by Republican Gov. Pete Ricketts, who supports the death penalty. Ricketts just ordered a batch of drugs from India to carry out executions, announcing it in dramatic fashion last week, according to Paul Hammel, Lincoln bureau chief of the Omaha World-Herald. While the legislature is nonpartisan, Coash said he's counting on support from members of the the Christian conservative wing of their party to vote their conscience to override the veto and abolish the death penalty. "We're a very pro-life state," Coash said. "I consider myself pro-life, and I've always struggled with taking the life from anybody." And outside of Nebraska, some conservatives are making a 3rd political argument for abolishing the death penalty: It's too lenient of a punishment. Montana state Rep. David Moore (R) championed a bill to a replace it with life in prison without parole. ???To me, personally, I couldn't imagine a worse fate than being locked up in prison for the rest of my life," he said, according to the Huffington Post and Montana Television Network. His proposal was defeated this year on a 50-50 vote. And larger public opinion in America is indeed moving away from the death penalty. A Washington Post-ABC News poll in June 2014 found 60 % of Americans favor the death penalty for people convicted of murder. But conservatives pushing to abolish it could have a tough sell among their own. That same poll found about 8 in 10 Republicans -- 79 % -- favor the death penalty for people convicted of murder. Republicans do seem increasingly amenable to a larger conversation on criminal justice reform, an issue traditionally owned by Democrats. Alabama's Republican governor is calling for a $541 million tax package in part to offset overstuffed prisons, for instance. States like South Carolina and Georgia have also passed their own justice reform packages changing who gets sent to prison and for how long. "When states in the Deep South, which have long had some of the country's harshest penal systems, make significant sentencing and prison reforms, you know something has changed," The New York Times' editorial board wrote Monday. But it's not clear yet if, in voting to abolish the death penalty, Nebraska Republicans are the start of a trend or just an anomaly. 32 states still have the death penalty on the books, though many are putting a moratorium on it while a divided Supreme Court considers whether certain drugs used in a gruesome, botched Oklahoma lethal injection last year represent cruel and unusual punishment. Nebraska could become the 19th state, including the District of Columbia, to abolish it. A year ago, The Fix's Jamie Fuller pointed out that residents in the Texas town where all of the state's executions take place called death row "business as usual." The number of states still carrying out the death penalty may be shrinking, and many Americans are questioning the morality - and the expense - of the system. In the places where the death penalty is "business as usual," the politics are far more complex and entrenched. So, can conservatives opposed to the death penalty bring more people to their side? Nebraska is certainly a notable shift in the winds. But it's not clear whether other states will follow suit. (source: Amber Phillips, blog, Washington Post) ******************** Despite Tsarnaev, the death penalty is on the decline The execution of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev for his role in the Boston Marathon bombing - if it ever takes place - will quite possibly be the last of its kind, remembered as the last time the federal government put a person to death. After a formal sentencing hearing next month, Tsarnaev's lawyers are expected to request a new trial. As the case winds through the lengthy appeals process, the prosecution's main argument for execution - that it offers "closure" to victims and their families - will be revealed as illusory. In effect, the appeals phase will put the death penalty on trial, and as time passes, public and legal opinion will probably turn decisively against the "ultimate punishment." 32 U.S. states are "retentionist" - they still have some form of capital punishment on the books - and 16 states have executed a person in the last 3 years. But the number of executions and new death sentences is at a 20-year low, and just a few states are responsible for the vast majority of executions. Many U.S. cities, and a number of states, are now anti-death penalty zones - not just liberal bastions like Berkeley and Cambridge, Mass., but also New Jersey, Connecticut, Illinois, Maryland and New Mexico. A bill to reintroduce the death penalty in Massachusetts was defeated. Bills to outlaw the death penalty are in process in Delaware, Kansas and Colorado. Even in Nebraska, a conservative state, a bill to abolish the death penalty has such strong support that legislators could override an expected veto by the governor. Meanwhile - and driving that change - recent developments have brought intense public scrutiny of this controversial practice. This year 2 death row inmates were exonerated: Debra Milke, jailed from 1990 to 2013 in Arizona, and Anthony Ray Hinton, jailed since 1985 in Alabama by a prosecutor who said he knew Hinton was guilty "just by looking at him." They were the 151st and 152nd U.S. death row prisoners so exonerated - the latest illustrations that the evidence in capital cases is often faulty or nonexistent. Also this year, Utah reinstituted the practice of execution by firing squad, even though (as Gov. Gary Herbert put it) it's "a little bit gruesome." The move was a tacit admission that the lethal-injection procedure (which has changed as pharmaceutical companies have ceased production of several lethal drugs) is now so unreliable that shooting a man at close range is the more humane option. Indeed, the medical establishment is increasingly uncomfortable with lethal injection. At its annual meeting in March, the American Pharmacists Assn. declared that "the practice of providing lethal-injection drugs is contrary to the role of pharmacists as healthcare providers," thus joining associations of doctors and of anesthesiologists in deeming cooperation with executions contrary to the Hippocratic Oath ("first do no harm"). In June, the U.S. Supreme Court is expected to rule in a case brought by prisoners on death row in Oklahoma, contending that the death penalty as carried out there - by lethal injections secretly arranged and shoddily administered - constitutes cruel and unusual punishment. It is the most substantive legal challenge to the death penalty here in decades. And it will put the court in the quixotic position of weighing the legality of the very procedure (lethal injection) that the Justice Department is brandishing as an instrument of justice in the Tsarnaev case. The death sentence given to Tsarnaev is a final spasm of the death penalty, a punishment that the U.S. is on its way to abandoning, as most civil societies have already done. When the Helsinki Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe took place in 1975, 16 European countries had already abolished the death penalty or committed to doing so. By the time the Berlin Wall came down, there were 19. By 2002, 38 more countries around the world had done so, including much of the former Soviet Union. Today 105 of the 192 countries represented at the United Nations have abolished the death penalty by law, and at least 43 more have abolished it in practice, either through public moratorium or de facto moratorium (when a country declines to practice capital punishment for a decade or longer). Those that still employ the death penalty - among them Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq, Egypt, Somalia, China, Japan and the U.S. - are outliers and strange bedfellows. Of course, there is nothing to prevent future U.S. attorneys general from seeking the death penalty - for federal crimes involving terrorism and national security, for example - and future juries from delivering death sentences in capital cases. Societies and social norms, however, change quickly. The last time a convicted criminal was executed in Massachusetts - 1947 - Harvard University was an all-male institution, "separate but equal" was still the law in much of the country, and the high wall in left field at Fenway Park had just been painted green. The last time the federal government executed a convicted criminal - Timothy McVeigh in June 2001 - the euro was a new currency, the Internet had only 50 million users and the World Trade Center towers were still standing. President Obama, as he leaves office in 2017, could grant Tsarnaev clemency, reducing his sentence to life in prison without parole. But whether or not he does so, the long-term outlook is clear: In the United States today, the death penalty is itself on the verge of death. (source: Opinion / Op-Ed; Mario Marazziti is the author of "Thirteen Ways of Looking at the Death Penalty" and cofounder of the World Coalition Against the Death Penalty----Los Angeles Times) From rhalperi at smu.edu Thu May 21 14:32:53 2015 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Thu, 21 May 2015 14:32:53 -0500 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide Message-ID: May 21 SUDAN: 1 year after Meriam Ibrahim's release, 2 Christians face possible death penalty in Sudan Last year, a death penalty sentence slapped on a Sudanese doctor for refusing to renounce her Christian faith stirred international outrage and heightened calls on the government to increase religious liberty. Meriam Yahya Ibrahim was released a month later, but now 2 Christian pastors have been jailed and they also face a possible death sentence. The Rev. Michael Yat and the Rev. Peter Yein Reith, both from the South Sudan Presbyterian Evangelical Church, have been charged with undermining the constitutional system and spying, offenses punishable by death or life imprisonment. The clerics are charged with waging a war against the state and assault on religious belief. "We know they have been arrested, but we don't know where they are being detained," said the Rev. Kori Romla Koru, general secretary of the Sudan Council of Churches. "We are trying to find them." Yat was arrested last year after visiting the Sudan Presbyterian Evangelical Church's Bahri congregation in Khartoum, according to Christian Solidarity Worldwide, a charity that works on behalf of persecuted Christians. The congregation had resisted the takeover of the church by a Muslim businessman, who had demolished part of the worship center. In December, police beat and arrested 38 Christians for worshipping in the church. With Yat's arrest, South Sudan Presbyterian Evangelical Church sent Reith with a letter to the authorities to demand his release. He was arrested on Jan. 11. Human rights groups have expressed deep concern over the charges, warning that the two clerics could face torture. "It is unacceptable that after enduring extended detentions without charge, the men now face extreme and unwarranted charges," said Mervyn Thomas, CSW's chief executive, said earlier this month. Since the separation of Sudan and South Sudan in 2011, Sudan has forced out all foreign missionaries, raided churches and arrested and interrogated Christians on grounds that they belonged to South Sudan. (source: Religion News Service) VIETNAM: Many Vietnamese lawmakers back abolition of death penalty for 7 crimes ---- The proposal that capital punishment be scrapped for seven crimes under the current Penal Code has been supported by many Vietnamese legislators. On the 1st working day of the 9th session of the 13th National Assembly (NA) that opened in Hanoi on Wednesday, Minister of Justice Ha Hung Cuong presented to the law-making body the proposed amendments to the Penal Code for discussion. 1 of them is the abolition of the death penalty for 7 crimes, including plundering property, destroying important national security works and/or facilities; disobeying orders in the military; surrendering to the enemy, which is applicable in the army; undermining peace, provoking aggressive wars; crimes against mankind; and war crimes. Reducing death sentences is Vietnam's major policy that is reflected in recent resolutions on justice reform and the practice of criminal legislation, Minister Cuong said. Many members of the NA Justice Committee and other lawmakers have agreed to the proposed amendment. The Radio the Voice of Vietnam (VOV) quoted Nguyen Van Hien, chair of the NA Justice Committee, as saying his committee approves of the view that capital punishment should alleviated by cutting the number of crimes subject to death sentences, promulgating regulations that help minimize the application of the death penalty, and extending the list of defendants who are condemned to death but do not have their sentence carried out. Tran Du Lich, deputy head of the delegation of lawmakers from Ho Chi Minh City, said that death sentences should be cut down but there should be a regulation on crimes subject to life imprisonment without parole. If the NA approves this proposal, the number of crimes subject to the death penalty in Vietnam will be lowered to 15 from the current 22. A number of deputies said capital punishment should be retained for the charges of undermining peace, provoking aggressive wars, crimes against mankind, and war crimes, as these top the list of the most serious counts. Regarding some suggestions on abrogating capital punishment for 2 corruption crimes: embezzlement and bribe acceptance, Minister Cuong said the government's policy is that the death penalty should be maintained for those convicted of corruption as the highest sanction. "We are uncompromisingly combating corruption. Many measures have been taken but they have yet to prove effective. Therefore, a proposal for death sentences be scrapped for these 2 crimes, which are the most serious among corruption charges, is not appropriate for the time being," the minister underlined. As for another suggested amendment that defendants aged 70 or older should be exempted from capital punishment, Hien said most members of the NA Justice Committee have rejected it, VOV reported. In reality people at this age can committee serious - even extremely serious - crimes and they can be the mastermind behind criminal organizations, Hien said. If the government spares people of such age the death penalty, they could make use of the exemption to avoid punishment by law after committing serious crimes, he added. According to the agenda of the 9th session of the NA, the amendments to the Penal Code will be discussed in groups of delegates on May 28 and in a plenary meeting on June 16. VnExpress said the amendments will be submitted to the NA for consideration in its next session in November 2015. (source: Tuoi Tre News) ********************* Vietnam may stop punishing drug, war crimes by death The government has proposed abolishing the death penalty for 7 crimes at a parliament session in Hanoi on Wednesday. The crimes are robbery, vandalizing equipment and works significant to national security, gross disturbances of public order, surrendering to enemy forces, acts of sabotage and waging invasive wars, crimes against humanity, and drug trafficking. The proposal is part of amendments to the Penal Code, which are going to be discussed at the ongoing session and voted on in November. The Vietnamese Penal Code currently recognizes 22 crimes as punishable by death. That number was progressively scaled back from the original list issued in 1985, following amendments made in 1999 and 2009. According to Tran Van Do, former vice chief of the Supreme People's Court, Vietnam's courts sentence about 200 people to death every year. Vietnam switched to lethal injection from firing squad in 2011. Minister of Justice Ha Hung Cuong, who presented the new amendments, said there are still controversies around the proposal involving death penalty. Some people also proposed removing crimes of producing fake food and medicine, embezzlement and receiving bribe from the death penalty list. "The government recognizes that there should be an unyielding fight against corruption. Many measures have been taken to no avail." Removing corruption from the list could lead to misconception that the law is lenient to corrupt officials, he said. Cuong said the government has also proposed life imprisonment without parole for the first time in Vietnam's legal system. (source: Thanh Nien News) EGYPT/AUSTRIA: Austria's FM: we reject 'inhuman' capital punishment "The death penalty is an inhuman deterrent strongly rejected by not only the Austrian government but also by the European Union," said Austrian Foreign Minister Sebastian Kurz in a press conference held in Cairo Wednesday. Kurz's comment came days after former President Mohamed Morsi and 105 others were sentenced Saturday to death over charges of prison break during the January 25 Uprising. "Egypt is entitled to deal with terrorism, not only against the Islamic State. We support the punishment of terrorists but in the framework of fair trials," said Kurtz. Egypt is not only a strategic player in the region but also a strong partner against the Islamic State group, said Kurz. Kurz met with his Egyptian counterpart Sameh Shoukry Wednesday and discussed bilateral political and economic relations. During the meeting, Kurz assured that the recovery of Egypt's tourism sector is directly related to the country's stability. "Years ago, Austrian tourists visiting Egypt reached 200,000 tourists," he said, adding that Egypt is a good place for investments and that the total number of Austrian companies investing in Egypt reached 750. Kurtz will meet with President Abdel Fatah al-Sisi Thursday Kurz, according to a Wednesday's presidential statement. Mass sentences against Morsi and other Muslim Brotherhood defendants sparked international criticism of human rights organizations; an issue that was slammed by Egypt's government. German Bundestag President Norbert Lammert, who belongs to German Chancellor Angela Merkel's Christian Democratic Union (CDU,) cancelled a meeting with Sisi in June, protesting the mass death sentences. (source: The Cairo Post) SINGAPORE: Over 1.2kg of 'Ice' seized, Singaporean arrested----A total of about 1.27kg of 'Ice', 183g of ketamine, 134g of synthetic cannabis, 257 Erimin-5 tablets and seven Ecstasy tablets, worth more than S$239,000, were seized, according to CNB. A suspected drug trafficker believed to be trafficking in an assortment of drugs was arrested on Wednesday, the Central Narcotics Bureau (CNB) said in a media release on Thursday (May 21). A total of about 1.27kg of 'Ice', 183g of ketamine, 134g of synthetic cannabis, 257 Erimin-5 tablets and seven Ecstasy tablets, worth about S$239,000, were seized, according to CNB. It added that the amount of 'Ice' seized could feed the abuse habit of 720 'Ice' abusers for a week. The suspect, a 48-year-old Singaporean, was arrested at Woodlands Checkpoint A at about 11.20am on Wednesday. The drugs were seized when CNB officers searched his haversack. "Various implements suspected to be used for making improvised drug smoking apparatus were also recovered," said CNB. The suspect's residence in Holland Close was subsequently raided by CNB officers. A "large quantity" of 'Ice' and an assortment of other drugs were found and seized, CNB said. Officers also recovered other items such as empty plastic sachets, glass apparatus and a digital weighing scale. Investigations into the drug trafficking activities of the suspect are ongoing. If convicted, he may face the death penalty, CNB said. (source: Channel News Asia) INDONESIA: Sergio, Lacanilao's statements seen to boost Veloso's chance to escape death The statements of the alleged recruiters of Mary Jane Veloso that she had no knowledge that she was transporting heroin to Indonesia will boost her chance of permanently escaping her death sentence, Justice Secretary Leila de Lima said Thursday. "This is a good development and an indication that we are at the right direction, right track ... If it will be proven in the ongoing investigation (that she is innocent), this will be a big thing for Mary Jane," de Lima told reporters. "This shows that it was just right to suspend the implementation of the death penalty so the truth would first come out," she said. She said they would immediately inform the Indonesian authorities about the affidavits of Maria Cristina Sergio and Julius Lacanilao "for their own appreciation." The Justice Chief said they are hoping to get more information from Sergio and Lacanilao during the course of the preliminary investigation. Edre Olalia, Veloso's lawyer from National Union of People's Lawyers, agreed with de Lima's opinion. "It can be used as a basis by our Indonesian counterparts. In fact, they are actually waiting already for the translation from English to Bahasa so they will communicate immediately with the attorney general's office about this statement," he explained. But he said they would file a reply to what he called as Sergio's "self-serving version of the surrounding circumstances to cover her own complicity." "We will file reply-affidavits to reiterate the whole unembellished facts as they are. Additionally, we shall contest the inexplicable vilification she made against Mary Jane's family," he said in a statement. Sergio, in her 31-page affidavit submitted to the DOJ last Wednesday, said Veloso fell prey to 2 "dark skinned, curly-haired men" she identified as Ike and John while they were in Malaysia in April 2010 to look for a job. Sergio said she believes that Veloso was a victim who "was taken advantage of because she didn't know any better, was in dire need of a job, and because of her tendency to trust people, even strangers." While saying Veloso was innocent, the alleged recruiters denied the charges against them. They said they only helped her in trying to find a job abroad. (source: Philippine Inquirer) ************************ Japanese grandfather gets life term in Indonesia drug case----Indonesia has argued need for tough drug trafficking deterrent, but some say harsh penalties due to domestic politics A 73-year-old Japanese man, who says he was deceived into carrying drugs in someone else's bag on a flight into Indonesia, was sentenced to life in prison Wednesday for smuggling methamphetamine into the country. The case highlights the country's strict anti-drug laws, which drew international outcry when they resulted in the executions of nine convicts last month. Masaru Kawada was arrested in November at Minangkabau Airport in West Sumatra's capital, Padang, after customs officials found 5.18 pounds of crystal methamphetamine in his luggage. Chief state prosecutor Budi Prihalda said they had recommended a light sentence of 16 years because of the defendant's age. But the 3-judge panel that convicted Kawada at the District Court in Pariaman said his deed had weakened the government's struggle against drugs, and sentenced him to life in prison. "We found no reason to lighten his sentence," said presiding judge Jon Effreddi. A lawyer for Kawada - who argued that he was tricked by someone who asked him to carry a bag and that he did not know he was carrying drugs - said they would appeal. According to court documents, a man identified as Edward Mark met Kawada in Japan last November and asked him to travel to Macau, with Mark paying for Kawada's tickets and accommodations and giving him $500 in travel expenses. While in Macau, Kawada met a Chinese woman who asked him to carry a bag to a friend in Padang. Kawada, who flew to Padang from Macau via Kuala Lumpur, said he had checked the bag and did not find anything suspicious. He said he only realized he was carrying methamphetamine upon arrival, when customs officials arrested him and confiscated the drug. The grandfather of 2 is believed to be one of the oldest drug smugglers to be sentenced in Indonesia, which has extremely strict drug laws and often executes smugglers. The country has executed 14 drug convicts, including 12 foreigners, this year amid protests and an international outcry, but Indonesia insists that tough punishment is part of its efforts to confront a drug emergency. Indonesian President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo has said the country has 4.5 million people addicted to drugs. But some activists have said such harsh penalties for drug offenses are related to domestic politics. Earlier this year Ricky Gunawan, director of the Jakarta-based LBH Masyarakat Community Legal Aid Institute, told Al Jazeera that there is widespread support for sentencing drug offenders to the death penalty. "In Indonesia, drugs have always been seen as 'evil.' Narcotics ... are often labeled as haram," Gunawan said, using a term that means "forbidden" under Islam, the majority religion in Indonesia. "The government and law apparatus treat this issue as a way to gain popularity or support," he said. Arrests, convictions and executions are "a way for the government to show that they are tough against crimes," Gunawan said. More than 130 people are on death row in Indonesia, mostly for drug crimes. About 1/3 are foreigners. "Since it is believed that the majority of drugs in Indonesia are imported, the government believes that by imposing harsh punishment on traffickers, they could reduce or halt the importation of drugs," Yohanes Sulaiman, lecturer in international relations and political science at Jakarta's Indonesian Defense University, told Deutsche Welle earlier this year. Jokowi's determination to deal harshly with drug crimes has won him popular support at home, despite criticism by some rights groups and international leaders. "We want to send a strong message to drug smugglers that Indonesia is firm and serious in tackling the drug problem, and one of the consequences is execution if the court sentences them to death," he told Al Jazeera in March. (source: Al Jazeera) IRAN----executions 7 People Executed- 2 in Public- and Public Flogging in Iran 7 people were hanged in Iran on Wednesday (May 20) and Tuesday, according to the Iranian state media. 5 people were hanged in the Rajaishahr prison of Karaj, Wednesday morning May 20, reported Iranian state broadcasting. The prisoners were identified as "Ardalan", "Ali", "Morteza", "Meysam" and "Behrouz" and were all convicted of murder, said the report. Iran Human Rights (IHR) has received unconfirmed reports about the execution of 3 other prisoners in the Rajaishahr prison. These reports are being investigated. 1 prisoner was hanged in public in the city of Ghochan in northern Iran today. The prisoner who was identified as "A. Kh." was convicted of murder 4 years ago. He was a drug addict since his childhood, said the report. Another prisoner was hanged publicly in the city of Minab (Southern Iran) on Tuesday May 19. According to Jomhuri-e-Eslami newspaper, the prisoner was identified as "Ayoub Torkamani", who was charged with possession and trafficking of 10 kilograms and 800 grams of crack, said the report. He was arrested 7 years ago. Iranian state media also reported that the flogging sentence of a man identified as "Kamran" was implemented Monday morning May 18 (picture). He was convicted of theft. On Sunday the Iranian media reported about amputation sentence of another prisoner in Khuzestan province (southwestern Iran). (source: Iran Human Rights) ********************** Prisoner hanged in football field The Iranian regime henchmen hanged at least 10 prisoners including 1 in public in a soccer field on Tuesday. According to a report by the state-run daily Jomhouri Islami a man was hanged in the municipality's soccer field in the city of the Minab. The victim was identified as Ayob Torkamani. The international governing body of football had previously warned Iranian regime about executions of prisoners on the football fields. FIFA had in past sent warning to the regime's officials regarding the executions on football fields, a regime official had acknowledged. Meanwhile, the Iranian regime's judiciary in Arak province announced that on Tuesday 4 death row prisoners were hanged in city's main prison. UN human rights experts have condemned the recent surge in executions in Iran, the majority of which are unreported. United Nations Special Rapporteurs involving the situation of human rights in Iran by Ahmed Shaheed and on extrajudicial executions by Christof Heyns have condemned the drastic increase in executions since the past few weeks. In many cases executions have gone unreported by official sources and the names of those being executed have not been disclosed to the public. "When the Iranian government refuses to even acknowledge the full extent of executions which have occurred, it shows a callous disregard for both human dignity and international human rights law," Mr. Shaheed stressed. (source: NCR-Iran) AUSTRALIA: Adopt New Stratedy to End Death Penalty Abroad Following the executions of Australians Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran in Indonesia, the Australian government should redouble efforts to end the death penalty around the world, and overhaul the way it campaigns for global abolition, Human Rights Watch said today. Human Rights Watch opposes the death penalty in all circumstances because of its inherent cruelty. Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, the Human Rights Law Centre, Reprieve Australia, Australians Detained Abroad, NSW Council for Civil Liberties, Civil Liberties Australia, and Uniting Justice Australia have joined forces to launch a new Australian blueprint to end the death penalty. The Australian government has condemned executions in Indonesia, but it could play a larger role opposing the death penalty globally. Australia abolished the death penalty in 2010, although the last execution took place in 1967. "The time is ripe for Australia's foreign ministry to make public a new comprehensive policy to end the death penalty worldwide, with specific and achievable goals for individual countries," said Elaine Pearson, Australia director at Human Rights Watch. "The strategy should include consistent public and private diplomatic pressure to end this cruel practice, showing how the death penalty has failed to deter crime and been unjustly applied." The groups' blueprint for change, "Australian Government and the Death Penalty: A Way Forward" details 4 steps the government should take to build on the current momentum to end the death penalty: 1. Develop a new Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade public strategy document aimed at ending the death penalty, everywhere; 2. Use Australia's aid program to support civil society organizations campaigning for abolition in countries which retain the death penalty; 3. Join forces with other nations to push for universal adoption of a global moratorium on the death penalty; and 4. Put in place stronger legislation so the Australian Federal Police (AFP) is required by law not to share information with other law enforcement agencies that would potentially result in suspected perpetrators facing the death penalty. The blueprint urges the Australian government to consult widely, including with the UK government, which already has a global strategy against the death penalty, as well as with advocacy groups in countries retaining the death penalty. The organizations said if Australia wants its opposition to the death penalty globally to be credible, it is important that Australian laws consistently reflect that opposition. Following the arrests of the so-called Bali 9 in 2005, it emerged that the Australian Federal Police (AFP) passed on detailed information about the alleged plan to smuggle heroin from Bali, without seeking guarantees that the information would not be used by the authorities to eventually seek the death penalty against the perpetrators. Emily Howie, director of advocacy and research at the Human Rights Law Centre, said: "If the Bali 9 case happened again tomorrow, nothing would prevent the AFP from acting in the same way. Parliament should amend the AFP Act to include sufficient safeguards to prevent police sharing information which could lead to the death penalty." "Momentum is building globally for the abolition of the death penalty. In recent months, Australian people and the government have spoken out powerfully against executions," said Ursula Noye, vice president of Reprieve Australia. "The time is right for us to take a lead role, and build a regional coalition for abolition. We should make future generations proud." "The recent executions of 8 men in Indonesia, including Australians Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran, was an inhuman and unjust punishment and represents exactly why the Australian government must continue to speak out against the death penalty whenever it occurs," said Claire Mallinson, national director at Amnesty International Australia. "We must now ensure Australia's stance against the recent executions is reflected in all government policy. We are asking for change across the Australian Government - through diplomacy, our aid program, our federal law enforcement agencies." (source: Human Rights Watch) From rhalperi at smu.edu Fri May 22 16:05:56 2015 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Fri, 22 May 2015 16:05:56 -0500 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, PENN., GA., FLA., KY., TENN. Message-ID: May 22 TEXAS: Execution Drugs to be State Secret Under Legislation Headed to Governor Manufacturers of execution drugs will be shielded from public scrutiny, helping to keep Texas' capital punishment machine in working order, under a bill headed to the governor's office. On Tuesday, Senate Bill 1697 cleared its final hurdle with a favorable vote in the House. If signed into law by the governor, as expected, the bill will keep information about anyone who participates in executions or supplies execution drugs confidential. "This bill is about trying to protect innocent people who are just doing their job," said Rep. John Smithee (R-Amarillo), the bill's House sponsor, on Tuesday. That rationale was voiced numerous times by supporters as the bill moved through both chambers, but there's little evidence that Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ) personnel or suppliers of execution drugs are at risk. The names of those involved in carrying out executions have never been revealed by TDCJ. The real issue is whether citizens should be able to access information about lethal-injection drugs. Until last year, the identify of lethal-injection drug suppliers could be acquired through a public information request. In May 2014, then-Attorney General Greg Abbott ruled that TDCJ could keep the information secret. The ruling came after the Department of Public Safety sent Abbott a "threat assessment" report that claimed "publicly linking" a supplier or manufacturer of execution drugs would present "a substantial threat of physical harm" and "should be avoided to the greatest extent possible." That decision was a shift from 3 previous rulings in which the attorney general???s office had found that TDCJ failed to prove that disclosing the information would create a substantial threat of physical harm. The May 2014 ruling came as Texas' supply of execution drugs was rapidly dwindling. In 2012, the state turned from a 4-drug cocktail to a single injection of pentobarbital. According to a Texas Tribune timeline, by August 2013 TDCJ had only 4 vials of the drug remaining, prompting the state to turn to compounding pharmacies, lightly regulated facilities that typically mix drugs for individual patients. In October 2013, the Woodlands Compounding Pharmacy requested that TDCJ return pentobarbital it had sold to the agency after the company began receiving unwanted media attention. In a letter to TDCJ, Jasper Lovoi, the owner of Woodlands, said he had been made to believe that his company's role in supplying the drugs would be kept private. "I find myself in the middle of a firestorm that I was not advised of and did not bargain for," Lovoi said in the letter. During the House debate on SB 1697 Tuesday, Smithee said that manufacturers - such as compounding pharmacies - are refusing to sell lethal injection drugs to Texas and other states because of "threats of violence." But when Rep. Terry Canales (D-Edinburg) asked him to elaborate on those threats, Smithee couldn't provide examples. Canales is the author of a stalled bill that would require TDCJ to post information about execution drugs, including the manufacturer, on the agency's website. A similar exchange took place during debate in the Senate last week. Sen. Joan Huffman (R-Houston), SB 1697's author, said that when information about the manufacturers of execution drugs was previously disclosed, it had a "chilling effect on reputable pharmacies wanting to provide these compounds to the state of Texas." She said that investigations by the Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) had led to the determination that "credible threats" had been directed at suppliers of lethal-injection drugs. But when pressed, Huffman couldn't cite specific examples. No details of the DPS investigations have been made public. According to Austin-based attorney Philip Durst, lawmakers have been unable to point to specific threats because there haven???t been any. Durst is one of the plaintiff's attorneys in an ongoing lawsuit against TDCJ seeking disclosure of the name of a particular compounding pharmacy supplying execution drugs to the state. Durst told the House Corrections Committee at the end of April that based on his assessment of evidence provided by TDCJ and DPS during the lawsuit, there have been no threats of violence against drug suppliers or manufacturers in Texas or in any other state. Evidence presented by TDCJ in its motion for summary judgment includes emails to drug suppliers that read more like scoldings than threats and a link to a blog post about the Woodlands Compounding Pharmacy that includes an illustration of an exploding head. The post encouraged readers to write reviews of the pharmacy on Google+, sign a petition and contact the American Pharmacists Association. A state district court sided with the plaintiffs in December 2014 and ordered TDCJ to reveal the name of the lethal injection drug supplier. TDCJ has appealed the decision, but if SB 1697 is signed into law the entire suit could be rendered moot. Ultimately, "threats" against pharmacies appear to have little to do with the legislation passed yesterday. Even House Corrections Committee Chairman Jim Murphy (R-Houston) called the threat argument a "straw man." The primary impetus for the law, which both Smithee and Huffman acknowledged in debate, is preserving executions in Texas. Death penalty opponents have seen public shaming of drug suppliers as a potential Achilles' heel for execution-happy states. TDCJ has a better chance of acquiring the necessary drug supplies if companies are promised secrecy. Maurie Levin, an attorney involved in the lawsuit against TDCJ, says what???s most troubling about SB 1697 is that it shields the agency and the execution process from demands for transparency or accountability. "For Texas, of all states, to carry out secrecy in executions is a frightening thought," Levin said. "And I have no doubt that at some point it will come back and bite us." (source: Texas Observer) PENNSYLVANIA: Lawyers for convicted killer Smyrnes want info about death row Attorneys for a convicted killer said they plan to research death row living conditions more before deciding whether to challenge the constitutionality of Ricky Smyrnes' death sentence. More information about the day-to-day life on death row is being sought from Smyrnes, 29, formerly of Irwin, and the state prison in Greene County where he is being held. Smyrnes was convicted in the February 2010 torture slaying of Jennifer Daugherty, a mentally-challenged woman killed by six Greensburg roommates. Smyrnes is 1 of 2 men sentenced to die for his role in Daugherty's stabbing. He has been on death row since his 2013 conviction. "We will speak with our client more in depth concerning that," Attorney Brian Aston told Judge Rita D. Hathaway Thursday afternoon during an evidentiary hearing on Smyrnes' post-sentence motions. Aston and James Fox have been appointed to act as Smyrnes' appeal attorneys. They filed the motion in February that seeks to overturn the death sentence and Smyrnes' 1st- and 2nd-degree murder convictions. In their appeal, the attorneys state that the sentence violates Smyrnes' rights because he is subject to solitary confinement for 23 hours daily. SCI-Greene houses a majority of the state's 188 male death row inmates. Earlier this year, Gov. Tom Wolf issued a moratorium on capital punishment while a commission charged with reviewing the state's death penalty completes its work. Conditions in which condemned inmates are housed will not change, the governor said. Death row inmates are kept segregated from the rest of the prison population and they have "a certain degree" of access to research materials and their attorneys, said Bruce Antkowiak, a law professor at St. Vincent College near Latrobe. Pennsylvania has carried out 3 executions, all of inmates who waived their appeals, since 1976 with the last in 1999. Avoiding execution is the biggest goal for appeal attorneys, Antkowiak said. "You don't know if you represent someone on death row whether the mood of things will change," Antkowiak said. "Having a defendant who is on death row is the ultimate challenge for any lawyer. The stakes couldn't be any higher than they are. "Any attorney who accepts the court appointment on a case like this - your duty is clear," he said. Attorneys argued other issues in the appeal Thursday. The prosecution said Smyrnes was the leader who took votes from the group of roommates as to whether Daugherty should be tortured, then killed and how her body should be discarded. Aston argued that prosecutors' use of torture as an aggravating factor in the capital phase was improper because the decision to kill Daugherty came in a "family meeting" with the 6 co-defendants that occurred after she was tortured during 2 days of captivity. "You have this torturous behavior that did exist, but it wasn't present at the time of the intent to kill," Aston said. Assistant District Attorney Leo Ciaramitaro argued that torture was a proper aggravating circumstance because Smyrnes did wield the murder weapon - a knife - at one point in time, even if he didn't inflict the fatal blow. In addition to Smyrnes, Melvin Knight was convicted of 1st-degree murder and received the death penalty. Prosecutors presented trial evidence that Knight inflicted the fatal stab wound. Smyrnes' attorneys called the credibility of prosecution witness and co-defendant Amber Meidinger, 25, into question. "The defense should've been permitted to explore" whether Meidinger was taking her medication and if that had an impact on her memory and perception of what was occurring, Fox argued. Ciaramitaro responded that the trial attorney spent time questioning Meidinger's recollection of the events during cross-examination. Other issues include claims by the defense that Hathaway improperly admitted testimony from Meidinger and limited a psychologist's testimony. According to the defense, the prosecution should not have been allowed to argue to the jury that crimes Smyrnes committed as an 11-year-old could be used in deciding to sentence him to death. Hathaway ordered the attorneys to submit written legal briefs. Angela Marinucci, then 17, also was convicted of 1st-degree murder. She was sentenced to a life term but is scheduled to return to court this year to be resentenced. Meidinger, along with 2 other co-defendants, pleaded guilty to 3rd-degree murder and received lesser sentences, although each will spend at least between 30 and 40 years in prison. (source: triblive.com) GEORGIA: Future Of Ga.'s Death Penalty Unknown Due To Drug Shortage Former Supreme Court Justice Norman Fletcher discussed his opposition to the death penalty during an interview with Rose Scott and Denis O'Hayer on ''A Closer Look.'' As Nebraska lawmakers voted to ban the death penalty this week, the future of capital punishment in Georgia has also been called into question. That's not due to lawmakers ready to ban it - but because the lethal injection drugs used for killing the state's worst criminal offenders are hard to come by. State corrections officials are not revealing when executions might resume in Georgia after they encountered problems with the lethal injection drugs earlier this year. Judge Norman Fletcher, the former Chief Justice for the Georgia Supreme Court, talks on ACL about the death penalty. Former Georgia Supreme Court Chief Justice Norman Fletcher opposes the death penalty and would like to see it banned in Georgia. The drugs are so hard to come by now because manufacturers have mostly refused to sell the needed drugs to states for use in executions. That raises questions about the future of the death penalty - or at least lethal injection as a means of execution - in the 32 states where executions are still legal, including Georgia. If former Georgia Supreme Court Justice Norman Fletcher had his way, he would ban the death penalty in the state altogether, like conservative lawmakers in Nebraska did on Wednesday. Fletcher explained why during an interview on "A Closer Look." (source: WABE news) *************************** Anti-death penalty group spreads awareness in Dawson An anti-death penalty group tries to increase social activism in South Georgia. "The most important thing for me is to get people involved, especially men of color," said Dorinda Tatum, Lead Organizer for the Georgians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty. Georgians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty held an open forum in Dawson last night. Group leaders are traveling around the state spreading awareness about the death penalty and what they say is common police brutality against black men. They're encouraging young people to join their group and others like "black lives matter" to voice their concerns. "There are strength in numbers," said Tatum. "You can get things done when you have a group of people coming together for one purpose." "To know how to contact their policy makers, to know how to engage their pastors and other community leaders and to really connect with the cause," said Troyia Sampson, Organizer. The group is headed to Savannah next month and Athens in September. (source: WALB news) ****************************** Killer finds solace in scholar A few months ago, Kelly Gissendaner wrote a letter to a pen pal across the Atlantic. She told him the state of Georgia was about to fix a date for her execution. One evening soon, she would be strapped to a gurney, needles would be inserted into her arm, and poison would course through her veins until she was dead. The letter arrived a few days later at the home of an 88-year-old man in Tubingen, Germany. After reading it, he took one of his white handkerchiefs, folded it neatly and placed it in an envelope to mail to Georgia's death row. "When the tears are coming," he wrote, "take my handkerchief." The man in Germany was Jurgen Moltmann, an eminent theologian and author who met Gissendaner in prison in 2011. The two have kept in touch through letters ever since. The circumstances of their lives are vastly different. And yet, they found commonality. Toward the end of the war, he surrendered to the first British soldier he encountered. For nearly three years, he was confined to prisoner-of-war forced labor camps. It was in those camps that he began to ponder the brutality of war. The guards often nailed photographs of concentration camps to the prisoners' huts, forcing them to confront the horrors of the Holocaust. He lost both faith and hope in German culture, his remorse so great that sometimes he wished he had died on the battlefield. He began to read the Bible for the 1st time behind barbed wire in Kilmarnock, Scotland. He likes to say now that he did not find Christ, but that Christ found him in his sadness and desperation, when he was utterly without aspiration. Prisoners who had been professors before the war often taught other POWs, and Moltmann began to study Christianity. He says the camp often felt like a monastery. He describes it as "an existential experience of healing our wounded souls." When he was finally freed, he returned home to Germany and, against his father's wishes, studied theology. He went on to become a professor, and a pastor. But the scars of a frightened, lonely prisoner of war stayed in his heart. So when he first came across Gissendaner, he understood how she, too, had found God and theology. How she, too, had been without hope until then. Gissendaner had been sentenced to die in 1998 for recruiting her then-boyfriend Gregory Owen to kill her husband, Doug Gissendaner. The crime was horrific. Georgia prosecutors said Gissendaner, a mother of 3, wanted her husband gone so she could claim 2 life insurance policies worth $10,000 and take charge of an $84,000 house. Owen stabbed Doug Gissendaner to death; his body was recovered 2 weeks later. Prosecutors argued before a jury that Kelly Gissendaner had her husband murdered out of "pure greed." She went to prison a selfish and arrogant woman who, by her own admission, put on a tough persona to shield herself from the hideous truth. Many chaplains she interacted with over the years have described her as such. But in the same year Gissendaner was sentenced to die, the Atlanta Theological Association started a yearlong program in which women prisoners could earn a certificate in theological studies. The association was an alliance of seminaries, including the Candler School of Theology at Emory University, where Moltmann has been a visiting professor. Her friends say Gissendaner had already begun to transform herself by the time she enrolled in the program a dozen years later, in 2010. She was the only student from death row. Georgia has no other women facing execution. One of the professors in the program was Jenny McBride, who recalled that by the time she met Gissendaner, "she was, in the words of the Apostle Paul, a 'new creation.' " Inmate and professor read together the words of Rowan Williams, then the archbishop of Canterbury. Healing and restoration, Williams wrote, can only be achieved through facing the "ruins of the past" and building from it a present and future. McBride, who now teaches at Wartburg College in Iowa, said Gissendaner confronted the actions of her past. She admitted to plotting the murder and expressed deep remorse to her children and her husband's family. "I lost all judgment," Gissendaner wrote in her application for clemency earlier this year. "I will never understand how I let myself fall into such evil, but I have learned firsthand that no one, not even me, is beyond redemption through God's grace and mercy. I have learned to place my hope in the God I now know. ..." It was during the second semester of the theology course, McBride said, when Gissendaner first learned of Moltmann, reading the German pastor's most well-known work, "Theology of Hope." Moltmann's journey from prisoner of war to eminent scholar brought him to a reality centered on hope. Biblical hope, he said, is not a hope that gives up on life but rather one that looks for something better in the here and now. He speaks of the resurrection of Jesus Christ and the future it proclaims. He writes that a true Christian sets out to transform the present rather than fear the future. Gissendaner was deeply affected by Moltmann's theology. "Do you think I can write to him?" she asked McBride. "Absolutely." And so she began a conversation. Dear Jurgen, I hope this letter finds you well rested after lecturing in many countries. I do think you are amazing to still be lecturing and sharing your wisdom and knowledge with so many others. For those who hear you I know it's a blessing to them. If I ever get the opportunity to just meet you I would be in awe. To be able to sit down with you and have a conversation with you would be truly amazing! Gissendaner got her wish. Soon after receiving her letter, Moltmann visited the Candler School in Atlanta to deliver a special lecture on the 400th anniversary of the publication of the King James Bible. The next day, Gissendaner would be graduating from the theology program at her prison in northeast Georgia. Moltmann drove the 70 miles from Atlanta to Lee Arrendale State Prison to speak at her graduation ceremony. "Your community is important for me. Therefore I came," he told Gissendaner and her fellow inmates. "When I first heard of your study of theology in prison, pictures of my youth and of the beginning of my own theological studies emerged from the depth of my memory. Yes, I remember." Gissendaner spoke of the hunger she felt for theology. "This theology program has shown me that hope is still alive and that, despite a gate or a guillotine hovering over my head, I still possess the ability to prove that I am human," she said in her speech that day. "Labels on anyone can be notoriously misleading and unforgiving things. But no matter the label attached to me, I have the capacity and the unstoppable desire to accomplish something positive and have a lasting impact," she said. "Even prison cannot erase my hope or conviction that the future is not settled for me, or anyone. ... I have placed my hope in the God I now know, the God whose plans and promises are made known to me in the whole story of the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ." Helen Prejean, a Catholic nun who has been ministering to death row inmates for three decades, says she understands what drew Gissendaner to Moltmann's theology. Moltmann bridged what Prejean describes as a common disconnect between institutional religion and a person who is suffering. He also took the time to write to her, to give her back her dignity. "It's an affirmation of her humanity and her potential," Prejean says. One time, Prejean says, a death row guard told her the state was executing a man who he knew was different than the murderer who had walked in years ago. But that didn't matter. "You are freeze-framed in an act. And the state is freeze-framed in killing," says Prejean, who recently testified against the death penalty for Boston bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev. Prejean, the subject of the movie "Dead Man Walking," likens Moltmann's beliefs to the Liberation Theology of Latin America, which swept up the Catholic Church in a struggle to fight 20th-century injustices suffered by the poor. "He connected hope to the way Jesus talked about the kingdom of God, of our collaboration with people who are suffering now," Prejean says. "That's what Pope Francis is doing. One week after he became Pope, he was in a prison washing the feet of prisoners. It's solidarity with all human beings." Prejean says she has no doubt Francis would approve of Moltmann's relationship with Gissendaner. "He'd do it himself if he could," she says. "He'd drive up the Popemobile to death row." More than 500 members of the clergy and other religious leaders have signed a petition asking the state to spare Gissendaner's life, saying she has embraced Christianity and is no longer the person who had her husband killed. Two of Gissendaner's children also have spoken on her behalf. But Doug Gissendaner's family remains resolute in the wish to see her die. And they're not alone. "Doug is the true victim of this pre-meditated and heinous crime," his family said in a statement issued in March. "We, along with our friends and supporters and our faith, will continue fighting for Doug until he gets the justice he deserves no matter how long it takes." Phil Wages, pastor at Winterville First Baptist Church near Atlanta, is among those who stand with the victim's family. He says he would never put his name to a petition seeking clemency for Gissendaner. "Absolutely, I believe in the power of the Gospel to change anybody from a sinner to a saint, from having a heart of stone to heart of flesh," Wages says. "But I don't think change negates what the state of Georgia decided. There was enough evidence to convict her and give her the death penalty. Change does not get her a 'get out jail free' card." Wages was an officer in the Gwinnett County Police Department in 1997 and watched his colleagues bring in Gissendaner after her arrest. He says he is glad she turned to God. "I think a lot of men and women behind bars would not have otherwise been interested in the Bible had they not been in such a difficult place," he says. "It does take suffering sometimes for people to begin to think about spiritual things." But he does not agree with the theology that drew Gissendaner to Moltmann's teachings. "Moltmann believes God suffers with us," Wages says. "This is not the understanding of the church for thousands of years. I would argue that God is transcendent. He is above creation. Therefore, he can't suffer with us." Back in Germany, Moltmann, now old and feeble, knows he may never again see the woman greatly touched by his theology. Her first execution date was set for February 25 but was delayed because of inclement weather. She was taken to the death chamber again on March 2. Moltmann prepared a candlelight ceremony with his family. He wanted to thank God for Gissendaner's life and ask forgiveness for her sins. Gissendaner was given a last meal: cheeseburger, fries, ice cream. Then at the last moment, her life was spared again after authorities noticed a problem with the lethal drug phenobarbital. A third date has not yet been set. Georgia has postponed executions until it determines what went wrong with the drug. Several other states have done the same. Public opinion has shifted against capital punishment, imposed still in 32 states. The Nebraska Legislature voted Wednesday to repeal it. Moltmann feels God's providence can be tricky. He argued with God after the State Board of Pardons and Paroles denied Gissendaner's plea for clemency. "When the delays came," he says, "I had the feeling God was answering my prayers." He thought about the handkerchief he had sent across the Atlantic. Gissendaner had written him back after it arrived. She told him it was the most heartfelt gift she'd ever received in her nearly 17 years on death row. She was beyond touched, she told him. He wondered if prison officials would allow her to hold onto that little piece of cloth. If they knew what it meant to her. And whether, in the end, it would bring her a modicum of peace. (source: CNN) FLORIDA: Jury selection begins for man charged in transvestite's death in Riviera Beach----Man, 25, faces death penalty for allegedly shooting 2 transvestite prostitutes and killing another What started as a seemingly chance meeting between a pair of transvestite prostitutes and a motorist 3 years ago will culminate this week in a death penalty trial for the 25-year-old man accused of killing 1 transvestite and shooting at yet another minutes later. The start of jury selection today means Luis Rijo De Los Santos will become the 1st Palm Beach County defendant to stand trial in a death penalty case in 2 years, accused of killing Tyrell Mashae Jackson and also facing attempted murder charges in the shooting of Jackson's friend Michael Hunter and the subsequent shooting of Terence Emmanuel Chatman in Riviera Beach. The 12-member jury that Circuit Judge Glenn Kelley, prosecutor Lauren Godden and defense attorney Marc Shiner expect to pick in the case will be introduced beginning next week to the surviving victims in the case - all cross-dressers with violent pasts, including a 6-foot-3 man whose pre-trial interview once had to be rescheduled when a confrontation with Shiner nearly came to blows. They will also hear Rijo De Los Santos' claims that he acted in self-defense. And if they convict him, jurors will meet a number of Rijo De Los Santos' relatives in the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico who will describe an idyllic upbringing much different than the hard-scrabble tales of woe that color most penalty phase hearings. "Self-defense or not, this is a strange, strange case," veteran defense attorney Shiner said Wednesday of Rijo DeLos Santos. "It's fair to say I've never had a case close to this one before." But just why the Dominican native would leave his girlfriend asleep at home and come to such a violent confrontation with the trio of transvestites is still unclear from court records and initial arrest reports in the case. In the early hours of March 24, 2014, after Jackson was pronounced dead at St. Mary's Hospital, Hunter gave investigators the following account from his own hospital bed: Hunter and Jackson were walking north on the 4400 block of Broadway in West Palm Beach earlier that night, both dressed as women. Hunter told Jackson his feet hurt and suggested they flag down a ride back to Jackson???s house in Riviera Beach. Soon afterward, a man later determined to be Rijo De Los Santos picked them up in his silver SUV and agreed to take them home. When they got to Riviera Beach, Hunter asked Rijo De Los Santos to take them to a convenience store, and according to Hunter it was when they tried to get out of the car that the driver pulled out a semiautomatic gun and began shooting. Hunter was shot in the arm. Jackson was shot at least 3 times and died. Less than 20 minutes later, West Palm Beach police received another report of a shooting, this time in the 2000 block of North Dixie Highway. Chatman, another prostitute dressed as a woman, was shot in the hip and told police his shooter took out a gun as soon as he got in the car with him. "You got in the wrong (expletive) car," Chatman told police the gunman said. After Rijo De Los Santos' indictment on 1st-degree murder, attempted murder and felony murder charges, then-interim Palm Beach County State Attorney Pete Antonacci announced that prosecutors would be seeking the death penalty against Rijo De Los Santos. Antonacci alone made the decision to seek death - a switch from the policies of his predecessor Michael McAuliffe and current top prosecutor Dave Aronberg, who both use committees to determine which cases to pursue capital punishment. State Attorney's Office spokesman Mike Edmondson this week said Aronberg's committee did not make a separate review of Rijo De Los Santos' case after Aronberg took office in 2013. Either way, Rijo De Los Santos' trial marks the 1st death penalty case to go to trial in Palm Beach County since the 2013 trial of Bruce Strahan, accused of killing his estranged wife and two others in Lake Worth. A jury recommended a life sentence for him after just a half hour of deliberation in the penalty phase of his case. The last local jury to recommend a death sentence locally was a 2009 federal jury, which voted unanimously for a death sentence for Ricardo Sanchez and Daniel Troya for the deaths of 3- and 4-year-old brothers who were part of a family gunned down on Florida's Turnpike over a drug debt. Shiner will argue that Rijo De Los Santos acted in self-defense in both cases, and that the shootings were not 2 separate events but rather an ongoing defense of himself against a trio of transvestite prostitutes who were actually together when he first met them. He will argue that they produced knives and tried to rob him, forcing him to shoot. Shiner this week said all 3 victims have criminal pasts, including Hunter, whose pretrial interview with Shiner and former prosecutor Cheryl Caracuzzo once had to be postponed because Hunter took offense at something Shiner said and nearly punched him. Jury selection in Rijo De Los Santos' case is expected to last until the middle of next week. If Rijo De Los Santos is convicted, Kelley ruled that he'll take a week-long break before the penalty phase of the trial. Shiner had asked for a break of at least 2 weeks. (source: Palm Beach Post) ******************* Doctors: Early brain injuries could have contributed to Davis' killings Barry Davis' defense team is counting on his abnormal brain to keep him out of a cell on Florida's death row. Expert witnesses in the fields of clinical psychology and neuropathology testified Thursday that head injuries Davis suffered at an early age had caused traumatic brain injuries. Those injuries could well have turned him aggressive and affected his judgment and impulse control. Coupled with growing up mostly unloved on the mean streets of Los Angeles, anxiety and depression brought on by a failing relationship and injuries Davis suffered playing football, boxing and in ATV accidents created a deeply disturbed individual, doctors Julie Harper and Joseph Wu told jurors. The testimony, solicited by attorney Michelle Hendrix, came on the 2nd day of the death penalty phase of Davis' trial. He was convicted Monday of killing South Walton County resident John Gregory Hughes and his girlfriend, Hiedi Ann Rhodes of Panama City Beach. Brain injuries to a young person are potentially more harmful later in life because the brain still is developing, Wu told jurors. A PET scan of Davis' brain indicated an abnormal frontal lobe area, he testified. "The frontal lobe is most susceptible to brain injuries that impact judgment and impulse control," he said. "A damaged frontal lobe is like driving a car when the brakes aren't working." Outside factors such as the environment one grows up in can exacerbate problems stemming from the brain injuries, Wu told the jury. "I think Mr. Davis has several factors present," he testified. On cross-examination, prosecutor Bobby Elmore confirmed that Wu was well briefed in the grisly details of the murders of Hughes and Rhodes, including the beatings they suffered, the effort to make sure they were dead by placing their heads in a bathtub and the dismembering and burning of their bodies. "Do you believe these deaths were the results of an impulse action?" Elmore asked. Wu mostly shied from answering what he termed Elmore's "philosophical" questions. But when asked if a person with traumatic brain injury can understand that it's wrong to murder, he answered, "there's a different type of knowing." "You can know murder is wrong but have the inability to regulate certain impulses," Wu said. Today is expected to be the last day of testimony in the 2nd phase of what has been a 4-week trial. The jury then will be asked to return with a recommendation to have Davis either sentenced to death or to life in prison without the possibility of parole. Walton County Circuit Judge Kelvin Wells will impose the sentence, but by law he must give great weight to the jury's recommendation. (source: Panama City News Herald) KENTUCKY: Judge denies mistrial request in death penalty case A Superior Court judge has denied a mistrial request from a defense attorney after a juror who was previously selected was excused in the death penalty case. The jury selection process is in its 10th week. One of Carl Kennedy's attorneys, Robert Campbell, requested a mistrial Thursday from Judge Christopher Bragg in Davidson County Superior Court but was denied. He presented the request in open court after Bragg granted an excusal to Davidson County assistant district attorneys on a juror seated in March who claimed Wednesday anxiety has been an issue over the possibility of giving Kennedy the death penalty as she has waited several weeks for the trial to start. Kennedy and 2 others - David Earl Manning and Leigh Williams, both 44 - have been charged with 3 counts of 1st-degree murder in the November 2011 deaths of Sharon F. Rushing, 61, Angela Dawn Soles, 43, and Gary Lynn Seward, 52, all of 101 Rotary Lane in Thomasville. The state is seeking the death penalty against all 3 people, but Kennedy's case is being tried first. Attorneys selected their 11th juror Wednesday as they hoped to find the needed 12 jurors and 2 alternates to start the trial. The decision for Bragg to allow the state to utilize 1 of its 12 excusals means there have only been 10 jurors seated through the 10th week of the trial. Campbell requested Bragg consider granting the defense additional excusals if the court decided not to declare a mistrial Thursday. The defense attorney argued excusing the juror, who was the 2nd seated in the process, would prejudice Kennedy and his defense team as they were following a game plan with their excusals. Bragg granted an additional excusal to the defense after he didn't grant the mistrial. That means the defense attorneys have used 11 of their now 13 excusals, and the state has utilized eight of its 12 excusals. Bragg chose not to excuse the juror wanting to be dismissed for cause. The judge has the authority to release prospective jurors for cause when he thinks they are not capable of serving in the case. The numbers for being released for cause by the judge are limitless. While the attorneys typically receive 12 excusals to pick 12 jurors, they receive a total of two excusals to choose the two alternates. An excusal allows each of the sides in the case to dismiss a juror when they believe the person should not serve on the jury. Thursday, the juror who was dismissed said it would be difficult to serve on the jury because of the possibility of sentencing someone to death. This juror said views changed as time has passed by in the past nine weeks since she was initially seated. Jury selection continues Friday as the attorneys work to pick the rest of the jurors. Once the trial begins, the parties involved believe the case will take 4 weeks or more. (source: The Dispatch) TENNESSEE: State prosecutor says there is no meaningful death penalty in Tennessee One local state prosecutor says there is a problem with Tennessee's death penalty. District Attorney General Barry Staubus said the most recent example is a death row inmate dying last week of natural causes. Donald Strouth had been on death row for a Sullivan County murder for three decades, making him the state's longest-serving death row inmate. Staubus said a more than 30-year appeal process is too long. Tennessee is 1 of 32 states with the death penalty. According to the Death Penalty Information Center, right now, there are 73 people currently on death row in the state. 6 people have been executed since 1976, the last execution was in 2009. Tennessee ranks 12th in the number of people on death row in the country. It ranks 21st in the number of executions. I talked with attorneys on both sides of the issue to find out what they think should be done about the death penalty in the volunteer state. "Is there a just way for human beings to kill other human beings? I don't know," Steve Wallace, Sullivan County public defender said. It's a question that's been debated for decades. In 1978, the same year Tennessee reinstated its death penalty, a jury convicted and sentenced to death 19-year-old Donald Wayne Strouth for the murder of 70 year old shop-owner James Keegan. "And until he passed away he was still on appeal, 2015," Staubus said. 37 years after his death sentence, Strouth died of an apparent heart attack, not by execution. "I think that undermines the credibility of the criminal justice system. I think it's difficult for families and victims' families to deal with that long of an appellate process," Staubus said. Strouth's execution date had recently been postponed until 2016. "I just think that the cases need to be expedited in a more timely manner, and I know there's some movements in appellate courts to do that but there's still a huge backlog of these cases," Staubus said. We talked with Robert Dunham, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, who said what's happening in Tennessee is reflecting a trend nationwide. "I don't think the fact that Tennessee has not executed people recently is particularly extraordinary, I say that because executions are at a 20 year low in the United States," Dunham said. Wallace said he remembers when Strouth was sentenced. He said at the time the state sought the death penalty for almost all murders. But now, "I don't think it's a bad thing that the death penalty is used infrequently," Wallace said. With the appeals process he said, "It's a big consumer of judicial time that's one of the biggest problems with the death penalty." He said his solution would be to get rid of the death penalty. We also talked with Larry Dillow, the defense attorney who represented Strouth in 1978. He told me at that time he never expected Strouth would be on death row this long. Right now all executions in Tennessee are on hold due to a pending lawsuit where death row inmates, including Strouth, questioned if the state's lethal injection process is constitutional. (source: Allie Hinds, WJHL news) From rhalperi at smu.edu Fri May 22 16:07:44 2015 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Fri, 22 May 2015 16:07:44 -0500 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----KAN., NEB., ARIZ., USA Message-ID: May 22 KANSAS: Kansas Man Faces Death Penalty The Kansas Attorney General's Office announced they would seek the death penalty against David Cornell Bennett Jr. Bennett is charged with 4 counts of 1st degree premeditated murder, 1 count of rape, and 2 counts of criminal threat. In November of 2013, Cami Umbarger, 23, and her 3 children were found dead in their Parsons home. Bennett is currently being held in the Labette County Jail on a $5 million bond. His trial is set for October 5th in Parsons. (source: fourstateshomepage.com) ************************** Parsons Reacts to Proposed Death Penalty in Quadruple Homicide If David Bennett Jr. is found guilty and sentenced to death for the murder of Cami Umbarger and her 3 children in Parsons , he will be the 10th Kansas inmate on death row. Kansas was the last state to re-instate the death penalty in the modern era, and has not executed an inmate since 1965. Citizens reporter Tim Spears talked to in Parsons are overwhelmingly in favor of the death penalty in Bennett's case. Primarily due to the involvement of children. "Those kids were innocent," resident Paul Wallace said. "They didn't have an idea even if they were in bad surroundings. They didn't deserve to be killed." "If you're gonna murder someone and a who innocent family, or a child, same thing needs to be done to you," death penalty supporter Sandy Shepherd said. "Those were innocent kids," Lisa Lawson said. "[Cami] was innocent too. And what [Bennett] did, he deserves to be punished for it." "[The] children didn't do nothing," said Gennie Ainesworth, whose granddaughter knew one of the victims. "My granddaughter cried for over 2 months cause she went to school with 1 of the children. And that's not something you should have to explain to a child. Your friend's in heaven now." "[The children] didn't have nothing to do with it," death penalty supporter Tim Shultz said. "That's a pretty bad guy to do something like that to a family and them kids." Since Kansas' current death penalty law enacted in 1994, there have been 85 capital cases in the state. 13 men have been sentenced to death, 1 sentence was removed and 2 sentences were vacated by the supreme court. The 9 remaining are in early appeals. (source: KOAM TV news) NEBRASKA: Nebraska governor reiterates plans to veto bill abolishing death penalty Nebraska Gov. Pete Ricketts has said it before and he will say it again: He plans to veto a bill passed this week that would abolish the state's death penalty. "The Legislature is out of touch with Nebraskans on their vote to repeal the death penalty," Ricketts, a Republican who took office this year, said in a statement posted to Facebook. "The overwhelming majority of Nebraskans support the death penalty because they understand that it is an important tool for public safety." The state's attorney general, Doug Peterson, has also criticized the legislature's decision, which he said "weakened [Nebraska's] ability to properly administer appropriate justice." Ricketts had previously threatened to veto the bill, which lawmakers approved and sent to his desk Wednesday. However, for Ricketts's veto to be upheld, it appears he will have to change the minds of some Nebraska lawmakers. In the state's unicameral legislature, which has 49 state senators, it takes 30 votes to override a veto from the governor. On Wednesday, there were 32 senators voting in favor of the bill. "I will continue to work with senators to sustain my veto when I issue it," Ricketts said. He has until next week to officially veto the legislation. If the bill does become law, Nebraska would be the 19th state to formally abolish the death penalty. It would also be an outlier among states to act on the issue recently. Several states have repealed the death penalty or announced moratoriums over the last decade, but they have typically been blue states such as Maryland, which was the most recent state to formally abolish the practice. While a majority of Americans support the death penalty (a number that has been falling for 2 decades), there is a very clear partisan divide on the issue: 3/4 of Republicans are in favor of capital punishment, while a majority of Democrats oppose it. Nebraska is a reliably red state with a conservative legislature, making it something of an unexpected place to see the death penalty on the precipice of disappearing. Some lawmakers have pushed for a repeal for religious reasons, while others have pointed to wrongful convictions. Still others have pointed to it as an example of a wasteful government program. "The reality is Nebraska hasn't executed anybody in about 20 years," State Sen. Colby Coash, a Republican who co-sponsored the repeal legislation, said in an interview. "That inability spoke to my feelings about inefficient government. I've said frequently, if any other program was as inefficient and as costly as this has been, we would've gotten rid of it a long time ago." Nebraska last executed an inmate in 1997. Coash described his own personal evolution on the issue, which he traced back to that last execution, when he was a college student who lived not far from where the execution would be carried out. "I went down to the state penitentiary where they were having the execution that evening," he said this week. "Out in the parking lot of the penitentiary, there was a party, basically. There was a band, they were cooking, people were tailgating. they had a countdown, like you see at New Year's Eve parties. ... It was a big party. You wouldn't have known you were at an execution." He also said he saw another group praying on the other side of a security fence. "After that event, I had some time to reflect on that," he said. "It didn't sit well with me. I didn't like how I felt celebrating the state killing somebody. My views on the death penalty changed pretty significantly after that happened." There are 11 inmates on the state's death row. Their sentences would all be converted to life imprisonment if the bill goes into effect. (source: Washington Post) **************************** Ricketts appeals to public to flip death penalty votes Nebraska Gov. Pete Ricketts is ramping up pressure on lawmakers to try to keep them from overriding his promised veto of a death penalty repeal bill Friday to contact their state senator and voice their support for capital punishment. Lawmakers gave the repeal bill final approval on Wednesday with a 32-15 vote. At least 30 votes are needed to override a gubernatorial veto, so Ricketts has to flip at least 3. Ricketts says he has argued to several lawmakers that the Nebraskans he talks to overwhelmingly support the death penalty, and prosecutors need it to protect public safety. Ricketts has argued that lawmakers are out of touch with the public. Death penalty opponents are working to ensure that support for the bill holds. The Omaha Police Officers' Association issued the following statement on the bill Friday: "We believe that a total repeal is inappropriate. At a minimum the death penalty should be an option when a first responder or elected official is murdered, or the crimes are so heinous that they may warrant the ultimate penalty." For several years the carrying out of the death penalty was in limbo as elected officials and the courts sorted out the legality of the method and procedures for applying the death penalty. This is no longer the case. Governor Ricketts recently announced that Nebraska will soon have the drugs necessary for lethal injection. "This issue is far too important to be decided by 33 Senators, many of whom who were elected while telling their voters they supported the death penalty. Rather, such an important issue should be decided by all the voters of Nebraska in a statewide ballot vote." ()source: KETV news) ******************** Veto at the ready, Gov. Ricketts chases 3 votes in Legislature on death penalty repeal Gov. Pete Ricketts must flip at least 3 votes to keep the death penalty in Nebraska. Based on interviews with several state senators Thursday, the votes are in play, and advocates on both sides of the death penalty debate know it. A leading repeal organization has activated its volunteer calling bank, and staff members for several senators said they were getting automated calls from death penalty supporters. And the Hall County Board called an emergency meeting for today to consider a resolution in support of capital punishment, largely to influence the veto-vote decision of their state senator. But no group carries a greater potential to influence the outcome than the state's top elected official. "I really make the same argument to everybody: It's an important tool for public safety and public policy," Ricketts said during an interview Thursday. The governor said he will veto Legislative Bill 268, but he declined to say when. Because the governor must act within 5 days of the bill's passage, the showdown will almost certainly take place next week, in the closing days of the legislative session. The measure passed Wednesday with a surprisingly strong majority of 32 senators. Repeal supporters must keep at least 30 on their side to override the veto. Several senators said Thursday that the historic vote prompted dozens of calls and e-mails from both sides of the issue. The governor used newspaper and television interviews and his social media accounts Thursday to encourage pro-death penalty Nebraskans to contact to their senators. "My concern is that they're in that Capitol so much and listening to lobbyists and not to your average Nebraskan," Ricketts said. And the governor met Thursday with several Republican senators he viewed as being open to reconsidering their positions. "He said he hopes I could find it in my heart to support the veto," said Sen. Jerry Johnson of Wahoo. "I told him I've got 4 days to think about it, and I'm trying to be open about it." The governor also met with Sen. Mike Gloor of Grand Island, who also finds himself being lobbied by the Hall County Board. Gloor voted against the repeal bill on the first 2 rounds of debate but joined supporters on the final round. 3 of the board members signed a letter to call the meeting, and one other indicated her support in an e-mail. Six of the seven board members have indicated that they will attend the emergency meeting, said Hall County Clerk Marla Conley. Board member Gary Quandt said he will argue for the resolution to show solidarity with prosecutors and law enforcement officers. But he also wants to apply pressure on Gloor. "I was strongly surprised by what the Legislature did," Quandt said Thursday. Gloor said Thursday that he ultimately decided to vote for repeal because he became convinced that the legal battle over the state's execution protocol will never end. "I want someone to answer this question: How are we going to get over the hump and do something we haven't been able to do in almost 2 decades," Gloor said. "What's different?" One of the governor's messages to senators is that the state recently purchased a fresh supply of lethal injection drugs to replace those that had expired. And 3 current death row inmates are out of appeals, although death penalty opponents argue that new legal challenges will ensue once the state tries to carry out another execution. In response to passage of the repeal bill, death penalty supporters also created a Facebook page titled: "Whose Side Are You On Senator? Save Capital Punishment Now." The site was dedicated to supporting the governor's veto of LB 268, and it had received 200 "likes" in 5 hours Thursday. It also displayed draft mailings that were targeting Johnson and two other senators who voted for repeal: Brett Lindstrom of Omaha and Tommy Garrett of Bellevue. The mailings accuse the conservative senators of standing with Omaha Sen. Ernie Chambers, a longtime death penalty foe, rather than their constituents. Bud Synhorst, executive director of the Nebraska Republican Party, said grass-roots party activists were trying to rally voters to contact their senators. But he said the state GOP was not engaged in a robocall campaign, nor was he aware of any other groups responsible for such calls. Stacy Anderson, director of Nebraskans for Alternatives to the Death Penalty, said her organization was conducting a full grass-roots push by volunteers to generate calls to senators. She said her group was not involved in any automated calling campaigns. Sen. John Murante of Gretna said he made the difficult decision to vote for repeal after having discussions with his Catholic priest. But he said he always made it clear to repeal supporters he wasn't sure how he would vote if it came to a veto override. Murante said he's now hearing from more death penalty supporters, and he's listening to their input. Asked if he might support the governor during the override vote, he said, "It's possible." When Sen. Robert Hilkemann of Omaha campaigned for the Legislature, he said he supported the death penalty for the most heinous killers. But his view changed after listening to the argument that life in prison costs less than trying to carry out an execution. And he met with a man who spent time on death row in another state for a crime he did not commit. Opposing the death penalty is more consistent with his Christian beliefs, he added. Wednesday's fatal shooting of an Omaha police officer caused Hilkemann to rethink his vote for repeal. But he hasn't decided for sure how he will vote on the override. A good lawmaker, Hilkemann said, keeps an open mind. (source: omaha.com) ******************** If death penalty repealed, punishment must fit crime The Legislature's debate over the death penalty was wrenching in part because both sides are right about some things. And neither side is wrong about everything. Those advocating for the death penalty argue that it is appropriate for the most heinous crimes; that capital punishment gives some criminals pause; that legal safeguards make it unlikely an innocent person will be put to death. Those opposed argue that a civilized society shouldn't resort to vengeance; that the death penalty isn't handed down fairly to all murderers; that no statistical evidence shows it is a deterrent; that an innocent person might be wrongly put to death. In the end, the question was largely a matter of personal conscience. The Legislature voted to end Nebraska's death penalty, and Gov. Pete Ricketts promised to veto Legislative Bill 268. With more than enough lawmakers voting for repeal, an override of that veto seems likely. Then what? If they do repeal the death penalty, it will be incumbent on state senators to follow through and guarantee Nebraskans that adequate punishment is available to fit the very worst of crimes. First, a life sentence should mean staying in prison for life. The crimes of the 11 men on Nebraska's death row were unconscionable: Killing cabdrivers at random; torturing a victim for days; dismembering a 3-year-old boy and feeding some of his remains to a dog; shooting innocent people in a bank; abducting and killing a 12-year-old schoolgirl. Such criminals should never walk the streets again. If lawmakers substitute a life sentence for the death penalty, then it must mean life. No possibility of parole. And any future effort to weaken that guarantee should be met with forceful opposition. Next, fix the state's broken prison system. The litany of problems is long: overcrowding, staffing shortages, inmates being given erroneous early release dates and last week's deadly riot at the Tecumseh State Prison. Problems predate the new governor, new prisons director Scott Frakes and many current lawmakers. But all must step up now. Tecumseh's issues date to the 1990s, when the state encouraged cities to compete for the new prison, selling it as an economic boon. Yet hiring and retaining sufficient prison staff is hard, especially in a rural locale. At Tecumseh, guards work the most mandatory overtime in the prison system and too many quit. On March 31, the state had 103 vacancies for corrections officers and their leaders. Tecumseh, with the prison system's highest turnover, 23 percent, had 40 unfilled jobs when the riots occurred. Half of corrections officers at Tecumseh had less than 2 years' experience, and the average experience level of security staff was about 4 years. Lawmakers should give prison officials the financial flexibility to address hiring, promotions and pay. Ricketts pledged to make headway on pay and incentives to reward employee experience. The Legislature also has discussed how to ease prison crowding, find alternatives for the non-violent and improve programs for inmates. These goals must be diligently pursued to make certain there is always a cell for the most dangerous. None of this is easy, or it already would have been done. But the riot showed that inaction has risks, too. Finally, think again before going easier on gun criminals. While debate has ended for this year, a bill to eliminate mandatory minimum sentences for some criminals could return. 6 years ago, a tougher mandatory penalty for drive-by shootings to combat gangs and guns passed 44-0. These are the people Nebraskans want behind bars. Prosecutors and lawmen across the state have argued for keeping those mandatory sentences. Lawmakers should listen and stand firm against any renewed effort to jettison these protections. A majority of legislators have voted to repeal the death penalty. Now they must make certain that dangerous criminals go to prison, that well-run prisons have room to hold the guilty and that a life sentence means what it says. The punishment must fit the worst of crimes. (source: Editorial, Omaha World-Herald) **************************** Veto Expected After Nebraska Lawmakers Vote To Abolish Death Penalty NPR's Audie Cornish interviews Bill Kelly, a reporter with NET, Nebraska's Public Broadcasting Network, about the Nebraska legislature's vote Wednesday to abolish the death penalty. AUDIE CORNISH, HOST: There are 32 states that still have the death penalty, but lawmakers in Nebraska say their state should no longer be one of them. Legislation to end capital punishment was approved earlier this week. Now it's on the desk of Governor Pete Ricketts, and Ricketts says he'll definitely veto it. In fact, right now Governor Ricketts is lobbying state senators hard because anti-death penalty advocates just may have the votes to override that veto. Bill Kelly is a reporter for NET Nebraska Public Broadcasting Network, and he's going to tell us more. Welcome to the program, Bill. BILL KELLY: Thank you, Audie. CORNISH: So this is not the 1st time that there's been an attempt to repeal the death penalty in Nebraska, but what's driving it this time? Was there a particular crime incident - someone on death row that has people changing their minds? KELLY: It has been a real incremental change, and so you can't point to any one incident to say that there was a change of opinion. We've seen a gradual change in public opinion and in the makeup of the legislature over the past few years that's led to this vote to repeal just earlier this week. CORNISH: You talked about the makeup of the legislature, but I understand in Nebraska, it's non-partisan, one House, so how do you kind of figure out the lay of the land there? KELLY: That's part of what made going into this legislative session so difficult to figure out where this issue would land. There have been efforts to repeal the death penalty in Nebraska literally since statehood. What's changed most recently, perhaps, is there has been a noticeable change in public opinion polls showing a shift, especially among conservatives who see the whole death penalty process as perhaps being too costly, that it's morally objectionable and consistent with their view of the sanctity of human life. We also have term limits, and so there was a whole new crop of freshmen senators as well, many who did not get asked about their position on the death penalty during their campaigns. So sorting it out was a significant issue, and it wasn't until these last votes as the bill made its way through that people had a real understanding of just how wide a margin it would be. And 32-15 is a pretty significant margin. CORNISH: So then Governor Ricketts actually said this - no one has traveled the state more than I have in the past 18 months, and everywhere I go there's overwhelming support for keeping the death penalty in Nebraska. Is the governor right about that? KELLY: In the most recent poll done by the Nebraska chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, which does have an interest in the debate, 30 % said the death penalty was an appropriate punishment for murder, but that meant nearly 60 % thought a sentence of no parole or the possibility of parole was preferable to capital punishment. That's a huge shift from the mid '90s when nearly 90 % of those polled said they supported the death penalty. CORNISH: There are about a dozen people on death row in Nebraska right now. What happens to them, and has there been any reaction from, say, the loved ones of their victims? KELLY: Probably not a lot changes. Nebraska hasn't had an execution in the state since 1997. That's when we still had the electric chair. There hasn't been a single execution since the state shifted to process of lethal injection. If the state goes to life without parole, they will simply stay in the state's correctional facilities until they die. CORNISH: That's Bill Kelly. He reports for NET, Nebraska's Public Broadcasting Network. Thanks so much for talking with us. KELLY: Thank you, Audie. (source: npr.org) ARIZONA: Rector attorney takes county's other death penalty case A Mesa attorney, with an office in Kingman, now represents Mohave County's 2 death penalty cases. Gerald Gavin has been assigned to represent Darrell Bryant Ketchner in his second murder trial. In December, the Arizona Supreme Court overturned Ketchner's conviction and sentencing for 1st-degree murder and burglary and remanded the charges back for a new trial. His conviction for 3 counts of aggravated assault and attempted murder were upheld. Prosecutors are again seeking the death penalty against Ketchner, 56, in his upcoming 2nd trial. The county's only other capital case is Justin James Rector, who is charged with 1st-degree murder, kidnapping, child abuse and abandonment of a dead body for the kidnapping and murder of Isabella Grogan-Cannella Sept. 2, 2014. Gavin also represents Rector. Ketchner's murder case is being heard before Superior Court Judge Rick Williams at his Bullhead City courtroom. Ketchner remains on death row at the state prison. The judge set the next hearing for June 8. Ketchner's trial will be held in Kingman. Ketchner's former appellate attorney, David Goldberg withdrew from the case. A 2nd attorney, required in death penalty cases, will also be appointed. Ketchner entered Jennifer Allison's Kingman home on the night of July 4, 2009, where she sat at the kitchen table with her 18-year-old daughter, Ariel Allison. Another daughter, her boyfriend and 3 younger children belonging to Ketchner and Jennifer Allison were in the other room. Ketchner allegedly started to hit his ex-girlfriend, Jennifer Allison, chased her outside and shot her in the head as she lay in the driveway. He also allegedly stabbed Ariel Allison 8 times in her mother's bedroom where she later died. The other children escaped out a window. Jennifer Allison survived her wounds but had no memory of the attack. The Supreme Court ruled that testimony from a prosecutor's witness was inadmissible evidence that required Ketchner's conviction and sentence to be reversed. The prosecutor argued that Ketchner entered Jennifer Allison's home to kill her to take control of the family he was losing. (source: Mohave Daiy News) USA: Protestants join Catholics in reconsidering the death penalty Nebraska is showing the most visible signs of a change in thinking by Christians and conservatives on the death penalty, and Catholics are helping to lead the way. For many, the catalyst has been a simple question: "If I value life, how can I support taking a life when the death penalty doesn't make us any safer?" In response, more are embracing a consistent life ethic. 3 times in the past month, the Nebraska Legislature voted for a bill to repeal capital punishment and replace it with life without parole. The governor has promised to veto the legislation, and an override vote is looming. Many of the Christian lawmakers made it clear they cast their votes against the death penalty, in part, to promote a whole life ethic. The leader of the group is Sen. Colby Coash of Lincoln, a Catholic who put his personal reasons for opposing capital punishment into one easily understood phrase. "I am pro-life," he said. Coash and his colleagues are also interested in enacting public policies based on facts, as well as on faith. They have studied capital punishment in detail and have determined it does nothing to contribute to our safety. They're concerned about the 153 people released from death row for wrongful convictions and the death penalty's disproportionate impact on communities of color, the poor and those with intellectual disabilities. "Is the death penalty truly effective as a deterrent?" Coash asked. "There's absolutely no evidence that we've seen that the death penalty acts as a deterrent." Nebraska conservative Christian politicians are not operating in a vacuum. This year in Kansas, Kentucky, New Hampshire and South Dakota, their counterparts sponsored bills to repeal capital punishment. In South Dakota, a Republican state representative who is an evangelical pastor changed his mind on the death penalty and sponsored the bill to repeal it. Conservatives in red states such as Tennessee, North Carolina and Montana, as well as Nebraska, have formed groups to question the death penalty. According to a recent poll, roughly 1/2 of voters in Nebraska support replacing the death penalty with an alternative such as life in prison. That aligns with polling of Americans nationwide. For a growing number of Christians, opposition to the death penalty remains fundamentally grounded to one issue - their commitment to promoting a culture of life. "We must all be careful to temper our natural outrage against violent crime with a recognition of the dignity of all people, even the guilty," the Catholic bishops of Nebraska said in a joint statement on March 17. Catholics will remember that the seeds for what is happening today were planted 20 years ago with "Evangelium Vitae," Pope John Paul II's encyclical expressing the church's position on the sanctity of human life. Interestingly, evangelicals in Nebraska and elsewhere are joining Catholics in re-evaluating their support for capital punishment. For example, the Rev. William Thornton told the Nebraska Legislature's judiciary committee: "I'd like to say that as a Christ follower who believes that Christ died for all, that no person is beyond redemption, that I believe we should never advocate cutting someone's life short and thereby guaranteeing no chance for them to experience redemption." Nothing demonstrates this change more emphatically than the stand against capital punishment taken recently by a nationwide group of evangelicals. On March 27, the National Latino Evangelical Coalition passed a resolution calling for abolition of the death penalty. "This is a biblical commitment," said the Rev. Gabriel Salguero, president of the association, at a news conference held during the organization???s annual meeting in Orlando, Fla. New voices, Christian and conservative, are increasingly making themselves heard in America's death penalty debate. They are coming to the conclusion that ending the death penalty will help them adhere more closely to their faith and be more consistent in their beliefs, while helping our society better value life and promote justice. (source: Commentary; Heather Beaudoin is a national advocacy coordinator for Conservatives Concerned About the Death Penalty, a project of Equal Justice USA----Religion News Service) ************************** Abolish federal death penalty The bombing in Boston was a horrible crime. The bomber was a horrible person, but this trial was also about us. This trial was also about who we are. What message do we send when a state, in cold blood, kills the killer? Perhaps, we would have fewer homicides and fewer acts of terrorism if we had more respect for human life. Why is the United States the only western democracy that has not abolished the death penalty? Even western democracies that have suffered terrible terrorist attacks have not brought back the death penalty. We have ended the death penalty in Massachusetts with life imprisonment without parole. It is now time to end it at the federal level with life imprisonment without parole. Ronal C. Madnick, Worcester (source: Letter to the Editor, The Telegram) From rhalperi at smu.edu Fri May 22 16:08:32 2015 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Fri, 22 May 2015 16:08:32 -0500 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide----UK, S. ARAB., BURMA, PAKIS., ETHIOP., SUDAN, GHANA, INDON., EGYPT Message-ID: May 22 UNITED KINGDOM: 'I'd bring back death penalty for child killers' - PCC Matthew Grove Humberside police and crime commissioner Matthew Grove says he supports bringing back the death penalty for murderers who kill children. Mr Grove said he would also back capital punishment for those who kill "vulnerable" people. The police and crime commissioner discussed his views on the topic as part of a new online documentary series, Eye On Crime, which has been launched by Humberside Police. Mr Grove said: "I would [bring back capital punishment] for a very clear area of crime and that is where you have the murder of vulnerable people, by which I mean children and disabled people, where they are targeted for a malicious attack and murdered. "I would be quite happy for that category of people to face the ultimate sanction because that's a group of people who are not able to protect themselves and we, as a society, have an absolute duty to do everything we can to say these people are not to be touched." The 3 30-minute programmes have been produced by East Coast Pictures, with support from Humberside Police, Hull City Council and Crimestoppers. Domestic abuse, which makes up 12 per cent of all calls made to Humberside Police, is one of the issues the programme focuses on. Denise Farman, service manager for Women's Aid, said: "We wanted to get the message out to as many people, women and men, across our area about the help and advice available and through online and social media, the programme helps us to do that." PC Andy Allen, Crime reduction officer for Humberside Police in Hull, also gives advice to viewers on how to protect themselves and their property. Julia Thompson, executive producer for East Coast Pictures, said: "More video is watched on mobile devices now than on desktop, so we created the special programmes to showcase some of the great work being done by local organisations to make our communities even safer places to live and work." Visit www.eyeoncrime.tv to view the series. (source: Hull Daily Mail) SAUDI ARABIA: Saudi Arabia trying to win UN Human Rights Council presidency In a move that will definitely drill the "final nail in the coffin for credibility" for the United Nations' Human Rights Council, Saudi Arabia is set to make a bid to head the HRC. The news surfaced after the United Nations Watch that overlooks the HRC pushed the United States to prevent the nation that recently advertised for 8 new executioners to not be awarded the title. "We urge US Ambassador Samantha Power and EU foreign minister Federica Mogherini to denounce this despicable act of cynicism by a regime that beheads people in the town square, systematically oppresses women, Christians, and gays, and jails innocent bloggers like Raif Badawi for the crime of challenging the rulers' radical brand of Wahabbist Islam," said Hillel Neuer, executive director of UN Watch, reported The Independent. "Electing Saudi Arabia as the world's judge on human rights would be like making a pyromaniac as the town fire chief." Currently, Germany is heading the HRC but when its term ends in 2016, the new presidency will be announced. According to a UN official, the presidency will be determined by elections in December 2015. Saudi Arabia was elected a member of the HRC in 2013 - a move that drew heavy criticism from human rights campaigners worldwide. Saudi Arabia carried out its 79th execution in 2015 on Wednesday (6 May) despite calls from Amnesty International to bring to a halt the "macabre spike" in the country's executions. "This unprecedented spike in executions constitutes a chilling race to the bottom for a country that is already among the most prolific executioners on the planet," said Said Boumedouha, the deputy director of Amnesty International's Middle East and North Africa Programme. "If this alarming execution rate continues, Saudi Arabia is well on track to surpass its previous records, putting it out of step with the vast majority of countries around the world that have now rejected the death penalty in law or practice." Oil-rich kingdom wants to recruit executioners In 2014, an estimated 87 executions were carried out by the Kingdom, which is a stark reminder of the alarming rate with which executions are being carried out in 2015. The Kingdom recently advertised for more executioners to behead convicted prisoners with the job description suggesting the appointees should be able to perform amputations as well. Crimes that can result in the death penalty in the Kingdom, include adultery, armed robbery, blasphemy, drug trafficking, murder and rape to name a few. (source: International Business Times) BURMA: Burma Fails To Revoke Controversial Law Used To Jail Dissidents A proposal to revoke a controversial law used to jail political dissidents was rejected by Burma's Lower House of parliament, with its supporters claiming that overturning the legislation would "throw the country into chaos". The Emergency Provisions Act, enacted in 1950, carries the death penalty and sentences of up to life in prison for treason or sabotage against military organizations, as well as up to 7 years in prison for a sweeping range of other offenses against the state. Article 5 of the law grants sweeping authority to the government to prosecute individuals who disseminate "false news" or otherwise "jeopardize the state". Burma's leading opposition party, the National League for Democracy (NLD), proposed scrapping the legislation on the grounds that successive governments have primarily used it as a tool for arresting activists. The proposal was rejected by a landslide vote of 50 for, 256 against and 17 abstentions. Lower House parliamentarian Win Myint, a member of the NLD, said his party was disappointed by the defeat, which preserved what he views as a redundant law designed to instill fear and restrict political activity. "All of the provisions in the law are already enshrined in the Penal Code, which is already in place to prosecute those who break the law. It is unacceptable that authorities can repress citizens with another law", said Myint. (source: Eurasia Review) PAKISTAN----executions 3 convicts executed in Gujranwala, Faisalabad, Multan jails 3 death row convicts were executed in Gujranwala, Faisalabad and Multan Central jails on Thursday. Also, hanging of 2 convicts has been put on hold. In Gujranwala, 2 executions were scheduled for Thursday; however, convict Amjad's hanging was stayed owing to a compromise deal was reached between the litigant sides. The other convict, Aijaz alias Jajji was hanged at the gallows early this morning. He killed Ghulam Rasool who demanded his money back from him. In Faisalabad also, 2 hangings were scheduled on Thursday; however, convicted prisoner, Abid's hanging has been delayed for a day after his family members produced a stay order from the court. Another death row prisoner, Shaukat Masih breathed his last at the gallows in a Faisalabad's jail. The convict was proved guilty of Nadeem Masih's murder. In Multan, a death house inmate, Abbas, was executed for twin murders. He killed 2 people over land dispute in 1996. The medical check up of all executed convicts was conducted prior to their execution. The convicts also held last meeting with their relatives; meanwhile the dead bodies were handed over to the heirs after the execution. (source: South Asian Broadcasting Agency) ********************* ATC Hyderabad issues black warrants for 3 convicts The Anti Terrorism Court Hyderabad here Thursday issued black warrants for hanging to death of 3 convicts awarded death penalty in the PIA plane hijacking case. According to details obtained from the court, the condemned prisoners will be hanged to death on May 28. 2 of the convicts Sabir Baloch and Shahsawar Baloch are imprisoned in Central Jail Hyderabad and one Shabbir Baloch in Central Jail Karachi. They were convicted for hijacking in August 1998 and their subsequent appeals in the Sindh High Court and the Supreme Court were dismissed in August 1999 and August 2000, respectively. The PIA's plane which flew from Gawadar for Karachi was hijacked in May, 1998, and it landed in Hyderabad where the security forces succeeded in arresting the hijackers while avoiding any injury to the 33 passengers and 5 crew members who were on- board. (source: Business Recorder) ETHIOPIA: UN investigates Briton on death row in Ethiopia----Special rapporteur on torture asks UK and Ethiopian governments about detention of Andargachew Tsige amid claims of ill-treatmen The detention of a British citizen held on death row in Ethiopia for almost a year is being investigated by the United Nations official responsible for preventing torture. Andargachew Tsige was arrested last June while in transit through Yemen???s main airport and forcibly removed to Addis Ababa. He is the leader of an opposition party and had been condemned to death several years earlier in his absence. Juan Mendez, the UN special rapporteur on torture, has written to the Ethiopian and UK governments saying he is investigating the treatment of Tsige. There are claims Tsige is being deprived of sleep and held in isolation. His partner, Yemi Hailemariam, also a British national, who lives in London with their 3 children, said she had only spoken to him once by telephone since his abduction. "He's in prison but we have no idea where he is being held," she said. "He said he was OK but I'm sure the call was being listened to. "He had been in Dubai and was flying on to Eritrea when the plane stopped over in Yemen. He hadn't even been through immigration. We think Yemeni security took him and handed him over to the Ethiopians. "They say there was an extradition agreement but it was so quick there was no time for any semblance of a legal hearing. Yemen and Ethiopia had close relations then. The [Ethiopian] government have put him on television 3 times in heavily edited interviews, saying he was revealing secrets. "He has been kept under artificial light 24 hours a day and no one [other than the UK ambassador] has had access to him. I feel angry with the Foreign Office. They know they could do more. They have political leverage they could use but have not done so." Tsige, 60, known as Andy, had previously been secretary general of Ginbot 7, a political opposition party that called for democracy, free elections and civil rights. He first came to the UK in 1979. The Ethiopian government has accused him of being a terrorist. In 2009, he was tried with others in his absence and sentenced to death. "No effort was made to extradite him to face the court. A US embassy cable, released through WikiLeaks, described the trial as "lacking in basic elements of due process". "[Andy] is a politician, not a terrorist," said Hailemariam. "It's just the Ethiopian government that thinks it does not need to make any space for the opposition. A delegation of British MPs, including Jeremy Corbyn, were stopped from travelling to Ethiopia in February. They are hoping to try again." Tsige was accused by the Ethiopian government of being a terrorist. In 2009, he was tried in his absence and sentenced to death. Hailemariam's dissatisfaction with the UK government's response follows the release of internal Foreign Office memorandums earlier this year that appeared to show official reluctance to apply pressure on Ethiopia to obtain Tsige's release. The UK prime minister, David Cameron, has, however, written a letter to his Ethiopian counterpart, Hailemariam Desalegn, raising concerns about Tsige. A Foreign Office spokesman said: "The foreign secretary has raised this case with the Ethiopian foreign minister on 13 separate occasions. We will continue to lobby at all levels, conveying our concern over Andargachew Tsige being detained without regular consular visits and access to a lawyer." Maya Foa, director of Reprieve's death penalty team said: "Andy Tsige was illegally kidnapped and rendered to Ethiopia, where he has now been held in a secret location for nearly a year. The UN special rapporteur is right to raise concerns about torture - especially given Ethiopia's terrible record on human rights, and their denial of any meaningful consular access. "It is crucial that the British government now takes stronger action on this case. The way Andy has been treated is in serious violation of international law and the most basic principles of justice - the UK must push for his immediate release." Tsige's lawyer, the barrister Ben Cooper of Doughty Street chambers, said: "[He] was abducted at an international airport, hooded and rendered to Ethiopia, where he has been held incommunicado under a death sentence that was passed unlawfully in his absence. He remains in isolation nearly a year later with only occasional access to the open air. "His detention violates all minimum standards of treatment. We ask the Foreign Office to follow the lead of the UN special rapporteur on torture to demand an immediate end to Mr Tsege's torture by seeking his return home to his family in England. This is a clear case of kidnap and should be treated as such." Elections are taking place in Ethiopia this weekend. Tsige's family hopes the government will relax restrictions on the opposition once voting is over. In a lengthy statement, the Ethiopian embassy said that Ginbot 7 had been proscribed a terrorist organisation by the country's parliament. Tsige, as general secretary, it added, was charged with "conspiring to perpetrate terror and violence in Ethiopia by planning, training, financing, and organising terrorist recruits in Eritrea" and found guilty of "conspiring and working with and under Ginbot 7, to overthrow the legitimate government of Ethiopia through terrorist acts". Following conviction and sentence, the embassy continued, the government sent a formal request of assistance to those states with which Ethiopia has an extradition treaty, requesting them to transfer all sentenced individuals in the event of their presence on their territory. "It was on the basis of this request, and the existing extradition treaty with the Republic of Yemen, that [he] was extradited to Ethiopia. Accordingly, [he] is currently in detention at the federal prison," it said. The statement added: "Mr Tsige was serving as a Trojan horse, assisting the Eritrean government's repeated and ongoing attempts to wreak havoc and instability in the sub-region. Mr Tsige is well-treated and has received visits from the British ambassador to Ethiopia. He has also spoken to his family on the phone." (source: The Guardian) SUDAN: Trial begins for 2 South Sudanese pastors in Khartoum The trial of 2 South Sudanese pastors opened Tuesday in Khartoum, Sudan nearly 5 months after Security and Intelligence Services first detained them. On 21 December last year, Reverend Yat Michael Ruot, a visiting South Sudanese pastor from Juba, was arrested after a Sunday worship service. Rev David Yein Reith of the Presbyterian Evangelical Church was arrested on 9 January as he returned to his home at the Gerif West Bible School in Khartoum from a prayer meeting. Yein's arrest may have been linked to a letter he delivered to the Office of Religious Affairs in Khartoum to inquire about the arrest of Yat Michael, according to his relatives. The 2 religious leaders were facing charges of inciting religious sedition and sectarian and tribal hatred between denominations. They have also been charged with spying for outsiders and collecting and leaking information to the detriment of Sudanese national security. The charge under article 50 of the Sudanese penal code (undermining the constitutional system) could result in the death penalty, according to the defence lawyers. (source: radiotamazuj.org.) GHANA: Hang EC officials - KT Hammond declares The Electoral Commission has been branded the greatest threat to Ghana's democracy presently. According to Kobina Tahir Hammond, MP for Adansi Asokwa, top officials of the EC may have to face the death penalty for grievous acts of indiscretion and misconduct that threaten the security of the nation. The former Minister in the Kufuor administration's comment follows a new blunder that saw the EC abort a recent voter registration exercise that was to capture new voters on the nation's electoral roll. "We have to get all of them hanged, [or] drowned under sea or get some air space craft to send them to mars ... This crop of Electoral Commission guys are doing far more serious damage to our constitutional development than the 'coup d'etats' that we have encountered in this country," he said. The Minority Spokesperson on Energy, said the current crop of officials at the EC failed to put in place the necessary procedures for the district assembly elections to proceed smoothly. "Any elementary student studying government would have known the structures that the Electoral Commission should have put in place, they did not ... 300 million cedis was wasted because of this same Electoral Commission." He recalled that though the Supreme Court asked the EC to return to the basics and undertake proper local government elections, they failed to do so. "Sometimes you wonder whether they are actuated by some evil forces. Sometimes you sit down and wonder what kinds of forces are actuating the minds of some of these people who are in the helm of affairs," he remarked. He was convinced the challenges facing the Commission were purely based on "recklessness" rather than administrative lapses. ???Will you describe 300 million dollars down the lane as administrative lapses. I do not, I describe it as recklessness, hopelessness...We have always known that coup d'etats have been the greatest bar to our development but I will say that Sulley and his current crop of leaders are more dangerous than those we undertook or staged coup... "...these guys if we allow them to go on the way they are going will do worse than those who staged a coup d'etat in this country ...The President and those in authority must stamp their bar to remove them," he insisted. The Adansi Asokwa MP's comments come just a day after a Political Scientist, Dr. Ransford Gyampo, equally demanded the removal of top EC officials who presided over the abortive voter registration exercise. (source: vibeghana.com) INDONESIA: The right to life and Indonesian nationalism When officials and Islamic organizations in Indonesia commented on the Charlie Hebdo massacre, one could hardly find a statement that criticized only the terrorists. A statement on the issue seemed to be incomplete without condemning the cartoonists for their profane caricatures. The magazine is published in France and many Indonesians believe that there should be global standards for the ethics of satire. The Muhammadiyah Muslim organization has urged the UN through the Indonesian government to develop a respective code of conduct. The right to not be insulted by caricatures is seen as a universal human right.With the executions of the Bali Nine duo and others, the very same people were completely contradictory. Instead of defending the universally recognized right to life, they emphasize national sovereignty and the particular ethical conduct of a country. Indonesia, in their point of view, did not have to comply with international human rights in that case, nor did it have to negotiate with other countries. The death penalty is perceived as an expression of national sovereignty. National sovereignty here means the sovereignty of Indonesian laws over international human rights. This nationalist perception leads to a legal positivism that outweighs universal human rights. First president Sukarno's demand for political sovereignty, economic self-sufficiency and cultural independence is still an ideal of political currents in Indonesia across the board, from right-wing military figures to leftist activists. But as a part of the global community, Indonesia could benefit from the exchange of ideas and international cooperation, and many are not aware that this is already the case: The Bali 9 drug smugglers would never have been caught without the help of and cooperation with Australian authorities. Unfortunately, Indonesia cannot expect that kind of support any more as Western countries usually refuse to cooperate with countries that have the death penalty. Indonesia might be an archipelago, but there are almost no unidentified remote islands on the map of the UN any more. When Indonesian officials and civil organizations call for the universal recognition of the dignity of faith, they also should listen to those in favor of universal human rights. Universal values are not recognized as a priori by all cultures, but recognition requires a process of negotiation and exchange of ideas and arguments. There are many ways to justify the right to life. It can be justified by referring to holy books; it can be justified by referring to human dignity or to natural law. Indonesia should not isolate itself from the discussion about human rights or contrast human rights to national sovereignty. Apart from the right to live, mercy is also common and acknowledged in almost every culture, so why should it not play a more important role in Indonesia's legal system? What prompted many Australians to demand the right to life for Australian inmates on death row were news reports about Kerobokan prison in Denpasar, Bali. The international community saw the 2 Australian prison inmates convincingly regretting their crime and engaging in rehabilitation activities. They saw desperate relatives begging for mercy. It was almost impossible not to feel empathy for the men on death row and their relatives. Despite the fact that some Indonesians accused Australia of defending drug trafficking, the war against drugs is also not the aim of just one country, but it is universally acknowledged that drugs are dangerous and selling and consuming drugs should be prevented. Here, Indonesia also can work together with other countries. The Indonesian government delayed the executions until after the recent 60th commemoration of the Asian-African Conference. While the sovereignty of each country was highlighted here, just as in the public discourse in Indonesia - and perceived interference by other countries to protect their citizens on death row were perceived as a rejection of Indonesia's sovereignty - the spirit of the 1955 conference was quite another case. The 1st principle in the 1955 declaration on the promotion of world peace and cooperation demanded respect for fundamental human rights and the principles of the UN Charter, including, of course, the right to life. By executing foreign citizens, international cooperation falls prey to nationalism as a political tool for the national elite. Instead of dealing with drug trafficking by implementing police reform to establish an effective tool to fight drug production and trafficking, some drug traffickers are seemingly executed as a political statement. The international community is not an archipelago of isolated islands even if some nationalists might think so. The task of upholding universal rights is much more difficult than claiming particular cultural values. Why not take the right to life and mercy as universal values? Australia and European countries can learn from that value, too. Showing mercy for refugees who are seeking a better life in Australia or in the European Union is also necessary if governments advocate for mercy convincingly. It is time to re-think our common base of values as a global community and overcome nationalism. (source: Opinion; Ririn Sefsani works for the Partnership for Governance Reform and is engaged in voluntary supporter campaigns for Jokowi (Seknas Jokowi). Timo Duile is a lecturer at the Department of Southeast Asian Studies at the University of Bonn, Germany. The views expressed are their own----The Jakarta Post) **************************** De Lima sees Veloso permanently saved from death row Justice Secretary Leila de Lima believes the statements of the alleged illegal recruiters of Mary Jane Veloso will boost her quest to avoid being executed by firing squad in Indonesia. Speaking to reporters, De Lima yesterday said the statements of Maria Cristina Sergio and her live-in partner Julius Lacanilao that Veloso did not know she was carrying heroin into Indonesia would be a "big help" to her lawyers in appealing her drug smuggling conviction and death penalty. "This is a good development and an indication that we are at the right direction, right track ... If it will be proven in the ongoing investigation (that she is innocent), this will be a big thing for Mary Jane," she said. "This shows that it was right to suspend the implementation of the death so the truth would first come out." The government will inform Indonesian authorities of the affidavits of Sergio and Lacanilao "for their own appreciation," she added. De Lima said more information would come out in the preliminary investigation on the human trafficking, illegal recruitment and swindling charges against Sergio and Lacanilao. "It would help if we get additional information, especially on the drug trafficking angle," she said. "That is what we need to pursue." De Lima said Sergio and Lacanilao could provide more information to help Veloso's case in Indonesia. "If they are saying that Mary Jane is innocent, that means they have knowledge about that drug trafficking angle - how exactly the deal happened," she said. Edre Olalia, Veloso's lawyer from National Union of People's Lawyers, said Sergio's affidavit could be used as evidence to prove Veloso's innocence in Indonesian courts. "It can be used as a basis by our Indonesian counterparts," he said. "In fact, they are actually waiting for the translation from English to Bahasa so they will communicate immediately with the attorney general's office about this statement." In her affidavit submitted to the DOJ last Wednesday, Sergio said Veloso fell prey to 2 "dark skinned, curly-haired men" that she identified as Ike and John while they were in Malaysia in April 2010 to look for a job. Sergio said she believes that Veloso was a victim who "was taken advantage of because she didn't know any better, was in dire need of a job and because of her tendency to trust people, even strangers." (source: Philippine Star) EGYPT: Death sentence may turn maligned Morsi into a venerated martyr Last week, Egypt's supreme court sentenced deposed president Mohammed Morsi to death for a mass prison break in 2011. The ruling, which has been referred to the Grand Mufti for advice, has drawn local and international criticism. However, the death sentence on Morsi has stirred up something more dramatic than criticism and condemnations; the rising sympathy for the President who was removed from power with popular support. Mohammed Morsi's rise to power began with the fall of longtime dictator Hosni Mubarak who was forced to step down following nationwide protests against his rule. Morsi won the presidential election that followed on the platform of the Justice and Peace party, controlled by the Muslim Brotherhood which was illegal until Mubarak's downfall. The election was regarded as the freest in the history of the country and Morsi became the 1st democratically elected President. However Morsi's fall kicked in not long after his rise began. A mixture of authoritarian moves, conservative policies and the failure to revive Egypt's crashed economy led to the swell of criticism against Morsi and an eventual nationwide protest against his government. Citing popular rejection, the Army led by now-president Fattah al-Sisi sacked Morsi's government for failing to accede to the demand of the people. Following its removal of Morsi and his government, the al-Sisi-led army began suppressing the President and the Muslim Brotherhood. A heavy crackdown of the group's protests led to the death of dozens of brotherhood members. The suppression continued through al-Sisi's contest, and victory, in a reconstituted presidential election in which he promised to exterminate the islamist group. Despite banning the group and jailing its leaders, including Morsi, the Muslim Brotherhood's is still far from becoming forgotten, and Morsi is only gaining a rise in public sympathy. The Egyptian judiciary says it is prosecuting Morsi and his allies in the Brotherhood for several offences against the state, but the institution has increasingly found itself in trial. Mass death sentences and accusations of violation of the defendants' fundamental human rights have irked even the government's closest allies. The European Union and the US, major backers of the Egyptian government, have severally raised concerns about the procedures of justice and the State's disrespect of human rights. The Egyptian Coptic church, which loudly criticised the Morsi government and his islamist group, have joined in condemning the death sentence for the former president. Social activists in the country have also raised fears about the government usage of the clampdown on Islamic terrorism as a guise to harp freedom of speech. Many of such activists have found themselves behind bars. The criticisms of the Judiciary and the government???s heavy handedness has emboldened Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood???s supporters. It is also swelling public sympathy for the unpopular president. Following the death sentence passed on him, many in Egypt and around the middle-east took to Twitter to express solidarity with him using the Hashtags #WeStandforMorsi #IamMorsi and several others. Human rights group Amnesty International described the trial was a "charade" and based on "void procedures". "Condemning Mohamed Morsi to death after more grossly unfair trials shows a complete disregard for human rights ... he was held for months incommunicado without judicial oversight and that he didn't have a lawyer to represent him," the organisation said in a statement. Turkey has also been at the forefront of criticising the trial and judgement. The country's state-run Anatolian news agency quoted President Recep Tayyip Erdogan as saying; "While the West is abolishing the death penalty, they are just watching the continuation of death sentences in Egypt. They don't do anything about it." These condemnations show the dangers of using repression to combat political opposition. The continent is replete with examples of where such political oppression launched or relaunched the career of political opponents. South Africa's Nelson Mandela, Zimbabwe's Roberto Mugabe, and Nigeria's Olusegun Obasanjo are prominent examples of political actors who imprisonment only served to inflame public support. Mohammed Morsi's case seems to be different from the above examples, given the genuine opposition to his group's islamist ideology by about half of the Egyptian population. Nevertheless, the high-handed measures of the current government may see it assume the same level of unpopularity that Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood achieved in less than one year in Power. The Justice Ministry has rejected the criticism of the death penalties on Mohamed Morsi and over 120 others, a sign that it may not bulge on its verdict. However, if the government goes ahead with the verdict and puts Mohammed Morsi to death, they may just be cleansing him of the errs of his time in power and launching him as a symbol against an oppressive regime, despite the fact that he once led one. (source: ventures-africa.com) From rhalperi at smu.edu Sat May 23 15:14:07 2015 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Sat, 23 May 2015 15:14:07 -0500 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, FLA., ALA., OHIO, MO. Message-ID: May 23 TEXAS----impending execution U.S. court denies motion to halt execution of long-serving Texas inmate A federal appeals court has denied an application to halt the June execution of Lester Bower, one of the longest-serving inmates on death row in Texas, for killing 4 men at an airport hangar in 1983. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit on Thursday denied a petition from Bower's lawyers, who said his planned execution on June 3 should be halted on grounds that his previous sentencing did not match U.S. Supreme Court precedent. Bower, 67, who has been imprisoned for more than 30 years, is set to be executed by injection at the state's death chamber in Huntsville. His lawyers have tried for more than 2 decades to have his conviction thrown out, saying he was found guilty due to faulty witness testimony. Bower has denied being at the hangar where the murders took place but authorities said aircraft parts found in his home and other evidence implicated him in the crimes. In March, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal filed by lawyers for Bower, who argued that three decades on death row amounted to cruel and unusual punishment. According to Bower's court filings, he has faced imminent execution on 6 occasions during his time in prison. Bower was convicted of fatally shooting building contractor Bob Tate, former police officer Ronald Mayes, sheriff's deputy Philip Good and interior designer Jerry Brown, the Texas Department of Criminal Justice said. Bower killed Tate to steal an ultralight airplane Tate was selling and then killed the other 3 when they unexpectedly showed up at the hangar, it said. (source: Reuters) ********************* Executions under Greg Abbott, Jan. 21, 2015-present----7 Executions in Texas: Dec. 7, 1982----present-----525 Abbott#--------scheduled execution date-----name------------Tx. # 8----------June 3--------------------Les Bower------------526 9-----------June 18------------------Gregory Russeau------527 10---------August 12----------------Daniel Lopez----------528 11---------August 26----------------Bernardo Tercero------529 12---------October 6----------------Juan Garcia-----------530 (sources: TDCJ & Rick Halperin) FLORIDA: Jury Recommends Death Penalty in Barry Davis Case----The jury in the Barry Davis case has recommended to the court that he face the death penalty. Davis was found guilty Monday on 2 counts of 1st degree murder in the deaths of John Gregory Hughes and Hiedi Rhodes in May 2012. The jury only deliberated for an hour Friday, but during the penalty phase, head injuries have been the topic of discussion the last 3 days. After an hour of deliberating, the jury in the Barry Davis case recommended to the court that he face the death penalty for the murders of John Gregory Hughes and Hiedi Rhodes. A Spencer Hearing, which is an opportunity for the defendant's lawyers to present additional evidence to the judge before a sentence is entered, will take place at a later date. 3 final witnesses testified Friday to wrap up the month-long trial of Barry Davis. For the last 3 days, traumatic brain injuries have been the topic of discussion. The defense brought in a number of witnesses both in the clinical psychology and neuropathology fields Thursday. They testified that head injuries Davis sustained as a child from activities like football could have impacted his judgment as an adult. 1 clinical psychologist, a witness for the state, says otherwise. "He has no medical health treatment historically, no contact with psychologists or psychiatrists, no medications so for me that suggests there was not recognized as to any major mental health issues in his lifetime," said Dr. Greg Prichard. The Defense Attorney's witnesses also claimed the environment of where someone grows up, depression and anxiety, mixed with a brain injury can create a "disturbed individual." Davis' sister testified Friday by phone and talked about the conditions of their father's home where she stayed one summer. "My eyes were red, and drained," said Kieana Davis, as she described when she went to visit her father in California. "And when we went back from visiting my father and we were sent back to my mom she was very upset, and our clothes were dirty and had not been washed." After his examination, Dr. Prichard stated Davis' act of killing John Gregory Hughes and Hiedi Rhodes was not due to a mental illness or any form of depression, but rather, "The behaviors associated with the crimes reflect some characterlogical or personality issues," said Dr. Prichard. Davis could either receive life in prison without parole, or the death penalty. The jury is still discussing the fate of Davis. The judge however will make the final decision. (source: WJHG news) ***************** Case of death row inmate in Atlantic Beach father and son's murders returns to Supreme Court It's been a decade since Thomas Bevel was convicted and sentenced to death for the murders of a 13-year-old Atlantic Beach boy and his father. But next month the Jacksonville man???s case will return to the Florida Supreme Court with a debate on whether his original lawyers did an incompetent job defending him. Bevel, 33, is arguing that he deserves a new sentencing phase because his original lawyers didn't start preparing for the death-penalty phase of his trial less than 2 weeks before his murder trial began. His current attorneys also argue that his trial lawyers were unaware of the American Bar Association guidelines for defending someone facing the death penalty. The nonprofit Florida Capital Resource Center, which assists indigent criminal defendants facing the death penalty, and the Death Penalty Clinic at Florida International University have filed a supporting brief in the case arguing that Bevel's death sentence should be thrown out. Bevel was convicted in 2005 of 2 counts of 1st-degree murder and 1 count of attempted murder in the 2004 shooting deaths of Phillip Sims, a 13-year-old Mayport Middle School student, and Sims' father, Garrick Stringfield. He also was convicted of wounding a woman who was visiting Stringfield and then "played dead" after Bevel shot her. Bevel roomed with Stringfield on Colchester Road, and Sims was visiting for the weekend. The jury that convicted him recommended Bevel get the death sentence by an 8-4 vote for the murder of Stringfield and unanimously recommended death for the murder of Sims. In court documents, attorney Rick Sichta, who now represents Bevel, argues that Richard Selinger, Bevel's attorney during his death-penalty phase, had never seen the American Bar Association's 2003 guidelines for what is reasonable during death-penalty cases. The appeal also argues that Selinger didn't hire a mitigation specialist or investigator to help with the trial and didn't begin his mitigation work until 12 days before Bevel's trial began, rather than months in advance. As a result, Selinger was not aware of numerous mitigation evidence that could have been introduced at trial. That includes the possibility that Bevel suffers from brain damage, had been sexually abused and done illegal drugs at a young age, and lived in one of the worst parts of Jacksonville where drug dealers often targeted young children and made them sell drugs. "In spending less than 20 hours total investigating Bevel's mitigation, and starting the mitigation investigation at the '11th hour,' trial counsel proved ineffective assistance of counsel under the prevailing professional norms at the time," Sichta said in court filings. Therefore, the jury was unable to factor Bevel's difficult upbringing into their deliberations before recommending death, Sichta said. PROSECUTORS: IT DIDN'T MATTER The office of Attorney General Pam Bondi, which is representing the state on appeal, argues that Bevel's trial lawyers were not incompetent and that Bevel's actions in killing Stringfield and Sims would have led to the death penalty no matter what his lawyers did. "Bevel murdered 2 people and attempted to murder a 3rd," Assistant Attorney General Patrick Delaney said in court filings. "One of the victims, Sims, was a 13-year-old boy who was playing video games. Bevel's stated reason for killing Sims was witness elimination." Prosecutors also argue that lawyers with the Jacksonville-area Public Defender's Office who represented Bevel originally already had done mitigation work before they had to withdraw from the case. Selinger used that mitigation work, Delaney said. This argument was made previously to the trial judge, L. Page Haddock, who refused to set aside the conviction. In doing so, Haddock referred to mitigation specialists as a "burgeoning cottage industry of former paralegals or social workers who are ardent death-penalty opponents who declare themselves to be 'mitigation experts' and demand exorbitant fees from the judicial system for doing work that any competent paralegal or investigator could do for 1/3 of the cost." Haddock also said lawyers were not bound by the American Bar Association guidelines and didn't have to follow them. Stephen Harper, a clinical professor at the Death Penalty Clinic and a law professor at Florida International University, said the clinic chose to get involved in Bevel's appeal because of Haddock's ruling. "We thought it was necessary to inform the court that mitigation specialists are essential to death-penalty cases," Harper said, adding that he didn't appreciate Haddock saying the American Bar Association guidelines didn't matter when they're a valuable guide to helping lawyers navigate capital cases. Supreme Court justices will hear oral arguments in the case June 4. (source: Florida Times-Union) ALABAMA: Vernon man indicted for death of ex-wife whose body was never found A Vernon man has been indicted for capital murder in the death of his ex-wife, whose body was never found after her disappearance was reported in February, the Lamar County district attorney announced Friday afternoon. Brandon Dewayne Sykes, 33, was indicted Wednesday during a special called session of a Lamar County grand jury, said Chris McCool, district attorney for the 24th Judicial Circuit that includes Fayette, Lamar, and Pickens counties. Sykes faces a 2-count indictment - capital murder during the course of a burglary, and capital murder during the course of a kidnapping. The victim in the case is Sykes' ex-wife, Keshia Nicole Sykes, McCool stated in a press release. She disappeared Feb. 19, 2015, and so far her body has not been recovered, he stated. The kidnapping charge relates to the abduction of the couple's child, McCool stated in an email. "The child is okay. She was left at the defendant's sister's house and is now in the custody of the victim's parents," he stated. Sykes, who was arrested May 5, is being held without bond in the Pickens County Jail. If convicted of capital murder, Sykes faces the death penalty or life without parole, McCool stated. McCool stated the arrest was the result of a joint investigation by the Vernon Police Department, other local law enforcement agencies, the Alabama Law Enforcement Agency (ALEA) and State Bureau of Investigation, and the FBI. "Investigator Marty Gottwald of the Vernon Police Department, Special Agent Andy Jones of the SBI, and Special Agent Jamey Bozeman of the SBI, as well as other law enforcement officers, worked diligently and cooperated to gather the evidence upon which the indictment is based," McCool stated. "My former Chief Investigator, Keith 'Booty' Cox, and Investigator Ronald Stough of the Fayette Police Department, assisted in processing the crime scene." Cox now serves as the Circuit Clerk for Pickens County, Alabama. "We asked for help from the FBI in processing some of the evidence, and Special Agent Trey Bradford, among others, was instrumental in getting their crime scene team down to process some of the evidence." (source: al.com) ************* Death penalty costs and the impact of potential budget cuts Funding problems for the state could make already expensive capital murder trials, even more expensive; if budget cuts go through and staff is reduced in district attorney's offices. "The resources and the time, the funds, that these cases consume is significant," said Morgan County District Attorney Scott Anderson at a news conference Wednesday. Alabama currently has 191 inmates on death row. But a looming budget crisis could put a damper on an already expensive death penalty system. A 2009 report from the Death Penalty Information Center says states may pay up to 1 million more per inmate than for a non-death penalty trial. And Alabama sentence more people to death per capita in the country, according to deathpenaltyinfo.org. And there could be a potential problem coming down the pipeline. The state is facing a budget shortfall of several hundred million dollars, and cuts to the court system could increase caseload and increase the time it takes to prosecute a case to the end. In Morgan County, those cuts could have a deeper impact, as they're prosecuting four suspects for 2 capital murder counts each. The district attorney spoke about the potential cuts, and the potential problems those cuts could bring earlier this week. "I hope that the budget situation and the funding of the Morgan County District Attorney's Office does not have an impact on our ability to seek justice in this case," says Anderson. Governor Bentley just signed a bill called "The Prison Reform Act" into law this week. It's expected to reduce the prison population by 16 %, using community-based supervision programs and adjusting prison space for the most violent offenders. (source: WAAY TV news) OHIO: Man seeks new trial----Sent to death row for 2002 Eureka Street killings A man sent to Ohio's death row after a jury convicted him of killing 2 girls execution style and wounding 6 others was back in Allen County on Friday asking for a new trial following a federal appellate court ruling. Jeronique Cunningham, 42, wants Judge David Cheney, who was not the judge at his 2002 trial, to grant his request for a new trial based on the allegation of 1 juror tainting the entire jury. Cheney scheduled a hearing for Aug. 5 to consider the matter. Allen County Prosecutor Juergen Waldick, who tried the case against both men, said this is an attempt by Cunningham's attorney to try to avoid execution. He said the evidence, with the surviving witnesses identifying both men shooting, was overwhelming. The case is back in Allen County after the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled 1 juror, who allegedly knew the families of the victim, pressured other jurors into a decision. The ruling requires a lower court to consider the matter. Cunningham and his half brother, Cleveland Jackson, were convicted and sent to death row for the 2002 killings of Jala Grant, 3, and Leneshia Williams, 17. The men arrived at an apartment on Eureka Street to rob a man. During the robbery, they lined 8 people in up the kitchen and shot 6 of the 8 in the head. Other appellate courts have upheld Cunningham's death penalty conviction. The 6th Circuit is the last court that has to hear the appeal. After that, the U.S. Supreme Court can turn down the case without hearing it. A clemency request with the governor is the last step before execution. Jackson, has exhausted his appeals. His final chance at avoiding execution is with clemency, which a hearing has not been scheduled. Jackson has a July 20, 2016, execution date. (soure: limaohio.com) MISSOURI: Murder victim's dad hopes man suspected of shooting his teenage son gets death penalty Richard Johnson said on Thursday he was on a routine run to a neighborhood QuikTrip in North Kansas City, listening to the radio when he suddenly heard a breaking news report. "Man, I couldn't believe it. It first said Sandra Kay Sutton, the woman held in the wooden box was found dead, and, then it said her son was also found dead in Clinton, Missouri. So many things went through my mind. I had non-stop migraines all night after hearing that. I was shocked," said Johnson, who immediately called Clinton Police. Police believe James Horn Jr., a man charged with kidnapping Sandra Sutton and confining her to a box, is responsible for killing the 47-year-old woman and 17-year-old Zachary Sutton. Zachary is Johnson's son. "Yep they confirmed it for me, telling me that was my son and his mother. I did a lot of crying yesterday morning and last night. I'm still in shock," Johnson told FOX 4's Robert Townsend during an interview Friday. Richard said he hadn't seen or talked to Zachary in about 5 years. He said he and Zachary's maternal grandparents had joint custody of the boy. He said his son dreamed of joining the Army after graduating from Clinton High School. "He was energetic, shy, a little hyper; just a regular, good kid," said the grieving and angry father, who now wants justice for Zachary and his mother. "This man sat down, planned and executed this. There's no doubt in my mind that he did this, and so yes, he deserves death row. I want the death penalty if he's alive, definitely," exclaimed Johnson. The search for Horn is ongoing. He's considered armed and dangerous, and if you see him you can call 911, Crimestoppers at (660) 827-TIPS, or the Clinton Police Department at (660) 885-2679. (source: fox4kc.com) From rhalperi at smu.edu Sat May 23 15:15:31 2015 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Sat, 23 May 2015 15:15:31 -0500 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----NEB., WYO., ORE., USA Message-ID: May 23 NEBRASKA: Hi Friends, There is a poll in Nebraska we'd love your help with:??? http://www.1011now.com/home/headlines/Reaction-to-Death-Penalty-Repeal-Bill-Its-About-Time-304796131.html [www.1011now.com] It's on the right hand side of the article. Thanks! Colleen Cunningham, Equal Justice USA ********************* Death penalty undignified Is there a compelling pay off in the repeal of our death penalty statute? I believe there is and a very significant one at that ("Death penalty repeal passes Legislature, awaits veto," May 20). The time, energy and money invested in seeking to bring about an end to the tragedy of our killing one another by working to bring about yet another killing seems not only counterproductive, but an ugly way of doing and being with one another. Choosing the path of seeking restorative, rather than punitive justice guides us to ways of doing that upholds each person's inherent dignity and worth. This further ennobles us all with opportunities to be helpful, kind and caring as we work our way out of the mess and find ways to assist others in danger of getting caught up as participants in still more tragedy. As a closing thought I would ask that we give more thought to considering what Jesus would do and have us do in this matter for the good of all of us. Byron Peterson, Minatare (source: Letter to the Editor, Lincoln Journal Star) **************************** Murder Victim's Daughter Reacts to Death Penalty Repeal Bill Ashley Gage says she opposes the state's death penalty because the appeals process causes too much trauma and heartache for the families of victims. That includes her. In March, NTV News first spoke with Gage. She found her father murdered when she was just a teenager. Despite that, Gage still is opposed to the capital punishment. "As an 18-year-old, finding my father really disrupted my life in a substantial way, and I didn't even have to go through a capital trial," Gage told NTV back in March. With the vote advancing to Governor Ricketts' desk this week, Gage now says she's cautiously optimistic. "I had to kind of step away and let it sink in and really grasp that it came this far and passed. I'm still a little cautious because Ricketts has promised to veto the bill and I feel like I'm holding back a little bit," said Gage. Ricketts told NTV News this week that some of the families he's spoken with are in favor of the death penalty. "Several weeks ago, I sat down with Attorney General Peterson and Director Frakes, who's in charge of our correction system, and told them they need to make it a priority for us to be able to carry out these executions," said Ricketts. "It's important for justice and for some of the families I've talked to that have had loved ones killed by some of these heinous murderers." Gage says that contradicts what she's encountered. "I'm not sure where he's getting that information or whom he's spoken to, but I'm in contact with three or four other victims' families and have met them through this process and we're all on the same page in that we don't want to go through this re-traumatization and this long process," said Gage. (source: nebraska.tv) **************** ACLU questions acquisition of lethal injection drugs The state's recent purchase of lethal injection drugs that would allow it to resume executions in Nebraska will lead to costly litigation, ACLU of Nebraska Executive Director Danielle Conrad said Friday. Conrad said information the ACLU received from the state Department of Correctional Services in response to an open records request led her to conclude that the state faces "another round of costly and lengthy legal appeals with the taxpayer picking up the tab." "(It) shows a shady foreign source approached the Department of Corrections and engineered a hasty deal, with no assurances from state officials as to fair price, ability to comply with the importation laws, or the efficacy of the drugs in question," Conrad said. "This marks another sad chapter in the dark history of Nebraska's death penalty story. "Nebraska's past attempts to obtain lethal injection drugs have been legally suspect and full of problems, including wasted taxpayer dollars and false promises. "Their most recent effort is nothing more than deja vu all over again." Records show that Chris Harris, CEO of the India-based Harris Pharma LLP, contacted state officials April 14 to ask if they wanted a "few thousand vials extra" of sodium thiopental, one of three drugs used in lethal injections. Sodium thiopental renders the recipient unconscious. The message made its way to Corrections Director Scott Frakes, who told Harris in an April 15 email that he would like to connect as soon as possible. In fact, Taylor Gage, spokesman for Gov. Pete Ricketts, said documentation provided to the ACLU shows that the state "legally purchased the necessary drugs to carry out the death penalty under the state's current protocol." "(ACLU's) threat to sue the state and to prevent sentences from being carried out is only another example of their litigious tactics," Gage said. In 2009, Nebraska moved to a system of execution by lethal injection as a substitute for the electric chair, after its use was ruled as unconstitutional by the Nebraska Supreme Court, but the state has encountered difficulty in acquiring legal drugs. The Legislature passed a bill Wednesday abolishing the death penalty in Nebraska. Ricketts plans to veto the bill Tuesday, setting the stage for a showdown vote in the Legislature on an attempt to override his veto. Nebraska's last execution was in 1997. (source: Lincoln Journal Star) ************************ Loner on a mission to make conservative Nebraska ditch the death penalty ---- Ernie Chambers, a champion of the voiceless, has introduced a bill to ban capital punishment in each of his 36 years in the legislature. This time it might succeed "White people, they don't have a high opinion of me," says Ernie Chambers, Nebraska's long-serving legislator. "They thought I was uppity and arrogant - they didn't like my attitude." They may not like Chambers' attitude in the super-conservative cornhusker state, but they are certainly listening to him now. At his 38th attempt, the state senator this week saw his bill to abolish the death penalty pass the legislature, in a move that should it be enacted would make Nebraska the 1st dyed-in-the-wool conservative state in the country to scrap the ultimate punishment. It's an extraordinary turn of events, spearheaded by an extraordinary politician. For 38 years Chambers, 77, was the only African American member of Nebraska's uni-chamber legislature (there are now 2), and since he was first elected in 1970 to represent the north of Omaha he has been making it his business to take up causes that nobody else would champion. "Conservatives probably think I'm crazy," he tells the Guardian in the wake of the historic vote to abolish capital punishment. "Not institutionally crazy. But so far out I couldn't belong to any party, or church or club." When asked how he would describe his personal politics in a state that has a non-partisan assembly in which parties are not represented, he said: "First, I'm a loner. That doesn't mean I'm anti-social. But I don't have a lot in common with other people. Most of the things that I do, I will do virtually alone." He says he sees his politics as standing up for the "poor, the voiceless, the marginal, the un-people - anybody who is set upon or mistrusted and who needs help. I'm not comfortable in the presence of other people's suffering, and if I can do something about it, I will." One of the actions of which he is most proud was to have made Nebraska in the 1980s the 1st state in the US officially to divest from companies doing business with apartheid South Africa. From there the idea caught on, spreading to other states and eventually the federal government. "Despite the very backward image that might attach to Nebraska, we led the country and to some degree the world over South Africa. And now we can do it again." ---- Ernie Chambers speaks in the Nebraska legislature. His mission to end the death penalty in his state emanates from a conviction that he says he has had since he was a teenager. He puts that conviction in bold, simple terms: "I believe the state shouldn't kill anybody. I don't think anybody should kill anybody. If we tell people that as individuals they can't kill anybody, then how can we kill somebody as a society? Just multiplying the number of people involved in the decision doesn't make it right - whether it's a mob or a state or anything else." Armed with that moral determination, Chambers has introduced a bill to repeal the death penalty every year that he has served as a state legislator. 36 times the bill was voted down. In 1979 it passed the legislature, only to be vetoed by the then governor Charles Thone. And this week it passed a 2nd time - on this occasion by a majority of 32 to 15. Crucially, that's more votes than would be needed to overturn a veto from the current governor, Pete Ricketts, who has made clear that he intends to do everything in his power to keep the death penalty alive in Nebraska. On his Facebook page, Ricketts has said "the Legislature is out of touch with Nebraskans ... the overwhelming majority of Nebraskans support the death penalty because they understand that it is an important tool for public safety." The governor has until next Tuesday to decide whether or not to wield his veto. Until then, and until sufficient numbers can be mustered to overturn any veto, Chambers is not counting his chickens. "The work isn't done yet - if the governor overrides the bill it will be back to us, and you never know if someone will crumble or stumble. There are so many ways for politicians to avoid committing themselves," he says. But whatever the final outcome, Chambers has the satisfaction of knowing that he has yet again given Nebraska's normally staid politics an almighty shake. When asked how he managed to bring so many hardline conservatives on board with the bill, he replies: "Maybe the moon was in its 7th house and Jupiter lined up with Mars." Pressed to give a less astronomical analysis, Chambers says that he believes that the conservatives who voted to abolish the death penalty were merely being true to their fundamental principles. "Conservatives have vowed that whenever they find a government program that isn't working, they will scrap it. And if there is a government program that doesn't achieve its goals, it's the death penalty." He adds: "The irony is that the so-called conservatives are now giving the same arguments against the death penalty that the abolitionists have always given." Though he finds himself in the unfamiliar position of having a lot of fellow senators actually agreeing with him, he has no delusions about his sudden popularity. Hence his statement about his standing in the eyes of white people - a reference to the rest of his legislator peers. "If you were part of a group that's supposed to be dominant and somebody in that group fights you tooth and nail, you would have problems with that person because he reminds you of all the wrongs that you have done," he says. For once, though, there's a chance that they will emerge united. "That's what I've told them. I've told my colleagues that if we abolish the death penalty we will be making history, and not only that, this time we'll be on the right side of history." (source: The Guardian) WYOMING: Wyoming says it can still pursue death penalty for Eaton Lawyers for the state of Wyoming and a man convicted of murder disagree over whether the state may again seek the death penalty against him. Lawyers representing inmate Dale Eaton and the state filed arguments Friday with a federal appeals court in Denver. State lawyers argue they should be allowed to press for the death penalty against Eaton while his lawyers say they shouldn't. The dispute stems from November's ruling by a federal judge in Cheyenne overturning Eaton's original death sentence in the 1988 rape and killing of 18-year-old Lisa Marie Kimmell of Billings, Montana. Wyoming didn't comply until this week with the judge's order to tell him by March whether it intended to seek the death penalty again against Eaton or if he would serve life in prison. (source: Associated Press) OREGON: Jury will consider death penalty in double-murder case The Gary Goins double-murder trial has entered the penalty phase, in which jurors will decide whether the defendant should die for the ambush slayings of his brother and sister-in-law nearly 4 years ago. The same Josephine County jury of 8 women and 4 men that convicted Goins, 62, of aggravated murder and 1st-degree robbery on Tuesday is taking testimony about the defendant's character and the personal lives of his victims, Dennis and Susan Goins, who were found shot to death at their secluded home in the Hugo area in October 2011. The penalty phase is expected to last at least into next week. The jury is being asked to answer 3 questions before being allowed to consider the question of whether Goins should face the death penalty. The 3 questions involve intent, whether Goins constitutes a future danger to others, and whether his conduct - testimony at trial suggested Goins was bitter over money matters - was unreasonable. A death penalty decision would require a unanimous verdict. If any of the 12 jurors answers "no" to any of those three questions, death will be taken off the table as an option. In that event, the presumptive sentence is life in prison without parole. It would take 10 of the 12 jurors to give him the possibility of parole after 30 years. The 1st person to testify Thursday was Pam Soberanes, office manager at Pacific Veterinary Clinic in Grants Pass where Susan Goins, 53, worked as a receptionist. The couple married in 2010 shortly after moving to Oregon from California's Silicon Valley, where Dennis Goins, 63, had worked as a software executive. Both had adult children from previous relationships. Soberanes described Susan Goins as a warm person who loved other people and was devoted to her family - especially her grandchildren in Florida. She tearfully recalled that after the news broke that the couple had been murdered at their secluded home on Mountain Greens Lane she got a call from a client at the vet. "She says, 'Was that our Susan?' And I said 'Yeah.' And she said, 'That can't happen to our Susan, our Susan was too happy,' " Soberanes said. Another former coworker, Margaret Morgan, called Susan "genuine" and funny. Dennis' nickname for Susan was "Gracie Allen," after the popular 1930s comedienne and wife of George Burns. Morgan said Dennis was often quiet as Susan chatted away, and that he would smile admiringly and watch her as if he were "trying to figure her out." Jurors also heard from neighbor Kris Vandehey, co-owner of the Red Mountain Golf Course, who testified she and her daughter drove a golf cart up to the Goins home to drop off a welcoming gift when Dennis and Susan moved in. "We had not-so-nice neighbors before Dennis and Susan, so we were nervous about meeting them," Vandehey said. Susan greeted them with a warm hello and immediately invited them in, she said. As she got to know Susan, her husband forged a friendship with Dennis. "When you live out in the country, you just kind of want to watch out for each other," she said. Defense attorney Jane Claus told the jury that they are being given the grave responsibility of deciding a man's life. "You're no longer talking about the death penalty over coffee or a couple of beers with friends," she said. "It's real and you have a very serious decision to make." She urged jurors not to let anger or outrage guide their decision. "We will be asking you to impose a moral, reasoned punishment without doing damage to your conscience," she said. Claus noted that Goins is 62, and said he is in poor health. "One way or another, he's going to die behind the (prison) walls, and the only way he's getting out is in a body bag or a pine box," Claus said. (source: Grants Pass Daily Courier) USA: Nebraska vote shows executions are on death bed It's a pretty good sign that the death penalty is drawing its last gasps when a reliably conservative state like Nebraska pulls the plug. Members of the state's unique 1-chamber legislature technically run on nonpartisan ballots, but Nebraska's politics are as red as the home crowd on Cornhusker game day. Yet, the Nebraska Legislature's 32-15 vote to abolish capital punishment Wednesday was historic for a state that only 7 years ago retired its electric chair after the Nebraska Supreme Court ruled it cruel and unusual punishment. This week's lopsided vote was an especially sweet victory for Ernie Chambers, the legendary black senator from Omaha who introduced the death penalty repeal bill 38 times over his four-decade legislative career. Gov. Pete Ricketts vowed to veto the bill, but it doesn't really matter. The death penalty has been effectively dead in Nebraska for several years, since it hasn't executed anyone since 1997. It's the same story around the country, in part because it takes decades to exhaust legal appeals. Now even states that are determined to pursue executions are finding it next to impossible to acquire toxic drugs that meet Eighth Amendment standards. The fact is, capital punishment has been persuasively shown to have little or no deterrent effect on murder, especially when the alternative is life in prison without possibility of parole. It is enormously costly to get a death case through the courts, and it's increasingly evident that the odds just too high that innocent persons could be, or already have been, executed. Iowa abolished the death penalty twice - 1st in 1872, which lasted 6 years, and again in 1965. It's taken our neighbor to the west longer to come around, but we welcome them to the club. Assuming it becomes law there, the remaining 31 states with capital punishment should retire the executioner. (source: Editorial, Des Moines Register) *********** Bill Otis Responds to George Will on the Death Penalty George Will recently wrote an op-ed in the Post, advancing the "conservative case" against the death penalty. My friend Bill Otis has written this strong response. Here's an excerpt of Bill's argument: Will says that the considerable expense and delay of capital punishment "are here to stay." How does he know that? 50 years ago, we were told, by people who think as Will does now, that (then) growing national opposition to the death penalty itself was "here to stay." And they were right - for about a decade, after which, once past its brief flirtation with abolition, and not caring for the results, the country re-instated capital punishment and has since executed roughly 1400 grisly killers. As the thinking man's conservative, Will should know better than to make breezy statements about what is "here to stay." He should also know that the way to make capital punishment less expensive and time-consuming is not to abolish it, but to place sensible limits on its currently grossly indisciplined costs and delay. A civilized society should spend what it takes to make certain we have the right guy, but should do much more than we have (and could) to shrink manufactured procedural delays far removed from the determination of guilt or innocence. Both pieces are well worth reading if you are interested in how the death penalty debate is playing out. (source: Paul G. Cassell teaches criminal law, criminal procedure, and crime victims' rights at the S.J. Quinney College of Law at the University of Utah. He also served as a U.S. District Court Judge for the District of Utah from 2002 to 2007----Washington Post) ******************* Preacher's Point: Arguments for, against the death penalty In the media and social networks, there are arguments for and against the death penalty being waged. We have our villains, names forever sketched into the America memory, John Wilkes Booth, Lee Harvey Oswald, Charles Manson, Tim McVeigh, and now a new name is on the list. Should we execute men like this? In just the 4 that popped into my head first, McVeigh was the only one executed. Manson is still in prison while Booth and Oswald were both killed before coming to trial. If we turn to Bible teachers for an answer, we do find many on both sides of the fence. Some claiming we are sinning if we send someone to the gallows while others, will claim we shouldn???t have an electric chair; we should have electric bleachers. Let's examine the scriptures. Those against the death penalty will often quote the commandment, "Thou shalt not kill" (Exodus 20:13). Another passage often used against the death penalty is the story of the woman found committing adultery. The Pharisees bring her to Jesus, and it is asked of Him what they should do to her. Jesus had been preaching about forgiveness, but the penalty for adultery was death. They were trying to entrap Him in His words. At this moment is when Jesus said the eternal words, "He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her" (John 8:7). Taking these 2 passages together it does seem to imply since none of us are sinless, death is not a viable punishment for a crime regardless of how monstrous. But, there are other passages to consider. After God gave Israel the commandment, "Thou shalt not kill" Israel will face war with her enemies. On these occasions God tells them to destroy their enemies, killing not just the soldiers but civilians and livestock as well (Numbers 31, Deuteronomy 7,13,20 and 1 Samuel 15). How can extermination of their enemies be justified after being told not to kill? We are told to rightly divide the word of truth in 2 Timothy 2:15. If we are to divide it, it must have a reason to be divided. Some things may apply in some areas while other things apply to other areas of life. We are told to study to divide the word correctly (2 Timothy 2:15). "Thou shalt not kill" was directed toward the individual and God's instructions to the Hebrew army was directed to them as a society as a whole. The same principle applies to the scene with Jesus and the accusers of the adulterous woman. Those men were taking the law into their hands and executing judgment. The punishment of evil doers is in the hands of the government, not the individual (1 Peter 2:13-14). God has established different roles and responsibilities throughout society. As individuals, we are to turn the other cheek (Matthew 5:39; Luke 6:29), forgive and not be judgmental. To protect society and to keep evil in check, the government needs to have a means of determining guilt or innocence and administrating the proper punishment. Many will be surprised to learn the death penalty was not established in God's law, but God instituted the death penalty while promising Noah He would never again destroy the world by water. Genesis 9:5-6, "And surely your blood of your lives will I require; at the hand of every beast will I require it, and at the hand of man; at the hand of every man's brother will I require the life of man. Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by ma shall his blood be shed: for in the image of God made he man." Please note that the reason for the death penalty is not directly the punishment of evildoers or even closure for those the victim left behind. The reason for the death penalty is because we are created in the image of God, and God sees an attack against man (His image) as an attack against Him. What I'm about to say may be the hardest part yet. As a society, we have a responsibility to carry out the death penalty, yet as individuals we have the responsibility to not cast the first stone. (source: Preacher Tim Johnson is pastor of Countryside Baptist Church in Parke County, Ind. ---- Lebanon Democrat) From rhalperi at smu.edu Sat May 23 15:16:21 2015 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Sat, 23 May 2015 15:16:21 -0500 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide Message-ID: May 23 PAKISTAN----executions 4 convicts hanged in jails across Punjab 4 death row convicts were sent to the gallows in jails across Punjab early Saturday morning. A convict named Ehsaan was sentenced to death by an Anti-Terrorism Court (ATC) in 2002 for committing a murder. He was executed today at Lahore's Kot Lakhpat Central Jail. His appeals against the sentence were previously rejected by the apex court and President Mamnoon, following which his death warrants were issued by the ATC 2 days ago. Separately, Mohammad Saleem - who was a resident of Faisalabad's Millat Colony - was sent to the gallows at Faisalabad Central Jail after his death warrants were issued by an ATC. Previously, his appeals against the conviction were rejected by President Mamnoon Hussain. He was sentenced to death by a sessions court in Faisalabad in 2004 for murdering his cousin. Meanwhile, a man named Abdul Ghaffar from Muzaffargarh was executed in Multan Central Jail for killing 3 individuals - including his wife in 1990. He was sentenced to death by a sessions court in Muzaffargarh. Last week, his death warrants were sent to the jail administration after which he was hanged today. A man named Wazir - resident of Mianwali - was hanged in Sahiwal Central Jail for committing a murder in Rajanpur in 1991 over a domestic dispute. In 1996, Wazir had been sentenced to death by a sessions judge in Rajanpur and his appeals were rejected by the top courts and President Mamnoon Hussain. The jail administration received Wazir's death warrants 3 days ago and he was hanged this morning. The ruling PML-N government had lifted the moratorium on the death penalty on Dec 17, 2014, in terrorism related cases in the wake of a Taliban attack at the Army Public School in Peshawar, which claimed 141 lives, most of them children. Later, the government completely reinstated capital punishment for all offences that entail the death penalty. The United Nations, the European Union, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have urged the government to re-impose the moratorium on the death penalty. (source: Dawn) ******************** Court issues death warrants of 2 convicts District and Sessions Judge (D&SJ) Lahore on Friday issued death warrants of 2 prisoners convicted in different murder cases. The judge has ordered to hang prisoners Abdul Khaliq and Shahzad on May 27 at Kot Lakhpat Jail. The court passed the orders while accepting an application filed by Kot Lakhpat Jail superintendent for the purpose. The superintendent had requested the court to issue death warrants of Abdul Khaliq and Shahzad as their mercy appeals had been rejected by President Mamnoon Hussain and Supreme Court of Pakistan. In 2002, a sessions court awarded death penalty to Abdul Khaliq in a murder case registered by Secretariat Police Station for killing Akramullah. Whereas another sessions court awarded death penalty to Muhammad Shahzad in a murder case registered by Allama Iqbal Town Police Station for killing Azam Khan. (source: Pakistan Today) KENYA: Ali Babitu Kololo Ali Babitu Kololo is a 35-year-old father of 2 young children from a marginalised tribe in northern Kenya. He was tortured into confessing that he led Somali kidnappers to a luxury island resort, where the kidnappers abducted a British woman and killed her husband. Despite strong evidence that he is innocent, Ali was sentenced to death in 2013. Ali was never accused of being involved in the murder or kidnap itself, but under Kenyan law, simply being present when the crime is committed is enough for a conviction for robbery with violence, which carries the mandatory death penalty. Following the attack in 2011, the hotel ordered staff and police to pick up anyone in the vicinity of the hotel as a suspect. Ali was arrested a few miles from the hotel. The British Metropolitan Police flew to Kenya the day after the kidnap to assist with the investigation. They reviewed the crime scene, interviewed witnesses and took forensic evidence. When arrested, Ali was beaten and tortured. Officers squeezed and twisted his genitals, leaving him with urinary incontinence. Under torture he allegedly confessed to leading the pirates to the camp under duress. He immediately recanted his confession afterwards, and has maintained his innocence throughout. Having funded and worked alongside the Kenyan police units, the British were no doubt well aware of their routine use of torture and mistreatment and Ali's own claims were widely reported in local and international press. But, without making any steps to investigate Ali's allegations of torture, the senior Met police officer relied on the statement provided by Ali under torture to help bolster the prosecution's case, giving evidence in court that his 2 statements were inconsistent. Aside from his 'confession,' the only other key evidence against Ali is a footprint Kenyan police claim to have found at the scene - yet, at the trial, it was found that the shoe in question did not fit Ali, and the arresting officer claims that he was barefoot when arrested. The Senior Met police officer also relied on this footprint evidence when giving evidence at trial, but despite having a designated photographer present when he arrived at the scene, no one has been able to produce any evidence of this footprint to date. Contrary to the Met police officer claiming to the court that the shoes are "predominantly ... worn by Somalians", the shoes in question are common throughout this region of Kenya. Ali is not, in any event, Somali. Ali is illiterate, and was denied an interpreter for his native language throughout his trial. He was also denied a lawyer for most of the proceedings, so had to try to cross examine all the witnesses, including the senior officer from the Metropolitan Police, himself. He was given the Chief Superintendent's statement (written, and in English) on the day of the hearing. Aside from 1 other witness statement, he has never seen any of the other witness statements or evidence against him. The Metropolitan Police claim to have provided all the evidence they collected, including that which may confirm Ali's innocence, to the Kenyan prosecution. But the UK government continues to refuse to provide this, or any other information, to Ali or his lawyers. Neither was Ali able to obtain any expert evidence, such as a medical assessment following his torture. By contrast, when the expert medical witness for the prosecution was unable to attend the hearing, the Foreign & Commonwealth Office stepped in to provide funding. They have refused to provide the same assistance to Ali for his appeal. When sentencing Ali to death, the judge thanked the British police for their assistance, which helped secure this outcome. "If the UK government is serious about its commitment to promoting justice overseas, it must right the wrongs and ensure real justice is done."----Maya Foa, Director of Reprieve's Death Penalty Team Reprieve is calling on the UK government to honour their commitment to fight against the death penalty, and to right the wrong they committed by supporting the prosecution - which resulted in a death sentence for a man who may well be innocent. Having seen first hand that Ali was flagrantly denied a fair trial, at the very least they should now be ensuring that he receives a fair appeal. (source: reprieve.org) SUDAN: Hundreds march in Sudan against Mursi death sentence Around 800 protesters marched through Sudan's capital on Friday against a court's decision this week to seek the death penalty for Egypt's ousted Islamist president Mohamed Mursi. Sudan's government has up to now declined to comment on the sentence in neighboring Egypt, describing it as an internal matter. But the march organized by the Islamic Movement, a faction of Sudan's ruling National Congress Party, suggested some in the ruling elite wanted to send a stronger signal against Egypt's crackdown on Mursi's Muslim Brotherhood. Hundreds of Sudanese, joined by dozens of Egyptians, marched from the Grand Mosque following Friday prayers, as police watched on, a Reuters witness said. Crowds held up pictures of Mursi and other Brotherhood figures, as well as Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan. They also chanted slogans against Egypt's current President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, who as army chief orchestrated Mursi's ouster following mass protests against his rule. Sudan's President Omar Hassan al-Bashir came to power in a bloodless coup in 1989, backed by the army and Islamists. But analysts say the government, facing international sanctions over its human rights record, has more recently sought to broaden its support across the Middle East by publicly distancing itself from the Brotherhood, which is seen as a security threat in Egypt and other Arab states. The Egyptian court's decision has drawn widespread international criticism, with Turkey warning of regional turmoil if Mursi is executed. The ruling against Mursi is not final until June 2. All capital sentences are referred to Egypt's top religious authority, the Grand Mufti, for a non-binding opinion, and are also subject to legal appeal. (source: zamanalwsl.net) EGYPT: Undaunted by my death sentence I received with total disbelief the news that on May 16 an Egyptian court had sentenced me to death - along with former president Mohamed Morsi, a number of his aides and several respected public figures, including renowned scholar Emad Shahin. The charges in my case, like Morsi's, are false and entirely political. The world knows by now the nature of the Egyptian regime's kangaroo trials of political opponents, which international human rights organizations describe as a "charade" lacking due process and violating Egyptian and international law. On Jan. 25, 2011, like millions of other young Egyptians, I participated in demonstrations against then-President Hosni Mubarak's authoritarian regime, which entrenched corruption and injustice in Egypt for more than 3 decades. We camped in Tahrir Square, chanted for freedom and social justice and demanded the removal of the only president most of us had known. Our 1st enemy was, and still is, tyranny and despotism in all its forms. After the fall of the Mubarak regime, I was inspired by the level of political activism, patriotism and national pride that united all of us despite our political differences and affiliations. I was filled with hope for a better life, and I dreamed of going to the ballot box knowing that my vote would count, like most people in democratic countries. I belong to a school of moderate mainstream Islam that believes there is no contradiction between Islam and democracy. In fact, Islam stands firmly against injustice, violation of human rights and oppression, especially oppression of women. I have always believed in democracy and peaceful change, and I have defended the human rights of all people. Therefore, I volunteered in Morsi's campaign as a coordinator to communicate with foreign media, and I was appointed to the same position in the president's office after he was elected president in a free and fair vote. This was the only time we Egyptians were able to participate in such elections, and it was an incredibly empowering moment. Then came the military coup of July 3, 2013. I did not imagine that my support for democracy and my service in the administration of Egypt's 1st democratically elected president would land me in jail or be used against me as a crime warranting the death penalty. Now I find myself being prosecuted for everything I aspired to and worked for, and for advancing the same values that so many of my fellow Egyptians - of all political affiliations - fought and died for. Though I was sentenced in the so-called Grand Espionage case, the Egyptian regime seeks to end my life for no reason other than who I am: an educated, politically active and independent woman with mainstream Islamic views. I have traveled extensively around the world, utilized my education and training to reach out to people from different cultures and religions, built ideological bridges and engaged in dialogue with others - for example, as a fellow of the U.N. Alliance of Civilizations - and this has earned me the dubious honor of being the 1st woman in modern Egyptian history to be sentenced to death for political reasons. Clearly, I am from the generation of young Egyptians - women and men, liberals, conservatives and leftists, Muslims, Christians and atheists - that the regime fears as its No. 1 enemy because we represent the future and a hope for change. It wants to kill the dream of democracy and freedom in the hearts of Egypt's young people. It does not want the world to know the truth about what is happening in Egypt. But it will not prevail. Something has changed in the collective consciousness of the Egyptian people. Even if the regime executes thousands, Egyptian youth have a lot more to give. The day will soon come when this country will be ruled with justice and equality. Thankfully, unlike the tens of thousands of innocent Egyptians suffering in jails, or those being tortured, killed on the streets or hanged, I am outside the country pursuing a graduate degree in public policy in Britain. I have decided to take an independent academic and professional path to get the experience and skills that will enable me to serve my homeland, Egypt, the country where I grew up and that I cherish. Although it breaks my heart to be separated from my family, friends and loved ones, the unjust sentence will not break my will and resolve. On the contrary, it will give me strength to keep defending the principles of the Egyptian revolution and values I and most Egyptians believe in and aspire to: dignity, freedom and justice. (source: Opinion; Sondos Asem, who was foreign press secretary under former Egyptian president Mohamed Morsi, is an independent researcher and graduate student at the University of Oxford's Blavatnik School of Government----Washington Post) IRAN: 37 Prisoners Executed in 3 days >From May 19 to 21, the antihuman clerical regime in Iran executed 37 in prisons or on the streets of various cities. 3 prisoners were executed in public in the cities of Qouchan, Minab and Shiraz. The execution in Minab was carried out in football field in the town to further intensify the atmosphere of fear among the youth. In Shiraz, a prisoner that was condemned to death and about to be executed received 111 lashes. Just on May 20 and 21, 24 prisoners were executed in three group hangings in Ghezel Hessar and Gohardasht prisons in Karaj. 8 who were hanged in the early morning hours of Thursday, May 21, in Ghezel Hessar Prison were among the prisoners who had protested the wave of collective and secret executions in this prison on 17 August 2014 in order to stop the execution of a number of their cellmates and had clashed with prison guards. Execution of 9 prisoners in 2 group hangings in prisons in Shiraz and Arak on May 19 plus another prisoner in the central prison of Arak are the other crimes of this regime in this time span. The objective of the savage regime of velayat-e faqih that the Iranian people call it the Godfather of ISIS is to intensify the atmosphere of terror and horror in order to control social protests that have turned into a nightmare for the clerical regime. (source: Secretariat of the National Council of Resistance of Iran) **************************** Arbitrary Executions Continue-11 Prisoners Transferred for Execution----Only 2 days after execution of 11 prisoners in Ghezelhesar prison of Karaj, a new group of 11 prisoners have been transferred to solitary confinement for execution in the same prison. Iran Human Rights calls for international reactions. According to Iran Human Rights' sources 11 prisoners from Ghezelhesar prison of Karaj (West of Tehran) have been transferred to solitary confinement for execution in the coming days. According to these sources all of the prisoners are charged with drug offences. 2 of the prisoners are identified as "Abbas Heydari" and "Masoud Zibaei". IHR reported about the execution of 11 other prisoners in Ghezelhesar prison on Thursday May 21. Also these prisoners were convicted of drug-related charges and six of the prisoners were identified by name. All together at least 28 people were executed in different Iranian prisons between Monday and Thursday last week. IHR calls for the international community to react to the execution wave in Iran. Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam, the spokesperson of IHR said: "We are facing a gradual mass-execution of the prisoners in Iran. Most of these prisoners are subjected to unfair trials and charged with drug offences which are not considered as the "most serious" crimes. The international community can not remain silent and must react in order to stop these arbitrary executions". (source: Iran Human Rights) UNITED ARAB EMIRATES/PHILIPPINES: OFW sentenced to death in UAE for killing employer An overseas Filipino worker (OFW) from General Santos City convicted of killing her employer has been sentenced to death in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). 28-year-old Jennifer Dalquez, according to her mother Rajima, was arrested on December 12 last year after she killed her employer who attempted to rape her on December 7. Dalquez stabbed her employer using the same knife he pointed at her. The Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) said Dalquez was meted death penalty by a trial court in Al Ain on May 20. Rajima said she last talked to her daughter on Wednesday, where Jennifer delivered the sad news about her death penalty. She said her daughter, who had been working in UAE since 2011, was supposed to return home last January. Ebrahim Zailon, head of DFA - General Santos City, confirmed the death sentence. The Dalquez family is now appealing to the Philippine government for help. Zailon said the DFA will appeal the case of the Filipina worker. (source: ABS-CBNNews) JAMAICA: Abolishing death penalty not on gov't agenda at this time - Golding The Justice Minister Senator Mark Golding says the removal of the death penalty from Jamaican law is not on the Government's agenda at this time. Responding to a question from Opposition Senator Marlene Malahoo Forte today, Senator Golding said the matter went before Parliament in a conscience vote in 2008 and the majority of legislators were in favour of keeping the death penalty on the books. Golding argued that having undertaken that process it was not on the administration's agenda to change the laws at this time in relation to hanging. According to the Justice Minister, the number of people convicted of capital murder is relatively small with most of them ending up serving life sentences. During last week's meeting of the Human Rights Council in Geneva, Switzerland, several member states of the United Nations recommended that Jamaica abolishes the death penalty. Golding told the Council that the island has had a longstanding de facto moratorium on the application of the death penalty. However, he said no decision has been made by the Government to formally abolish the death penalty from the law books. Arising from the Pratt and Morgan ruling, the sentences of convicts on death row for more than 5 years are automatically commuted to life in prison. (source: Jamaica Gleaner) From rhalperi at smu.edu Sun May 24 14:26:52 2015 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Sun, 24 May 2015 14:26:52 -0500 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----ALA., NEB., NEV., CALIF., WASH., USA Message-ID: May 24 ALABAMA: 'I refuse to give them my joy': Man released after 28 years on death row describes new life of freedom----Ray Hinton 28 years on death row for 2 1985 murders that occurred during separate robberies of fast-food restaurants in Birmingham In his 1st day free, after nearly 30 years on Alabama's death row, Ray Hinton said he kept asking a question to his childhood friend. 'You just got to tell me we can stay out tonight that we don't have to go in after an hour,' Hinton said, referring to the hour limit that inmates got on yard time. Hinton spent 28 years on death row for 2 1985 murders that occurred during separate robberies of fast-food restaurants in Birmingham. He was set free on April 3 after new ballistics tests contradicted the only evidence - an analysis of crime-scene bullets - used to convict him decades ago. In his first days off death row, Hinton said he sometimes enjoys just driving, relishing the freedom to simply move about as he wants. He says he's not angry, crediting God for suppressing the hatred that otherwise could devour him 'like a form of cancer.' 'I have too much to live for to allow a bunch of cowards to take my joy. I refuse to give them my joy,' Hinton said. 'I'm at peace with myself. The thing is, are they at peace? They know what they did. They know they lied 30 years ago. I feel that every man that played a part in sending me to prison, every man or woman, whether the judges, prosecutors, ballistic experts, or witness, whoever - they will answer to God. So I'm going to enjoy my life the best I can,' Hinton said. Attorney Bryan Stevenson, director of the Alabama-based Equal Justice Initiative has called it a case study in how poverty and racial bias led to a wrongful conviction. Hinton was arrested for the 2 1985 murders after a survivor at a 3rd robbery identified Hinton in a photo lineup - even though he was clocked in working at a grocery store warehouse 15 miles away. There were no fingerprints or eyewitness testimony, but prosecutors said at the time that bullets found at the murder scenes matched a .38-caliber revolver that belonged to Hinton's mother. His poorly funded defense hired a 1-eyed civil engineer with little ballistics training to rebut the state's evidence. The defense expert was obliterated on cross-examination as he admitted he had trouble operating the microscope. Stevenson, who took up Hinton's case 16 years ago, said an independent analysis showed the bullets didn't come from the gun, and fought for years to get the state to take another look at the case. A breakthrough only came when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled Hinton's defense was so deficient that it was unconstitutional. Prosecutors dropped plans for a 2nd trial when 3 state forensic experts couldn't determine if any of the bullets were fired through the revolver, or even from the same gun. 'They took half my life and it's like they didn't care. They were willing to kill an innocent man,' Hinton said. 'Thirty years ago, I had a judge that stood up proudly and sentenced me to death. I had a prosecutor who couldn't wait to get in front of a camera and say that they had took the worst killer off the streets of Birmingham. But come April 3, no judge was willing to say Mr. Hinton we apologize for the mistake that was done. No D.A. was there to say we apologize.' During Hinton's 28 years on death row, dozens of inmates, men he came to view as family, were executed either by Alabama's 'Yellow Mama' electric chair or by lethal injection. 'The generator would kick in when they pulled the switch. The lights would dim on and off,' Hinton said. Alabama for years traditionally performed executions at midnight. 5 minutes after midnight, the inmates would start banging on the bars. 'We did that not knowing if the condemned man had a family or anybody back there in his support. We were just trying to let him know that we were still with him to the very end.' He was arrested at age 29. He turns 59 in June. When Hinton went to death row, Ronald Reagan was president. The technology of 2015 is 'outrageous,' he said. After being released last month, he got in a car equipped with a GPS navigation device that gave spoken directions. 'The lady said, "Turn left" I looked in the backseat and wanted to know where she was at,' Hinton said, marveling at the device. After living decades mostly alone in a prison cell, he has a hard time with crowds. Friends took him to a shopping mall, but he had to leave almost immediately. Even eating is a change. Death row inmates are given only plastic spoon to eat their meals. Friends took him to a Roadhouse steakhouse to eat, where he had to relearn how to use a knife to cut a steak. 'I just followed their lead watching everybody else cut their steak, because I didn't want to embarrass anyone.' The day he was freed, one of the first things he did was to visit the grave of his mother. He sat down and wept. Beulah Hinton had always believed in the innocence of 'her baby' as she called the youngest of her 10 children, but did not live to see him released from prison. As a boy, his mother had told him not to fear the police, to never run from them or hide from them. That faith is gone, he said. He has a plea to people who serve on juries, particularly capital murder cases. Listen. Question. 'Be careful. Have an open mind. Pray about their decision before they make it,' Hinton said. 'In my case, they knew that gun didn't match 30 years ago.' Hinton said he survived death row with a combination of faith in God and sense of humor. 'I just didn't believe the God that I served would allow me to die for something I didn't do.' He also harnessed his imagination to travel the world from the confines of a tiny cell. 'Being able to control your mind is a beautiful thing. I went everywhere that my mind could take me Brazil, the Bahamas, Paris,' Hinton said. 'I didn't want to think about where I was. Being in a 5-by-7 every day for 365 days a year is more than what the average man could stand,' Hinton said. 'You weren't built to be in a cage that long.' (source: Daily Mail) NEBRASKA: Stand firm on death penalty repeal The emphatic 32-15 vote in the Nebraska Legislature to repeal the death penalty attracted all sorts of attention. Those who took notice ran the gamut from columnist George Will to the Gawker.com website (motto: Today's gossip is tomorrow's news). Now the pressure is on. 30 votes are needed to override the veto from Gov. Pete Ricketts. The governor urged constituents to "reach out" to senators during the Memorial Day weekend. Calls and emails are coming in on both sides of the issue. The senators who voted to repeal the death penalty should stand firm. The reasons that compelled them to vote to end the death penalty are as valid now as they were on the final vote on Wednesday. State senators took a variety of paths to arrive at the conclusion that the death penalty must go. Some, like Sen. Bob Krist of Omaha, based their vote on theological grounds. Krist said he is pro-life from "conception to natural death." Sen. Adam Morfeld of Lincoln said the state should not have "the power and authority to take a life." Sen. Laura Ebke of Crete, who said her vote for repeal was based on both moral and philosophical grounds, capsulized the conservative argument for repeal: "If government shouldn't be trusted to manage our health care, which I think many of us in this room would agree, then why should it be trusted to carry out an irrevocable sentence of death?" On his legislative website, Sen. Robert Hilkemann of Omaha provided a straightforward and candid account of how he arrived at his decision to vote for repeal. "Over the years I have never thought much about the death penalty, except when it is debated at church or around the family table," Hilkemann wrote. "My stand has been that we should keep it for the most heinous of crimes or for killing law enforcement officers." But when he came to the Capitol to begin serving in the Legislature this year, he was exposed to more evidence and confronted with new perspectives. "The turning point in my decision began April 1, during a personal conversation in my office with Ray Krone. Ray had been falsely accused and convicted of murder in Arizona in the '90s and was given the death sentence," Hilkemann wrote. Fortunately DNA tests came into wider usage. "Ray was the 100th person exonerated by post-conviction DNA evidence, which indicated to me our judicial system doesn't always get it right," Hilkemann wrote. The governor believes that most Nebraskans support the death penalty, and perhaps he is right. Poll results depend on how the question is asked. However, most Nebraskans have never been responsible for state policy. They have never been required to think as deeply on the issue as Hilkemann and his colleagues. Elected officials can and should do more. They can lead. They can explain to their constituents the many reasons why the death penalty should be repealed. Nebraska may the 1st "conservative" state to repeal the death penalty, but others will surely follow. (source: Jouranl Star Editorial Board) ********************** Death penalty foes see Nebraska vote as momentum-builder With Nebraska on the brink of outlawing the death penalty, opponents of capital punishment hope this week's veto-override vote in the Legislature will build momentum for their cause in other Republican states. Whether that will happen isn't clear, but Nebraska isn't the 1st right-leaning state to consider banning capital punishment this year. A bill to abolish the death penalty in Montana came within one vote of passing in February in the Republican-led state House. In Kansas, a GOP state representative took the lead in introducing a repeal bill this year, and the state's Republican Liberty Caucus formally came out in opposition to capital punishment in 2014. "This could start a domino effect, for sure," said Stacy Anderson, executive director of Nebraskans for Alternatives to the Death Penalty. "Many states are already looking at this. I joke with people who do the same kind of work in other states that we're in a race to see who can repeal it 1st." Nebraska lawmakers voted 32-15 last week to abolish the death penalty, despite promises that Gov. Pete Ricketts will veto the bill. Death penalty opponents need at least 30 votes for a veto override, but Ricketts is appealing to the public and talking privately with lawmakers in an effort to flip 3 or more votes. Sen. Ernie Chambers of Omaha said his repeal bill wouldn't have passed this year without conservative support. Nebraska's longest-serving lawmaker has fought for decades to end the death penalty; the bill that advanced last week was his 38th try, according to the Legislature's Research Office. "Nebraska doing it may provide cover to other legislatures to say, 'If Nebraska can do this, we can also,'" Chambers said. National groups are watching Nebraska closely and expect a "ripple effect" if the state votes to abolish, said Shari Silberstein, executive director of the group Equal Justice USA. Law-and-order conservatives have traditionally stood among the strongest supporters of the ultimate punishment. "A lot of states have stopped making this a partisan issue, and started to make it a conscience issue," she said. "The party's not going to tell you how to vote." Repealing the death penalty may be easier in Nebraska than states where capital punishment is more ingrained in the culture, said Eric Berger, a University of Nebraska associate law professor and death penalty expert. Nebraska hasn't executed an inmate since 1997, when the electric chair was used, and the state has never imposed the punishment with the current required lethal injection protocol. 11 men are now on death row, including 1 who has been there for 35 years. "I don't see a state like Texas repealing capital punishment anytime soon, but there certainly is a movement that's gaining momentum," Berger said. "The anti-death penalty arguments are beginning to resonate with small-government conservatives. It doesn't guarantee there will be continued momentum, but I do think it's symptomatic of some changed thinking on the right." Nebraska senators base their death penalty opposition on different factors, including religious beliefs, an argument that it wastes taxpayer money and the idea that the government wasn???t competent enough to manage it. The repeal effort has won support from prominent religious groups, including the Nebraska Catholic Conference. Ricketts argued Friday that lawmakers are out of touch with their constituents, the majority of whom he argues continue to support capital punishment. In a state with a 1-house Legislature, he said, the public should serve its role as the "2nd house" by contacting their senator. "The people I talk to overwhelmingly support the death penalty," Ricketts said. (source: Associated Press) ***************** Senator defends death penalty vote I knew I was going to write a column this week. I also knew I could write about any number of issues and bills that we are considering during our last few days this session. I knew as well there was an overriding issue that had to be talked about. I will admit, I did vote to repeal the death penalty. LB268 was approved by a strong majority of the Legislature this past week. On any number of issues, when I vote with a large majority of the senators I serve with, I feel the right decision was made. Many of you in District 23 have let me know you don't feel I made the right decision with my vote on LB268. In fact, many of you have been less than complimentary about me and have expressed this in a number of ways to my staff as well. First, if you have a complaint express it please but check your anger at the door. Many have called and expressed outrage to a decision that has changed the way we handle some of the worst of the worst. I can go through a number of the arguments. We don't use the death penalty so why have it? It costs too much. The drugs are not available or subject to rejection. Victims' families don't want this because it simply drags them through an emotional roller coaster over and over year after year. Passage of this bill has been described as historic. The 1st conservative state in the nation to repeal the death penalty. I don't feel my vote can be considered historic. I don't feel I have abandoned my conservative principles by my vote either. On the contrary, I see a program not working. One that has been costing the state millions of dollars with no executions and none really coming. Death row inmates spending decades on death row. Really, nothing will change much with the passage of this bill. When I see an expensive program that is not working, I think it should be cut out. Death row inmates will be relegated to life without parole. Expensive appeals will end. Inconsistent application of this sentence will end. The possibility of wrongfully putting someone to death will end. Finally, I cannot morally reconcile the notion that a vote of mine can result in the eventual death of another person. I campaigned on a pro-life agenda. I know several faiths wrestle with this concept in many areas not only the death penalty. I didn't vote this way to please any other senator. I didn't "trade" a vote for another bill as has been alleged. I have been told by many of you that I did the right thing with my vote and I appreciate your confidence. With the kind allowances of your local newspapers that carry this column, I plan on 2 more "Legislative Word" offerings this year. Next week I will try to wrap up this year in the Agriculture Committee and the following week I will give you some of my thoughts overall. (source: Opinion, Sen. Jerry Johnson; Schuyler Sun) NEVADA: Money for NV death chamber could be wasted Assembly and Senate committees in the Nevada Legislature this week approved $858,000 to be spent on a new execution chamber in Ely. Regardless of one's position on the death penalty, the full Legislature should reject it. To build the execution chamber now almost guarantees money will be wasted. The simple reason is that there is no need for one now. The current death chamber is at Nevada State Prison in Carson City. The prison itself has been decommissioned and will become a museum. While it would be tacky to carry out executions at the same place as a tourist attraction, the more pressing issue behind building a new death chamber is that the current one is not ADA-compliant. That means it violates the Americans With Disabilities Act. A judge would likely block an execution there because a person with disabilities who wanted to get upstairs to the chamber's witness room would face no elevator and inadequate handrails. Corrections Department Director Greg Cox testified that if the status of a Nevada death row inmate changes, the state would be required to act within 60 or 90 days. This concern would carry more weight if Nevada's death chamber had been used even once in the past 9 years. (The last execution was of Daryl Mack for the rape and murder of Betty Jane May of Reno. Daryl Mack should not to be confused with Darren Mack, who murdered his wife and tried to kill family court judge Chuck Weller with a sniper rifle in Reno, coincidentally 6 weeks after Daryl Mack's execution. Darren Mack got 20 years to life.) Assemblyman Randy Kirner, R-Reno, says no executions are planned in the coming 2 years. Think about that again: The current chamber hasn't been used in almost a decade and is not needed for at least two years to come and probably longer. If this were a proposed addition to a home, no one would recommend building it. Too many variables might change between now and when it will see its first use. To start with, the chamber would be built to accommodate Nevada's current execution method: lethal injection. This might not be the method in a few years. Companies that manufacture the drugs used in lethal injection have increasingly refused to sell them for use in executions, causing massive shortages nationwide. States have tried their own drug mixes, leading to botched executions and lawsuits in some cases. In March, the American Pharmacists Association announced it would discourage members from participating in executions because doing so goes against their role as health care providers. States are increasingly looking at other methods. For example, Utah just brought back the firing squad. All of this discussion assumes Nevada will continue executions. That is not a certainty. Since 2007, 6 states have abolished it. Just this week, the Republican-dominated Nebraska legislature voted to end it there. The pendulum is swinging toward abolition of the death penalty because of justice as well as financial concerns. The Death Penalty Information Center reports that since the death penalty was reinstated in the U.S. in 1976, 144 innocent prisoners have been exonerated. Last month, Anthony Ray Hinton was freed from an Alabama prison after nearly 30 years on death row when the evidence used to convict him was proven false. Cost is also an issue. In December, a Nevada state audit found that murder cases where the prosecutor seeks the death penalty cost much more than cases where life without parole is sought. The 18-month investigation at the behest of the 2013 Legislature found death penalty cases cost taxpayers $1.03 million to $1.31 million on average while murder cases where execution is not sought cost $775,000 on average. Beyond all this, Ely might not be the best place for a Nevada execution chamber, yet it seems to be the only place being considered. On the plus side, it would be in the same facility as all of Nevada's approximately 80 death row inmates: Ely State Prison. But this is a remote location. The distance makes it difficult for witnesses to attend, and thus makes the process less transparent. Given the problems with recent executions across the country, the public needs to know that fatal actions taken in its name are being done properly. The case for funding the chamber now is nonexistent: --There are no executions on the horizon. --The requirements of a death chamber very well may change before the next execution, possibly requiring different facilities or at least remodeling. --It is possible Nevada could abolish the death penalty because the public costs for seeking life-without-parole sentences are much cheaper. --And a strong argument for the Ely location has not been made. Nevada's legislators can surely find a better use for $858,000. (source: Editorial Board, Reno Gazette-Journal) CALIFORNIA: Father and son cop pleas, will testify in North Bay triple slaying A father and son pleaded no contest to numerous felonies and will testify against a 3rd man accused in a triple killing near Forestville tied to a marijuana deal that went bad, prosecutors said. The Sonoma County district attorney???s office said Friday that Francis Dwyer, 67, and his son, Odin Leonard Dwyer, 40, will take the stand at the September trial of Mark Cappello, 48. Capello, prosecutors said, was seeking money when he shot and killed Raleigh Butler, 26, of Sebastopol; Richard Lewin, 46, of Huntington, N.Y.; and Todd Klarkowski, 42, of Boulder, Colo., on Feb. 5, 2013. Cappello has been charged with 3 counts of murder as well as the special circumstances of lying in wait, killing for financial gain, killing in the course of a residential burglary and committing multiple murders. Francis Dwyer will be sentenced to 8 years in state prison after pleading no contest to being an accessory to murder and 4 marijuana-related charges. His son will receive 20 years and four months in prison after pleading no contest to 3 counts each of involuntary manslaughter and being an accessory to murder. He was also convicted of accessory to robbery, conspiracy to commit residential burglary and several marijuana-related charges. District Attorney Jill Ravitch is seeking the death penalty against Cappello. A jury will decide whether the defendant, if convicted, will die by lethal injection or instead be sent to prison for the rest of his life with no chance of parole. Ravitch said this is the 1st time Sonoma County prosecutors have sought the death penalty since the 1995 shotgun slaying of Deputy Frank Trejo. Robert Scully Jr. was sentenced to death 2 years later and is still on death row. The Forestville victims intended to buy a large quantity of marijuana but were shot dead instead in a home rented by Butler's mother, authorities said. Cappello of Central City, Colo., was arrested in Alabama 9 days after the slain men were found. The father and son were seen traveling with Cappello through Wyoming, Nevada and Napa County in the days before the victims were found, authorities said. (source: sfgate.com) WASHINGTON: Death penalty on trial after McEnroe verdict shocker ---- If the Carnation massacre doesn't warrant the death penalty, does anything? A jury's verdict spared the life of a killer, but it may have helped kill the death penalty around here. King County is running 3 death-penalty trials this year. At one time the cases were considered slam-dunk examples of why we still have a death penalty. The cases are the worst of the worst, involving mass murder and the shooting of a police officer. Plus there's little doubt the defendants committed the killings. But now it seems like the death penalty is also on trial. The decision by a jury last week to spare the life of Carnation mass-killer Joseph McEnroe was a shocker. This is a guy who shot and killed multiple people at close range, including 2 little kids. Of the 6 murders that Christmas Eve in 2007, he personally pulled the trigger in 5. If executing a 3-year-old and a 5-year-old doesn't warrant death, does anything? As the excellent post-trial reporting by The Seattle Times' Jennifer Sullivan is showing, the same jurors who swiftly concluded he was guilty were divided when it came to his fate. In the end they split 8 to 4 and opted to give him life in prison without possibility of parole. What may make this case a bellwether is that some of the jurors were blunt that they just don't really believe in the death penalty. Too many doubts - not just about the case but about the law. It's as if they ended up doing a form of jury nullification. Nullification is when jurors let someone off because they think the underlying law is unjust. It's controversial, because juries are instructed to follow the law whether they agree with it or not. But it's also a fact of life of the court system: Juries can and do weigh whether the law itself is right. We live in a state where the governor has declared publicly that the death-penalty law is wrong. Gov Jay Inslee said it's so flawed that he won't allow any executions while he's in office. So it's no wonder some jurors might be having doubts as well. It's impossible to know whether what just happened was an isolated occurrence or if "death-penalty doubt" will spread. The jury hearing the case of Christopher Monfort, accused of killing Seattle police officer Timothy Brenton, is expected to begin deliberating in a week or 2. If they find him guilty of aggravated 1st-degree murder, the death-penalty determination will go into the summer. But the decision to spare McEnroe now creates a major conundrum for the third planned trial. The other alleged Carnation killer, Michele Anderson, has been charged with the same 6 murders. Her death-penalty trial is supposed to start in September. If she's found guilty of the same murders, the justice system is going to have a hard time rationalizing putting her to death when it spared the one who killed 5 of the 6 victims. If anything, that would seem to demonstrate the fickleness of it all. It took 7 years and more than $10 million to get the Carnation trials started, much of that due to wrangling over the death penalty. If there's any chance of ending this sooner by locking up Michele Anderson forever instead of continuing to pursue a death sentence, King County should take it. The other remarkable thing about the McEnroe verdict was the reaction of the poor surviving members of this family. Pam Mantle, who lost her daughter and 2 grandchildren in the slayings, said she and her husband were surprisingly happy with the outcome because it means, "We don't ever have to deal with it again. It will be probably better for everybody involved to be able to just kind of put the McEnroe part of this case away." That's a powerful statement. Winning on the death penalty doesn't bring closure. It brings rounds of appeals and hearings, lasting years, all focused on the killer. So in the end why not lock him up forever, with no possibility of getting out, and try to move on. It's understandable King County prosecutors tried for death. But we may look back at this case as a tipping point when we decided not to anymore. (source: Seattle Times) USA: Bill Kristol slams death penalty repeal: Executions are an 'important symbol' of American justice Weekly Standard editor Bill Kristol on Sunday slammed states that had repealed the death penalty because he said that executions were an "important symbol" of justice. Last week, Republican Nebraska lawmakers passed legislation that would repeal the state's death penalty on the grounds that it was an example of a wasteful government program. The Republican governor vowed to veto the bill, but lawmakers suggested that they could have enough votes to overturn a veto. During a panel discussion on ABC News, conservative CNN pundit S.E. Cupp asserted that the tide had turned, and that even many religious conservatives now opposed the death penalty. "I don't find it to be moral, I don't find it to be just," she said. "The wrongful convictions that we hear about all the time. It is costly, it is bankrupted entire counties. And so for me, I've been trying to convince fellow conservatives to have a change of heart on this issue." But Kristol said that he was "convinced" that executions were both "just" and an "important symbol." "I'm a defender of the death penalty," he explained. "I think it is both just and an important symbol for really heinous crimes and how serious we take the state's obligations to preserve life actually." Kristol noted that he "respected" conservatives who took principled pro-life stands against the death penalty. But the conservative columnist seemed more interested in using the topic to attack Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton than engaging in a substantive debate. "I'm curious what Hillary Clinton - if we can get back to her - what Hillary Clinton's position is," he quipped. "Her husband executed people as governor of Arkansas. And I'm sure if she ever appears before the press, every Republican candidate, of course, will get asked on this." (source: rawstory.com) ******************* Accused killer Fell pushes misconduct claim Accused killer Donald Fell continues to allege that prosecutors acted improperly during the death-penalty trial in which he was convicted in 2005. And in an attempt to dismiss his charges - which include kidnapping with death resulting - before his new death-penalty trial, he asked the U.S. District Court this week for a hearing on unresolved allegations of misconduct by prosecutors. Judge William K. Sessions III granted Fell a new trial in 2014, on the grounds of juror misconduct. But Fell's remaining assertions of prosecutorial misconduct remained unresolved. "Judge Sessions recognized that claims remained pending after he granted Mr. Fell a new trial and his order reveals that he intended to proceed with this litigation," Fell's attorneys wrote in a memorandum in support of Fell's motion. "The court must provide him with adequate remedies for the constitutional violations which potentially include dismissal of the charges and/or the death notice," the defense wrote. Fell was sentenced to death in 2006 for the armed kidnapping and killing of Terry King, 53, of North Clarendon on Nov. 27, 2000. Prosecutors said Fell and an accomplice, Robert Lee, carjacked King at gunpoint in the Rutland Price Chopper parking lot as she arrived for her shift at the supermarket. In a detailed confession, Fell admitted to killing her, according to court documents. Fell claims the government's arguments - during his jury trial and the penalty phase - were improper, inflammatory and misstated. He also alleged prosecutors elicited false testimony from witnesses and withheld critical documents from the defense during the trial. At an April 10 hearing in Burlington federal court, Fell's new California-based defense team questioned these unresolved claims. During the April hearing, Assistant U.S. Attorney Julie Mosely, of the Capital Case Section at the U.S. Department of Justice, said it was time to move forward. "There's nothing to be gained from litigating old issues, other than drag the whole process out," she said. "The family needs and deserves resolution to this case." But Fell's defense has asked for a hearing on the misconduct allegations. "The double jeopardy clause of the Fifth Amendment, along with other constitutional guarantees, can bar a retrial when intentional government misconduct tainted the initial trial," the lawyers wrote. "At least 5 specific and distinct claims of prosecutorial misconduct were found by the court to be supported by sufficient fact to proceed to litigation." Among Fell's allegations: - When the prosecution compared Fell violent stomping a New York man to violently stomping King to death, Fell said the prosecution intentionally withheld the information that the New York man allegedly tried to rape Fell's sister. Fell also claimed the New York man was not in a coma and the prosecution failed to reveal this to the jury. - When the prosecution showed a video of Fell being verbally aggressive and spitting at a correctional officer, they intentionally withheld the information that the guard had a history of violence with inmates. - The prosecution failed to reveal evidence that Fell's accomplice, Lee, was the violent aggressor - based on his prison record and a witness account that cast doubt on which one wanted to kill King. According to Fell's defense, there is adequate law and precedent to grant Fell a hearing until all claims are decided. The court has not responded to this motion. In other Fell motions this week, the prosecution fought Fell's request to turn over all mental health evaluations from the 1st trial. "... Fell now urges the court to order the government to return all that evidence to him and preclude the government from using it," the prosecution responded to Fell's motion in May. "His request, to resort to the cliche, seeks to 'unring the bell,' or mixing metaphors, to 'put the genie back in the bottle,'" the response said. "... In any event, Fell's request is superfluous." The court has not ruled on this motion. Fell is currently housed at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, N.Y. His next hearing is scheduled for June 5 in Burlington federal court. (source: Rutland Herald) From rhalperi at smu.edu Sun May 24 14:28:02 2015 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Sun, 24 May 2015 14:28:02 -0500 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide Message-ID: May 24 EGYPT: Morsi supporter sentenced to death on terrorism charges----Anas Soliman Shahin was sentenced in absentia over terrorism charges, including joining and funding a terrorist organisation Giza criminal court on Sunday sentenced a supporter of former president Mohamed Morsi to death on terror-related charges. Anas Soliman Shahin was sentenced in absentia for "joining and funding a terrorist organisation", the Muslim Brotherhood, working with the Hamas movement in Gaza, and using secret tunnels between North Sinai and the Gaza Strip. The court applied its maximum penalty in absentia until the defendants show up and a retrial starts. According to Egypt's penal code, a defendant is given the stiffest punishment if he/she fails to show up in court during the trial. Last week, Cairo Criminal Court sought a death penalty for ousted Islamist president Mohamed Morsi and 105 others in the 'Wadi-Natroun jailbreak' case after referring them to the Grand Mufti for a non-binding review. The court's decision is considered a preliminary step before sentencing the defendants to death. The decision drew wide international criticism. (source: Ahram Online) IRAN----executions 5 Prisoners Hanged in Adel Abad Prison in Shiraz 5 prisoners were executed on charge of murder in the prison of Shiraz. According to the report of Human Rights Activists News Agency in Iran (HRANA), in the morning of Tuesday 19th May, 5 prisoners were hanged on charges of murder in the courtyard of Adel Abad prison, in Shiraz. 1 of the prisoners was Mehdi Keshavarz and the identity of the other executed prisoners is unknown. Official sources and officials of the judiciary also have not given information about it. In addition, it has been stated that the age of 1 of them, was 18 years, but due to lack of documentary evidences, HRANA's sources have not been able to confirm the accuracy of this issue, yet. (source: HRANA news agency) ************************* 1 Execution For Drug-Related Charges And 3 Public Floggings in Iran 1 prisoner was hanged in the prison of Ardebil (Northwestern Iran) Saturday morning May 23, reported the Iranian state media. The prisoner who was not identified by name was sentenced to death by the Ardebil Revolution Court (Section 1), charged with buying and possession of 990 grams of heroin and 995 grams of crystal, reported the state run Fars news agency. Iran Human Rights has observed a sharp increase in the number of executions for drug offences in the past few months in Iran. The official website of the Judiciary in Khorasan Razavi (Northeastern Iran) flogging sentences of 3 prisoners were carried out publicly in the town of Joghatai near Mashhad. The prisoners were charges with drug offences and robbery, said the report. The number of lashes was not mentioned in the report. (source: Iran Human Rights) PAKISTAN: Last-minute plea to save death-row prisoner A Lahore-based lawyer says he is going to approach the Lahore High Court for staying execution of a condemned prisoner set for May 27 on the grounds that he was a juvenile at the time the crime was committed. Faisal Mahmood was below 18 years of age when he was charged with murder of his friend on Jan 26, 1999, the lawyer is going to argue. Mahmood was charged by the Gujrat police. A sessions court tried him under Section 302 of the Pakistan Penal Code (PPC) and handed down life imprisonment on April 26, 2000. The Supreme Court, when moved against the conviction, enhanced the sentence and converted it into capital punishment, says Barrister Ehtesham Amiruddin, who has taken the case of Faisal Mahmood pro bono. The condemned prisoner approached the Supreme Court for commutation of sentence in the light of a presidential order conveyed by the interior ministry division on Dec 13, 2001, commuting death sentence of juveniles as defined in Juvenile Justice System Ordinance 2000, while asserting the convict was less than 18 years of age on the date of commission of offence. In Mahmood's case, the date of committing the offence was Jan 26, 1999 and as per school record his date of birth was Feb 1, 1981, which prima facie makes him less than 18 years on the date of occurrence, says the lawyer. He says a public prosecutor assisted the Supreme Court on the point as to why a lesser sentence of life term was awarded to the convict by the trial court as well as the high court that was later enhanced. The court had observed that since a plea that the convict was a minor was not taken at an earlier stage, it was rejected. The lawyer says though Section 302 carries death penalty, the trial court awarded life sentence to Mahmood for being a juvenile. However, the court did not mention the reason in the order for awarding the lesser punishment, he adds. (source: Dawn) MALAYSIA: 'In Malaysia political leaders need only fear incarceration, not death penalty' Malaysian politicians still have it better when compared to those in Egypt as the former only has to fear incarceration unlike the death penalty in the Middle East. In stating so, Utusan Malaysia's collective editorial Awang Selamat highlighted the recent decision made by the Egyptian court who sentenced its former President Mohammed Morsi and well-known ulama Yusuf Al-Qaradawi to death. Morsi, the Umno-owned daily wrote, was not only forced to step down, but was also arrested for months without any access to legal counsel and sentenced to 20 years imprisonment prior to being handed the death penalty. Awang Selamat decried the similar sentence for Yusuf, calling it "despotic." The Malay daily went on to compare the situation in the country, noting that ulamas in Malaysia were free to criticise the government and support demonstrations without persecution. "The political leaders that were imprisoned in this country, it was for the offence of sodomy based on reports lodged by the victim besides normally, corruption. "In other words, no ulama and political leaders have ever faced the death sentence," wrote Awang Selamat, alluding to the twice incarcerated former opposition leader Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim. It then said that Egypt continued to be plagued by conflict as overthrowing a leader was undemocratic and had caused more devastation, instead of solutions. "The ones at loss is the country and the Muslims and this should serve as a lesson for us here in Malaysia." (source: the rakyatpost.com) From rhalperi at smu.edu Mon May 25 11:51:53 2015 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Mon, 25 May 2015 11:51:53 -0500 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, NEB., CALIF., USA Message-ID: May 25 TEXAS: Executions, if they must continue, should be transparent in Texas A federal jury in Massachusetts sentenced Dzhokhar Tsarnaev -- one of the bombers in the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing -- to death. The federal government has only executed 3 men since Massachusetts abolished capital punishment in 1984, making both the execution and the state of its trial fascinating. In Texas, however, capital punishment is so incorporated into the normative political and social fabric that it does not receive the scrutiny that would be given in the rest of the country. We hope Texans can use the shocking nature of the Tsarnaev case as an opportunity to re-examine our own state's enactment of and culture surrounding capital punishment. Texas has a proclivity for capital punishment. There have been 524 executions in Texas since 1984, the year Massachusetts abolished the death penalty. This year, Texas has already executed 7 inmates, 1/2 of the national total. In the period between 1973-2013, Texas had the 2nd highest % of death sentences resulting in execution, rather than exoneration or dismissal, at 47 %, which is 3.5 times higher than the national average of 13% over the same period. Of course, the numbers keep adding up. On May 12, Texas carried out its last execution. The next will take place on June 3. Though Texas' huge volume of capital punishment is undoubtedly an ethical concern, the Texas court system presents a unique challenge to carrying out capital punishment justly. Scott Panetti, a schizophrenic man, was nearly executed on December 3 because the Texas appellate court denied appeals against his execution that demonstrated decades of documented mental illness. However, the federal appellate court spared his life with a stay of execution a mere 12 hours before because of the overwhelming evidence previously denied by the Texas courts. Although only one case, his illuminates the widespread institutional failures of the Texas courts that so often ruin people's lives, or even end them. However, as Texas recently ran out of lethal injection drugs as pharmaceutical industries refuse to allow their products to be used to execute people, the main action in the State Legislature appears to be proliferation, rather than reduction, of these ethical concerns. Last year, experimental drugs from compounding pharmacies were used as replacements nationwide, resulting in numerous botched lethal injections. As a result of these well-documented botches, compounding pharmacies faced rebuke by pharmaceutical professional associations. This has forced the state to procure the pertinent drugs for executions, namely pentobarbital, by operating with an irresponsible lack of transparency. What does it say about capital punishment that preparations for it must be carried out in secret, for fear of professional sanctions? Fittingly, a bill protecting and codifying this lack of transparency, despite multiple legal challenges against it, is the sole piece of legislation regarding capital punishment that passed this session. Senate Bill 1697, by state Sen. Joan Huffman, R-Houston, moves to block disclosure of drug manufacturers' information from public record through the Texas Public Information Act, thereby perpetuating the culture of opacity that characterizes capital punishment in Texas. Texans must engage with our political system, yet proposals like SB 1697 eliminate ethical means of doing that by minimizing opportunities to shed light on and reform the institution. Such behavior is a failure to the ethical responsibility expected of Texas lawmakers and courts. If an institution is too unpopular or unethical to stand out in the open, perhaps it should not stand at all. (source: The (Univ. Texas) Daily Texas Editorial Board) NEBRASKA: Cult killer Michael Ryan dies in prison Inmates on death row Here is the status of Nebraska's death row, listing name, date of arrival on death row, county in which crime occurred and a brief description. * Carey Dean Moore, June 20, 1980, Douglas County, killed 2 Omaha cab drivers in separate robberies. * John L. Lotter, Feb. 21, 1996, Richardson, killed prior sexual assault victim and 2 bystanders. * Raymond Mata, June 1, 2000, Scotts Bluff, killed and dismembered 3-year-old boy. * Arthur L. Gales, Nov. 6, 2001, Douglas, raped and murdered 13 year-old girl and killed her 7-year-old brother. * Jorge Galindo, Nov. 10, 2004, Madison, killed 5 people in attempted bank robbery. * Jose Sandoval, Jan. 31, 2005, Madison, killed 5 people in attempted bank robbery. * Jeffrey Hessler, May 18, 2005, Scotts Bluff, kidnapped, raped and murdered 15-year-old girl. * Erick F. Vela, Jan. 12, 2007, Madison, killed 5 people in attempted bank robbery. * Roy L. Ellis, Feb. 6, 2009, Douglas, abducted and killed 12-year-old girl. * Marco E. Torres, Jan. 29, 2010, Hall, shot and killed 2 men. Death penalty facts * 32 states have the death penalty; 18 do not. * A bill to repeal the death penalty in Nebraska passed last week in the Nebraska Legislature. Gov. Pete Ricketts has promised to veto it. A bill to repeal the death penalty passed in 1979 and was vetoed by then-Gov. Charles Thone. * There hasn't been an execution in Nebraska since Robert Williams was electrocuted in 1997. * Nebraska went to lethal injection after the state Supreme Court ruled in 2008 that the electric chair amounted to unconstitutionally cruel and unusual punishment. * Omaha Sen. Ernie Chambers has offered a death penalty-related bill 38 times. * Michael Ryan, who died Sunday, was 1 of 3 of Nebraska's 11 death-row inmates who have exhausted all of their appeals. Michael Ryan died Sunday, according to the Nebraska Department of Correctional Services website. Ryan, 66, was sentenced to death in 1985 in the cult-related torture and killings of James Thimm, 26, and Luke Stice, 5, near Rulo. In January, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected the latest appeal effort by the death row inmate, 9 months after the Nebraska Supreme Court did the same. Miriam Thimm Kelle's son was in diapers when Ryan tortured his uncle. Her son is grown now and has 2 kids of his own. That's how long Ryan, convicted of Thimm's murder, had been on death row waiting for his sentence to be carried out. Her brother was killed 30 years ago next month. Kelle and 3 others whose loved ones were murdered in the Ryan's cult compound near Rulo spoke a few hours before a legislative hearing in March, pushing state lawmakers to repeal the death penalty. During the hearing, Kelle said Ryan had a medical condition that he would probably die from this year. The Journal Star was unable to verify Ryan's condition at the time. At the same hearing, State Sen. Ernie Chambers of Omaha said Ryan had terminal brain cancer. The Department of Correctional Services website did not specify Ryan's cause of death. (source: Lincoln Journal Star) *************** Deserving death During December 1957 and January 1958, Charles Starkweather, age 19, and Carol Fugate, age 14, went on a murder rampage, killing 10 people in and around Lincoln and 1 in Wyoming, for a total of 11 people. I ask you, liberal Democrat and Republican do-gooders, just how many people does one have to kill to deserve the death penalty ("Death penalty repeal passes legislature, awaits veto," May 20) according to your view of morality? You are not in favor of death for guilty sadistic killers, yet most of you favor the killing of innocent unborn children. What hypocrites. Have you no shame? James Proctor, Lincoln (source: Letter to the Editor, Lincoln Journal Star) **************** Social media campaign targets senators who want to repeal death penalty The death of Omaha Police Officer Kerrie Orozco is now part of the death penalty debate. Nebraska senators are on the brink of repealing the state's death penalty and Gov. Pete Ricketts will not be able to veto the bill if the vote holds again. Last week's officer-involved shooting is providing the motivation for an aggressive new advertising campaign on social media. The "fliers" target Nebraska senators who want to repeal the death penalty. The messages suggest they're backing Sen. Ernie Chambers, who said in March that police are his ISIS. Sen. Tommy Garrett said the people behind the campaign are politicizing a tragedy. "Shame on all those people who are implying that we, veterans, somehow support the shooting of police officers," Garrett said. "That's absolutely over the top, it's off the scale. Shame on them." The group who made the ads declined an on-camera interview, saying they wish to remain anonymous. However, they issued a statement reading, "It is unfortunate that the Legislature repealed the death penalty the same day as those tragic events, but they did. The timing of this issue was not of our choosing. The Omaha Police Officers Association strongly supports keeping the death penalty." The group encourages Nebraskans to call their senators Tuesday, the same day as Orozco's funeral. (source: KETV news) CALIFORNIA: Governor seeks $3.2 million for more death row cells at San Quentin San Quentin State Prison is on the verge of running out of space for condemned inmates, and Gov. Jerry Brown has asked the Legislature for $3.2 million to open 97 more cells to accommodate more death row prisoners there. The governor's request, part of his proposed $113-billion budget proposal, has been greeted with a notable lack of enthusiasm by both those who support and oppose the death penalty. "It's not necessary, or at least it wouldn't be necessary, if we had some leadership from the Department of Corrections and the governor doing what needs to be done to carry out these judgments," said Kent Scheidegger, legal director of the Criminal Justice Legal Foundation, which has sued California in an effort to force the state to resume executions. There have been no executions in California since state and federal courts prohibited the use of a 3-drug lethal injection method in 2006. In a prepared statement, Sen. Loni Hancock, D-Berkeley, who introduced legislation in 2011 to eliminate the death penalty and substitute life imprisonment, said, "California is in a Catch-22 situation. We are required by the courts to address prison overcrowding and we are required by law to provide certain minimum conditions for housing death penalty inmates. The Legislature can't avoid its responsibilities in these areas, even though the courts are currently considering the constitutionality of the death penalty, and I hope will agree to end it." Hancock said she would "balance the need to follow legal and judicial mandates with the danger of throwing more money at a dysfunctional system." When the budget proposal was written earlier this year, San Quentin was housing 704 condemned male inmates, even though it has only 690 budgeted death row cells. 25 of the condemned inmates were being housed at the prison's Central Health Services Building, due to mental health needs. "The reason we need more cells for death row inmates is the death row inmate population is growing," said Terry Thornton, a spokeswoman for the Department of Corrections Based on a 6-year average, San Quentin anticipates receiving 20 new condemned inmates annually. Given the number of inmates who die or have their sentences overturned, the population is expected to increase by about 13 inmates per year. "Due to this rate of sentencing felons to death, San Quentin has run out of permanent beds," the governor's budget document stated. "Based on the critical nature of the bed shortage, it is not feasible to delay the approval of implementation of this proposal." San Quentin will make room for the additional condemned inmate cells by moving general population inmates out of 2 tiers in the Donner Housing Unit. Currently, 294 general population inmates share 241 cells in the Donner Housing Unit. Thornton said that after the reshuffle San Quentin will be able to comply with a court-ordered limit on the percentage of prisoners sharing cells. San Quentin is at 124.3 % of capacity; the limit is 137.5 % of capacity. 100 % of capacity would be 1 prisoner per cell; 200 % of capacity would be 2 prisoners in every cell. In 2011, Brown canceled plans, initiated under Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, to build a new $356 million death row at San Quentin. Since then, new legislation and a ballot initiative have reduced the prison population in California. AB 109, which the Legislature passed in October 2011, reassigned some convicted felons from state prison to county jail, and Proposition 47, which was on the November 2014 ballot, downgraded most nonviolent property and drug crimes from felonies to misdemeanors. The number of inmates at San Quentin has fallen from 5,151 in 2010 to 3,830 this month. Thornton said, "That's a huge drop." (source: Marin Independent Journal) USA: Capital Punishment Catharsis 2 weeks ago, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev sat morosely in front of a federal jury as they dropped a long-awaited bombshell verdict on him: Tsarnaev, the last remaining "Boston Bomber," will be put to death by lethal injection. Bostonians are hardly dancing in the streets. According to a Boston Globe Poll, only 15% of the city supports the death penalty for Tsarnaev. Throughout the trial, the family of the youngest victim of the attack, 8-year-old Martin Richard, has tearfully plead against capital punishment claiming that a life sentence for Tsarnaev would provide better closure and less legal follow-up for them. Mourning Bostonians lined up outside the courthouse on the day of Tsarnaev's sentencing touting freshly-lettered signs protesting, "Death Penalty is Murder." Capital punishment - a penalty designed to bring justice and vengeance to those affected by horrific crimes - clearly isn't doing too much good for the people it intends to heal. So where's the disconnect? Capital punishment doesn't make sense - not for the victims, not for their families, not for their communities and not for America as a whole. Lethal injection won't put a nation's suffering to rest. The state-sanctioned murder of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev won't soothe the scars of Bostonians, and one more death won't lift the burden of grief off of anyone's shoulders. Supporters of the death penalty for Tsarnaev believe that mourners of the Boston bombing victims will not have real closure until he's dead. In reality, eye-for-an-eye justice in the form of capital punishment is usually more of a burden on the bereaved than a life sentence would be. When a criminal is sentenced to death, the road to their actual execution is excruciatingly long and tedious. Death row inmates spend years, sometimes decades, waiting for appeal after appeal to go through before they are actually put to death. Families of victims are usually closely involved in these trials, tying their lives up further in their tragedy. It's impossible to even try to move on. If a criminal is given a life sentence instead, the process is a lot more cut-and-dry. The sentence goes through, and the family usually has comparatively little to do with the case while the criminal spends the rest of their lives quietly tucked away in a concrete cell. In most respects, they disappear. When was the last time anyone heard anything significant out of Charles Manson? Life in prison is about as out-of-the-spotlight one can get, even for the most infamous. Death sentences are an unnecessary media circus. Bostonians might rest easier knowing that Tsarnaev has faded into a life sentence of miserable obscurity, rather than being forced to sit through constant coverage of his death row appeals for the next several years. Especially for the families of victims forced to relive the tragedy again and again, appeal after appeal, spending the next few years involved in the legal intricacies of Tsarnaev's death sentence must almost feel like losing their lives all over again. Tsarnaev's barbaric act of terrorism is inexcusable, and he deserves to be punished for his crimes - but putting him to death is not the type of punishment that will facilitate healing for those affected by his actions. We cannot defend capital punishment on any kind of moral high ground - as horrific as someone's crimes might be, murder is still murder, even when it???s state-sanctioned. Violence is not a viable response to violence, especially when other alternatives provide better closure to mourners. A life sentence is by no means a pardon - in fact, a life spent wasting away in confinement is arguably harsher on prisoners than the reprieve of death. A life sentence for Tsarnaev would, however, make the mourning process a lot easier for those affected by the bombing who just want to try to move forward with their lives. The entire purpose of capital punishment is emotional catharsis for victims. The furious anti-death penalty protests in Boston are proof that death to Tsarnaev is not the kind of vengeance victims want - and if the healing of victims is what we're really concerned with, something has to give. (source: Opinion; Megan Cole is a first-year literary journalism major; (Univ. Calif., Irvine) New University) ************************* Why the death penalty is wrong I have listened to the Tsarnaev trial reports each morning for months on the way to work. I have heard the sentiments of those who favor and those who oppose the death penalty. However, I have yet to hear an examined or sufficiently coherent argument for or against. After considerable reflection, I am against. My reasons follow. 1st, it is very costly - studies have shown that it will cost, on average, more than $1 million more to put someone to death, given the many appeals required for such a final "solution," than life imprisonment. 2nd, and related to the 1st, more than 150 death row sentences have been overturned in the U.S. in the last 10 years when the prisoner was found not guilty due to newly produced DNA evidence, sometimes after nearly 40 years in prison. Have we fixed that "injustice" yet? So how many innocent people have been executed in our name and do we accept that this is just "the cost of doing business" for our judicial system? We all share in the guilt for the taking of those innocent lives in our name, but what punishment have we borne for that? 3rd, the death penalty has not been proven to be a deterrent. Studies have shown that, in order for a punishment to be an effective deterrent, certain conditions are necessary. Among them: the punishment needs to be meted out swiftly, it needs to be seen as being equally applied to all, i.e. not seen as social scapegoating, and the perpetrator must believe that they will be caught. Rarely, if ever, are all of these conditions met. 4th, if the death penalty is such a just and effective practice, why is the United States the only country among the 82 countries of the Western hemisphere, Europe and the old Russian Federation countries to have a death penalty on the books? What do we know that they don't? 5th, it is not clear that the victims' families even agree on this issue. We do know that, in the Tsarnaev case, closure might come much sooner without the death penalty, as life imprisonment would probably have begun already. Instead, appeals are expected to last at least another 10 years or more. Some have taken nearly 40. 6th, even the "eye for an eye" approach cannot apply in this case. Tsarnaev has only 1 life to give, 'though he has taken at least 3 and damaged many more. Some argue that "he deserves to die." Yet, deciding what other people "deserve" is way above my pay grade. Our government has a Department of Public Safety - whose job it is to keep dangerous people away from us until they are no longer a threat - and our Department of Correction is established to "correct" behavior and to keep people who are unsafe away from us, at least until they are "corrected" and pose no discernable threat to us. 7th, on a more philosophical note, I believe that my taking a human life, except in self-defense, diminishes me, as does the taking of a life "in my name." 8th, and finally, we are all appalled when we hear of a cold blooded murder, particularly when the victim was no threat to the perpetrator. Yet, in the case of capital punishment, we are strapping a person we have already captured down to a gurney and injecting a lethal poison into his arteries while 20 or more people and watch him writhe in pain for minutes, sometimes hours, until dead. Not in my name, please. (source: Guest Columnist, David P. Magnani; The Milford Daiy News) From rhalperi at smu.edu Mon May 25 11:53:32 2015 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Mon, 25 May 2015 11:53:32 -0500 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide Message-ID: May 25 PHILIPPINES/UNITED ARAB EMIRATES: Philippine embassy offers aid to maid given death penalty in Al Ain A maid in Al Ain who was given the death penalty for killing her Emirati employer will launch an appeal against her sentence with the help of the Philippine embassy, senior diplomats said yesterday. Officials at Manila's Department of Foreign Affairs and the Philippine embassy in Abu Dhabi have identified the 28-year-old woman as Jennifer Dalquez, from General Santos City, in southern Philippines. She claimed to have stabbed her employer in self defence because he attempted to rape her. On May 20, Dalquez was sentenced to death by an Al Ain court for killing her employer on December 7 last year, said Grace Princesa, the Philippine ambassador to the UAE. "We respect the judicial system of the UAE and have full faith in it," Ms Princesa said. "We are now waiting for a copy of the verdict, and will meet with the lawyer to decide the way forward." Overseas Filipino workers who find themselves on the wrong side of the law are assisted through the Philippine government's legal assistance fund. Priority is usually given to the payment of lawyers to represent those accused of serious crimes or who are facing the death penalty. "The embassy has extended all necessary assistance to Dalquez, including hiring a lawyer," said Charles Jose, the spokesman for the Department of Foreign Affairs in Manila. "They will assist her in appealing her sentence, and her family has been informed of these developments." Ms Princesa, who met the mother-of-2 in prison last week, confirmed a lawyer was hired. "She was arrested on December 12, 5 days after it happened," she said. "Since learning about her case, we've provided her a lawyer, while our embassy officials have visited her in jail and attended the court hearings." Prosecutors allowed Ms Princesa to meet with Dalquez privately on May 19, apart from the diplomatic visits scheduled every Wednesday. "The meeting lasted for more than an hour," Ms Princesa said. "She told me that she killed him in self defence. I hugged her and we prayed." Speaking from General Santos City, Dalquez's mother, Rahima, told a local television network that her daughter stabbed the man using the same knife he pointed at her. Dalquez has worked and lived in the UAE since 2011, and was due to return home in January. She joins 88 other Filipino workers who are on death row in China, Malaysia, Saudi Arabia and other countries. (source: The National) ****************** DFA to assist Pinay on Dubai death row The Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) on Sunday said the Philippine Embassy in Dubai will be assisting a Filipina who had been meted the death penalty there in appealing her case. Charles Jose, Foreign Affairs spokesman, confirmed in a text message that overseas Filipino worker (OFW) Jennifer Dalquez has been sentenced to death by Dubai's Al Ain trial court for allegedly killing her employer on December 7, 2014. The sentence was handed down on May 20. "The embassy has extended all necessary assistance to Dalquez, including hiring a lawyer. The embassy will assist [her in appealing] her sentence," Jose said. He added that Dalquez's family has been informed of developments in her case. She is the latest OFW to be sentenced to death. The DFA earlier said there are 88 Filipinos on death row in various countries, most of them for drug trafficking, including Mary Jane Veloso, who had been lined up for execution in Indonesia last month. Indonesian President Joko Widodo, however, gave Veloso a temporary reprieve at the last minute. (source: Manila Times) INDIA: ACHR report examines use of 'collective conscience' in death penalties The Asian Centre for Human Rights (ACHR) has released a report specifically examining the manufacturing of 'conscience' to justify death sentence and the use of the 'conscience' in the judgements imposing death penalty which have already been declared as per incuriam by the Supreme Court. It also seeks to examine how 'conscience', which varies from judge to judge depending upon his attitudes and approaches, plays out as to decide whether an accused shall live or die. It also highlights the inconsistency of the Indian judiciary while considering the factors and circumstances to determine between life and death in a capital punishment case. The report states that the reliance on 'conscience' for imposition of death penalty is deeply flawed, fraught with malafides at every stage, and is often manufactured through scapegoating of the dispensable. It further states that some crimes such as the ones against women and children are so gruesome and become politically significant in the light of massive public outrage that it almost becomes indispensable for the State or the prosecution to find the guilty, even if it means tweaking justice, to assuage public anger. The report cites Nithari killings and Nirbhaya gang rape and says that the public anger is equally directed against the failure of the State and the system as much against the crimes and the criminals, which according to the report is forgotten. The report examines 48 judgements on death penalty pronounced by 2 distinguished former judges of the Supreme Court, Justice M B Shah and Justice Arijit Pasayat. Both the Judges are currently serving as Chairperson and Vice Chairperson of the Special Investigation Team on Black Money appointed by the Supreme Court of India respectively. The report attempts to illustrate how 'conscience' of individual judges play out the 'collective conscience' or 'judicial conscience'. (source: New Kerala) ******************** SC stays execution of death sentence of couple who killed 7 in UP The Supreme Court today stayed the execution of death sentence of a young woman and her lover convicted for killing 7 members of her family, including a 10-month-old baby, in Uttar Pradesh in 2008. A bench comprising Justices A K Sikri and U U Lalit issued notice to UP government seeking its response and posted the matter for further hearing on May 27. The warrant for execution of the death sentence of Shabnam and her lover Saleem was issued on May 21. The Supreme Court on May 1 had upheld the conviction and death penalty of the couple and later on May 15 delivered a detailed judgement for dismissing the appeal filed by the convicts. Senior advocate Anand Grover, appearing for Shabnam, asked the court that the matter be heard before any final decision is taken for executing the death penalty. In 2013, Allahabad High Court had upheld the death sentence to the couple awarded by a sessions court in 2010. Saleem and Shabnam were having an affair and wanted to get married but their relationship met with stiff opposition from the woman's family. On April 15, 2008, Shabnam's entire family, including a 10-month-old baby, was murdered and the woman initially pretended that her house in Amroha district of UP was attacked by unidentified assailants. It came to light during investigation that she had abetted Saleem in the crime as she made her family members drink milk laced with sedatives before the attack and thereafter herself throttled her infant nephew. (source: The Tribune) SAUDI ARABIA: Indonesian escapes death penalty in Saudi Arabia An Indonesian citizen on trial for adultery in Saudi Arabia, has escaped the death sentence after being found innocent. She was repatriated on Sunday. "The Indonesian citizen has been handed over to her family in Banyuwangi, East Java, after she escaped being sentenced to death by stoning in Jeddah," kompas.com quoted the director of Indonesian citizens' protection at the Foreign Ministry, Lalu Muhammad Iqbal, as saying on Monday. Lilik and her Bangladeshi husband were arrested in Jeddah in 2008 on charges of adultery and plotting with her husband to kill another Indonesian identified as Aisyah. During the court hearing, the prosecutor sought death the death penalty for Lilik. Her lawyer, hired by the Indonesian government, convinced the panel of judges through credible evidence that Lilik was not involved in the killing. (source: The Jakarta Post) MALAYSIA: An Inconvenient Moral Argument: Are You For Or Against The Death Penalty? Mahatma Gandhi once said, "An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind", but could the same be said about the death penalty or capital punishment? The sentence that someone be punished in this manner of death is usually reserved for murders, espionage, treason, sexual offenses, religious crimes (in Islamic countries) and drug trafficking. However, executions are often pondered upon and debated over its ethics and legality. Just like how many were dismayed by the recent Indonesian executions of eight drug convicts for their roles in a 2005 heroin smuggling ring. After their appeal was dismissed by the Indonesian Supreme Court, and their plea, rejected by the President of Indonesia, Joko Widodo, despite fierce international lobbying and widespread condemnation, the convicted were put to death by a firing squad. More recently, an Egyptian court sentenced the embattled ex-president Mohamed Morsi to death for his part in a mass jailbreak in 2011. Also, the 21-year-old Boston bomber, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev faced the same fate as he was sentenced to death by lethal injection for the 2013 attack that killed 3 people and wounded 264 others. While in Malaysia, just last 2 weeks, a Nigerian female student was sentenced to death by the Malaysian High Court in which she was found guilty of trafficking 765.9 g of methamphetamine at the KL International Airport (KLIA) four years ago. Judge Datuk Ghazali Cha, passed a death sentence on 30-year-old, Mary George Unazi, after finding that the prosecution had managed to prove the defendant guilty. Over the past years, civil rights unions have campaigned against the death penalty. According to Together Against the Death Penalty (ECPM), the abolition of the death penalty worldwide has increased these last 10 years -- Asia in particular. Despite this commendable progress, there are still numerous challenges faced to halt the use of the death penalty in the region, given the fact that some countries have resumed executions. Globally, the existence of the death penalty oftentimes have raised one underlying question: have we established our judicial systems out of a desire for rehabilitation, or out of a desire for retribution? A Quick Glimpse Of The Death Penalty In Malaysia And Worldwide In Malaysia, the death penalty is a legal form of punishment -- in which it is a mandatory punishment for murder, drug trafficking, treason, and waging war against Yang di-Pertuan Agong (the King), and the law has been extended to include acts of terrorism recently. The idea behind the death penalty in the country arose from a mix between the common law system that Malaysia inherited during its colonisation period from the British and the authorisation of certain punishments in Islam. Currently, death penalties are carried out through hanging, and the penalty is used for a variety of offenses. It has also been a mandatory punishment for rapists that cause death, also for child rapists. However, in Malaysia, only High Courts have the jurisdiction to sentence someone to death. According to sources, Malaysia has executed 359 people between 1970 and 2001, whilst 159 people remain on death row as of 2006. There have been at least 2 executions carried out in 2013 as reported by Amnesty International last year. Nevertheless, Amnesty noted that it was not able to gain the official figures, as there is a lack of information provided by the government on the matter. Meanwhile, based on reports, there is an estimate of 76 executions, and an estimate of 992 people on death row in Malaysia by the end of 2013. A closer look at the global distribution on the death penalty shows that in the past few years, many countries have abolished this capital punishment -- either in law or in practise. Reports show that 36 countries have retained the death penalty in active use, whereas 103 countries had abolished capital punishment altogether, 6 had done so for all offenses except under special circumstances, and 50 have abolished it in practise because they had not used it for at least 10 years or were under a moratorium. 22 countries were known to have had executions carried out in 2013, as reported by Amnesty International. There are countries which do not publish information on the use of capital punishment, most significantly China and North Korea. At least 23,392 people worldwide were under sentence of death at the end of 2013. Surprisingly, or not, Japan and the United States (US) are the only developed countries to have carried out executions. The US is the only Western country in the Americas to have carried out executions, with 32 states currently carrying out capital punishments. In 2012, 43 executions in the US took place in nine states: Arizona (6), Delaware (1), Florida (3), Idaho (1), Mississippi (6), Ohio (3), Oklahoma (6), South Dakota (2), Texas (15). The most recent statistics by Amnesty International and Death Penalty Worldwide also revealed that China, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Iraq and the US are the top 5 countries in the world recorded to have the highest number of reported executions by death penalty last year. Meanwhile, the most recent country to abolish the death penalty is Suriname in March 2015. Does Practising The Death Penalty Deter Crime? Of late, anti-death penalty forces have gained momentum along with many human rights advocates and organisations, to strongly renounce the use of capital punishment in all circumstances. These parties have also called for the abolition of death penalties globally, and this includes in Malaysia. Amnesty International (AI) Malaysia is among the human rights organisations here which have been lobbying the abolition of the death penalty for years, and has played a key role in succeeding to do so in many countries. Its efforts resulted in a record number of 117 United Nations (UN) member states adopting a resolution to impose a moratorium on the use of the death penalty with a view of complete abolition. Shamini Darshni is the Executive Director of Amnesty International Malaysia.Shamini Darshni is the Executive Director of Amnesty International Malaysia.In an interview with Malaysian Digest, Executive Director of Amnesty International Malaysia, Shamini Darshni (pic) said, Amnesty International opposes the death penalty in all situations, saying it is the ultimate cruel and heartless punishment which is akin to cold-blooded murder. "Crime has existed for lifetimes, and so has the death penalty. Yet, there is still crime and there is still state-sanctioned killing. One does not solve the other. "States that impose the death penalty are not able to claim that the death penalty has reduced crime. It is clear that the death penalty does nothing to reduce crime statistics in our society. Therefore, it [death penalty] has and will remain a core focus of Amnesty International's work globally," said Shamini. She shared that Amnesty International produces the Death Sentences and Executions Report every year to chart trends on the use of the death penalty globally, detailing that in the Amnesty International's 2014 report, it is found that an alarming number of the 22 countries which performed executions used the death penalty to respond to real or perceived threats to state security and public safety posed by terrorism, crime or internal instability. "Even though the death penalty does not have a particular deterrent effect on crime compared to other forms of punishment, we still consider that the trend towards global abolition is progressing in which the number of executions recorded by Amnesty International dropped from at least 778 in 2013 to at least 607 in 2014, a drop of almost 22%. "The long-term trend of the world moving away from the death penalty is still clear. In 2014, 22 countries executed the death penalty, while 2 decades ago, in 1995, that number stood at 41. At the same time, we also saw a troubling increase in the number of death sentences, which rose from at least 1,925 in 2013 to at least 2,466 in 2014, a jump of a staggering 28%," she pointed out. "We have discovered many glaring things about countries that impose the death penalty after years of research in this area. These include how the death penalty is used as a populist tool to win elections when crime rates are high, and how it has been abused by biased criminal justice systems which have sentenced people to death en bloc for political reasons," she said. On whether the use of the death penalty should be objectively pursued and used only in certain crimes, she said: "It is true that international law limits the use of the death penalty to the 'most serious offenses' which translates to meaning 'intentional killing', but it has to be noted that the death penalty violates the right to life, and life, whomever it belongs to, is sacred." "There is no proof that the death penalty stops drugs from hitting the streets, but there are many years of research which prove that it does not reduce or eliminate it. If the death penalty does deter would-be criminals, would we not be a crime-free society?" she questioned. "Therefore, we oppose the death penalty in all cases without exception regardless of the nature or circumstances of the crime, guilt or other characteristics of the individual, or the method used by the state to carry out the execution," she remarked. In 2012, the government announced its plans to review the country???s mandatory death penalty laws, which do not allow judges to consider mitigating circumstances in death penalty murder cases. This clearly shows the government's adamant stance on the use of death penalty in the country. Commenting further on the matter, Shamini said: "We understand that the Attorney-General's Chambers is currently studying the use of the mandatory death penalty, as it reported during its Universal Periodic Review to the UN Human Rights Council earlier this year. "However, we remain positive that the government is open towards abolishing the death penalty. Still, this cannot come soon enough, and we urge the Malaysian government to immediately impose a temporary halt on using the death penalty with a view of total abolition," she added. Movements Toward The Abolition Of Death Penalty In view that every individual has the right to live regardless their committed crimes, human rights activists and abolitionists have strongly renounced the death penalty, believing it to be cruel and inhumane. Those in particular that sternly echo such are the European Union (EU), Amnesty International, Together Against the Death Penalty (ECPM) and Human Rights Watch. Over the years, the European Union has been working towards universal abolition of the death penalty as a strongly held policy agreed by all EU Member States in which EU will advocate the immediate establishment of a moratorium on the use of death penalty with a view to abolition. Mr. Luc Vandebon is the Ambassador and Head of Delegation of the European Union to Malaysia. "The death penalty is cruel, unnecessary and inhumane. While the European Union understands that no legal system is flawless, we are deeply concerned that any miscarriage of justice could lead to the loss of an innocent life. It is therefore that the EU has a strong and unequivocal opposition to the death penalty in all times and in all circumstances, and we will continue our long-standing campaign against the death penalty alongside with the growing momentum towards its abolition worldwide. "We consider the death penalty as an unlawful 'premeditated' killing of one human being by another as it constitutes serious violation of human rights and human dignity. Besides, there is no compelling evidence that exists to show that death penalty serves as a deterrent to crime," he said. Asked what the EU can do to positively contribute to the death penalty debate in Malaysia, he explained that the EU have an active policy of dialogue, campaign and cooperation with the Malaysian government. "This is done through exchanges between judicial authorities and dialogues on the different matters linked to the death penalty, and through cooperation with Malaysia's civil society. We will continue to intensify our initiatives, including declarations on the death penalty in international fora and towards other countries," he said. He further remarked: "The EU will raise the issue of the death penalty in its dialogue and consultations with third countries in which the elements in these contacts include the EU's call for universal abolition of the death penalty and where its use is maintained, the EU will emphasise that states should only use the death penalty in line with the minimum standards." Commenting on the recent executions of 'Bali 9' drug convicts, he said: "The EU is dismayed at the latest series of executions in Indonesia. As friend of Indonesia, we urge the government to take heed of the views expressed by many in the international community in recent years and declare an immediate moratorium on the use of death penalty. "We stand ready to offer political support and practical assistance in combating the trade in narcotics and other criminal activities which pose challenges to the Indonesian society and beyond," he stressed further. Malaysians Speak Up About The Death Penalty Undoubtedly, the death penalty is a matter of active controversy in various countries, including Malaysia. While some regard it as cold-blooded and criticise it for its irreversibility and lack of a deterrent effect, advocates on the other hand, argue that it could deter crime, as it serves its purpose for granting justice, and provides closure for the surviving victims and their families. In order to understand the perceptions of Malaysians toward the death penalty, Malaysian Digest reached out to the general public who gave their take on the subject. "I strongly oppose the use of the death penalty. There is no justice in killing in the name of justice. By executing the condemned offenders, it goes to show that killing is acceptable even as a lawful punishment. If killing was wrong, executions would not exist. You cannot kill a human being to show them that killing is wrong, that is an out-and-out hypocrisy. Those who are sentenced to death should instead be made to stay alive and be justly punished for their wrongdoings. Life in prison is already a sufficient punishment. Death penalty, for me, is plain excessive because it is an easy way out." - Anthony Quah, 39, criminal defense lawyer "For me, the death penalty is a lawful and proportional punishment, therefore it should be strictly imposed to deter crime in our society. It is something like a spiritual medicine in the sense that it saves a man's soul as it can foster repentance and I believe it serves a great purpose to prevent an individual from committing heinous crimes, it saves them from further damnation. Therefore, I support the use of the death penalty because it certainly has a deterrent effect on criminal activities besides serving as a just means of protecting the society as a whole." - Kamini d/o Verrappan, 43, accounting lecturer "At the risk of sounding too harsh, I must say the only way to sufficiently express our disgust at atrocious crime offenders like murderers and terrorists is by executing them. Nothing else suffices. In saying which, one must note that the death penalty has been exercised since ancient times. Therefore, whatever the arguments may be against the death penalty, it cannot be said to violate the right to life because law is always law. One should be individually responsible for crimes he or she has committed. I am in favour of the death penalty, however, at the same time, it should be fairly applied." - Mohammad Sukhri Ramli, 21, university student "My opposition to the death penalty is an absolute, as there are no circumstances where I consider the government should have the ultimate sanction against the individual. For me, it [death penalty] does not serve any social purpose nor does it prevent criminal activities. Although I agree that serious crime offenders should be justly punished, but not to the extent of killing them. For me, an important message that needs to be conveyed to our society is that the death penalty is not about what the convicts deserve, but instead it is about how we, as the general public, should defend our own fundamental values and say no to the death penalty. I stand for mercy!" - Jonathan Chen Zhi En, 32, investment bank officer Quoting Shamini, who said: "In a study conducted by the Death Penalty Project (an organisation based in the UK) 1,500 Malaysians were asked about their thoughts on the mandatory death penalty. The study showed that support for the mandatory death penalty declined dramatically when mitigating factors were introduced in a case. This speaks volumes about the need for judicial discretion, and most importantly, when lives are at stake." In 2012, the Law Minister held that the government may replace the death sentence with an imprisonment term instead in recognition that such a sentence only punishes the drug mules and not those higher up in the chain. This was also in addition to the fact that the death penalty did not seem to have any deterring effect, thus questioning the need for such punishments to be meted out. Who knows what the Malaysian government's stance may be about the death penalty in the future - and whether or not we may head to its abolition. But in the meantime, the goal of any punishment, and the decision in the judicial system should be taken into consideration more adequately, because in the end, death is always painful. And if we ought to force it on anyone for any reason that doesn't permit nature to take its own course, we too would be guilty of equal cruelty towards criminals who are convicted to the death sentence. (source: Teh Wei Soon, Malaysian Digest) INDONESIA: UK foreign office 'lost important evidence' linked to death row grandmother Claims of lost evidence in the case of Bali's death row grandmother Lindsay Sandiford strengthen the case for a British inquiry, her defence team argues. The UK's vice-consul Alys Harahap has lost an appeal of her dismissal from the foreign office over having a relationship with another British inmate, Julian Ponder, the UK's Mail on Sunday reports. She told the newspaper the affair claims are "absolute rubbish" and has demanded Ponder's so-called evidence - secret recordings of phone sex made from his cell - be examined to disprove it is her. Sandiford, 58, alleges it was Ponder, 44, who manipulated her into carrying cocaine worth more than $3 million into Bali in 2012, by threatening her son. Mrs Harahap also told the Mail on Sunday her superiors in Bali lost a drawing by Ponder of the false bottom suitcase Sandiford used to carry the drugs. She claims Ponder told her the drugs Sandiford was carrying were his - but no action was taken over the lost drawing. "Since then I have asked repeatedly about where the paper is but they say they cannot find it," she told the newspaper. Sandiford's New Zealand-based lawyer Craig Tuck says the loss of potentially vital evidence must be investigated. "There needs to be an urgent inquiry into the handling of Lindsay's case by British officials and an immediate review of the decision by Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond not to fund her legal fight to overturn her death penalty in spite of the recommendation of 5 Supreme Court judges," he said. "A woman's life is at stake and it is horrifying to think the neglect and callousness of the British government may have effectively helped push one of its own nationals in front of the firing squad." Sandiford refused consular help from Mrs Harahap as the rumours of the affair with Ponder circulated through Bali's Kerobokan jail. In turn, Mrs Harahap told the UK newspaper the allegations against her were first raised by Sandiford to get back at the foreign office, which she felt had not helped her enough. She says rather than being romantically attracted to Ponder, she too was "harassed and threatened" by him. While Sandiford was sentenced to death for her role as a mule, Ponder's charge was reduced to drug possession, and he received only 6 years in jail. Sandiford's legal team last week notified Indonesian authorities they would file a judicial review into her case in about 6 months. Indonesia is planning more executions of drug offenders after last month sending 8 people to the firing squad, including Australians Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran, who once lived in the same Bali jail as Sandiford and Ponder. (source: sbs.com.au) IRAN: More Prisoners Transferred for Execution in Ghezelhesar Prison As many as 22 prisoners could be executed in the coming 2 days. Iran Human Rights reported about 11 prisoners who were transferred to solitary confinement yesterday awaiting execution in the Ghezelhesar prison of Karaj.evin-small New reports from IHR's sources show that at least another 7 prisoners were transferred to the quarantine section scheduled to be executed in the coming 2 days. One source said that the number of prisoners who were transferred today were 11, making the total prisoners waiting for execution in the coming 2 days 22. All the prisoners are sentenced to death for drug related charges and participated in a peaceful gathering inside the prison asking to be pardoned. Some prisoners believe that the executions are authorities' punishment for participation in the gathering. IHR is investigating the details. (source: Iran Human Rights) ***************** More prisoners facing imminent execution In Iran, on May 23, 16 prisoners were transferred to solitary confinement in Ghezel Hessar Prison in the city of Karaj in preparation for their imminent executions. The transfer of these 16 is taking place while just 2 days ago, on May 21, 11 prisoners were hanged in this prison. According to the statement of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), the Iranian regime executed 37 people from May 19 to 21 in prisons or the streets of various cities. Just in May 20 and 21, a total of 24 prisoners were executed in 3 collective hangings in Ghezel Hessar and Gohardasht prisons in Karaj. The Iranian regime that is called "Godfather of ISIS" is looking to intensify the atmosphere of terror in the country by these large number of executions in order to control social protests and the tumultuous state of the country. (source: NCR-Iran) ****************************************** 21 Unreported Executions in the First Half of May in Ghezelhesar Prison During the 1st half of May, between May 5 and May 19, 21 prisoners with drug related charges were executed by hanging in Ghezelhesar prison. According to the report of Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA), 12 prisoners on Tuesday May 5 and 9 other on Tuesday May 19 were executed in Ghezelhesar prison. An informed source told HRANA's reporter, "most of these prisoners had spent between 7 to 12 years in prison, despite having death sentence, and they smuggled maximum of 500 gr drugs". According to HRANA, during past weeks, number of performed execution and especially public executions has increased. Besides the high number, performances of these executions were semi-secret and undisclosed and lack of commitment of judicial for informing public, has raised the concerns of human rights activists. (source: HRANA news agency) From rhalperi at smu.edu Mon May 25 12:51:51 2015 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Mon, 25 May 2015 12:51:51 -0500 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS Message-ID: http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/please-help-to-stop-the-execution-of-lester-bower/ From rhalperi at smu.edu Tue May 26 20:22:31 2015 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Tue, 26 May 2015 20:22:31 -0500 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, DEL., GA., IND., KAN. Message-ID: May 26 TEXAS: Texas district attorney will seek death penalty for two men accused of murder----Villegas and Najera left body of Anna Villegas north of Loving The 2 men accused of killing a 24-year-old Texas woman and leaving her body near Loving will face capital murder charges. Juan Villegas, 30, and Carlos Najera, 43, were arrested Dec. 9, 2013 in Hobbs in connection with the death of Villegas' estranged wife, Anna Villegas. The Gaines County District Attorney's office, in Texas, said that the state will seek the death penalty for both men if convicted by a jury. A date for the trial has not been set the district attorney's office said. Anna Villegas' body was found nude and bound on the Pecos River north of Loving on Potash Mines Road on Nov. 28, 2013 by a hunter. Anna Villegas was reportedly filing for divorce from Juan Villegas at the time of her death. Anna Villegas was determined to have died from asphyxiation by the New Mexico Office of the Medical Investigator. The case was investigated by the Eddy County Sheriff's Office, but both Villegas and Najera were extradited to Gaines County, Texas when detectives determined the kidnapping and death of Anna Villegas occurred in Seminole, Texas. Juan Villegas appealed an extradition from New Mexico to Texas after his arrest, but was denied and transferred to Texas in 2014. New Mexico does not have a death penalty sentence. (source: Alamorgordo Daily News) DELAWARE: Blocking death penalty repeal bill is wrong Blocking death bill is anti-democratic On May 13, the Delaware House Judiciary Committee voted to block the death penalty repeal bill from being discussed on the House floor. This procedural stalemate is both undemocratic and unfair. We urge our Representatives to override that decision and allow the bill to move to the floor. As members of the Delaware Human Relations Commission, we administer some of Delaware's anti-discrimination laws, including the Equal Accommodations Law and the Fair Housing Act. It is our job to increase public awareness of civil and human rights and promote amicable relationships among the various racial and cultural groups within our State. The time has come to discuss the unjust and inequitable application of the death penalty in Delaware. The NAACP Legal Defense Fund has noted that Delaware has the highest percentage of minorities on death row, at 78 %. Delaware's black population is only 21 %. And according to a Cornell University study, a black defendant who kills a white victim in Delaware is 6 times more likely to be sentenced to death than a black defendant who kills a black victim. The death penalty is an unjust system, and it is time for all of the members of the House to talk about it. This bill deserves to be voted upon - up or down - by all of our legislators. Misty Seemans Delaware Human Relations Commission Wilmington (source: Letter to the Editor, The News Journal) GEORGIA----female to face death penalty Catoosa County judge hears motions in death penalty case A woman accused of murdering a young mother to steal her newborn was in Catoosa County Superior Court Tuesday, May 26, as the judge heard motions in the death penalty case prior to trial later this year. 37-year-old Catherine Joann Goins of Hixson, Tenn., has been in jail for 245 days after being brought back to Catoosa County on Sept. 24 and denied bond on charges of felony murder, malice murder, aggravated assault, tampering with evidence, and possession of a firearm during commission of or attempt to commit a crime. The arrest came 4 days after detectives concluded she lured 30-year-old Natalia Roberts and her children to a friend's house in Catoosa County and then shot and killed her on Friday, Sept. 19. Tuesday's hearing consisted of motions to determine what specific testimony will be allowed in court during trial, more time for the new defense team to review the details of the case, and how Goins will be allowed to dress when facing the charges. Goins also re-entered her plea of not guilty in the case. Judge Ralph Van Pelt Jr. listened to more than a dozen motions filed by Goins' defense team of Jerilyn Bell and Crystal Bice. The duo has yet to state whether they might file motions regarding Goins' mental state at the time the crime was committed. Van Pelt ruled that Goins will be allowed to wear civilian clothes during the trial, and that both the defense and state will help put a security plan in place so that she will not have to be shackled during the proceedings. Van Pelt also ruled that all investigative agencies are to preserve interview/investigation notes related to the trial, and that no evidence be destroyed while being tested and/or re-tested. In addition to asking for all additional notes, reports, and recorded interviews by investigators, the defense asked for additional time so they can have ample time to review the case. Initially, Goins was being represented by Lookout Mountain Judicial Circuit lead public defender David Dunn, but the case was turned over to Capital Defender's Office in January after district attorney Herbert E. "Buzz" Franklin filed to seek the death penalty. Both Bell and Bice have tried death penalty cases before. The case falls under the Georgia's statue of crimes punishable by the death penalty, which is defined as "murder with aggravating circumstances; kidnapping with bodily injury or ransom when the victim dies; aircraft hijacking; and treason." Van Pelt set an Oct. 30 deadline for the defense to file any more motions in the case before hearing them beginning Nov. 9. To date, Goins' attorneys have not requested any bond in the case. As was the case during an April hearing, a number of Natalia Roberts' friends and family were present for the hearing. Background Sheriff's deputies initially responded to the Smoketree Circle resident regarding a woman's claim that she'd shot an intruder in the house, but Catoosa County sheriff Gary Sisk later revealed that the incident was a cold-blooded murder rather than a defensive home shooting. "We're calling it murder, because that's what it is," Sisk said. "She flat out murdered her." According to Sisk, deputies responded to the scene on a call of an invasion and defensive shooting, but ultimately determined that Goins set up Roberts. "She lured her there under the pretense of giving her some baby clothes for her newly born baby," Sisk explained. "Once at the residence, Natalia was going down a flight of stairs where Catherine Goins shot her in the back of the head with a .380-calibur handgun." Sisk specified that Goins and Roberts had never met prior to the day of the shooting. Sisk added that Goins was arrested Sept. 23, at approximately 7 p.m. at a residence in Marion County, Tennessee. "She was arrested without incident by U.S. Marshals and the Marion County Sheriff's Office," Sisk said. Sisk also said Goins attempted to clean up the scene before notifying Richards, who was at work at the time, about the shooting. "She called the homeowner Tony Richards, and told him that she had shot someone in his house," Sisk explained. "Tony instructed her to hang up and call 911. Instead, Catherine Goins took Natalia???s two children that were at the residence, one 3 years old and one 3 weeks old, put them in her car and left the residence." After learning of the shooting, Richards continued to talk to Goins on the phone after leaving work and attempted to calm her down while still trying to get her to call 911. Sisk said Goins was not at the residence when Richards arrived home, and it was actually Richards who placed the 911 call at approximately 1:02 p.m. Goins did, however, make it back to the residence before police showed up. "She (Goins) did come back," Sisk said. "She was there when law enforcement arrived and we questioned her that night, but there was still a lot of information we needed to obtain." When detectives began investigating the case, Goins claimed she was at the house and heard a noise within the home. She then went on to say that she heard a 2nd noise and immediately ran to the bedroom where she retrieved a gun and fired it at a "darkened shadow" in the area of the hallway. Ultimately, it was determined that Goins committed murder with the plan of taking Roberts' newborn from her. "Catherine Goins had been living a ruse that she was pregnant with her most recent boyfriend's baby, but he had recently learned that she was not pregnant and left her," Sisk explained. "Catherine Goins killed Natalia Roberts because she wanted her baby." (source: northwestgeorgianews.com) ******************** High Court to Consider Georgia Death Row Inmate Appeal The U.S. Supreme Court will consider whether prosecutors improperly singled out potential black jurors in notes and then excluded them all from the death penalty trial of a black Georgia man accused of murder. The justices agreed Tuesday to hear the appeal of Timothy Foster, who was sentenced to death in 1987 after being convicted of murdering a 79-year-old white woman in Rome, Georgia. Lawyers for Foster say prosecutors' notes obtained through an open records request show that the name of each potential black juror was highlighted and the word "black" was circled next to the race question on questionnaires for the black prospective jurors. Georgia officials say prosecutors had race-neutral reasons for striking the potential jurors. (source: Associated Press) INDIANA: Paula Cooper, once US's youngest death row inmate, dead in apparent suicide ---- Indiana woman who was 16 when she was put on death row in 1986 had been released from prison 2 years ago after court set aside her death sentence An Indiana woman who was once the nation's youngest person on death row but whose sentence was eventually commuted to a prison term was found dead in Indianapolis on Tuesday. Indianapolis police said 45-year-old Paula Cooper was found dead of an apparently self-inflicted gunshot wound outside a residence on the city's north-west side. Cooper had been released from prison about 2 years ago, after the Indiana supreme court set aside her death sentence and gave her a 60-year prison term. Cooper was 16 when she was sentenced to death in 1986 after confessing to her role in the murder of a 78-year-old Bible studies teacher the year before. Cooper admitted stabbing Ruth Pelke 33 times with a 12-inch butcher knife in a robbery that netted 4 youths $10 and an old car. Cooper was 15 at the time the crime was committed. Her death sentence enraged human rights activists in the US and Europe and drew a plea for clemency from Pope John Paul II. In 1988, a priest delivered a petition to Indianapolis with more than 2 million signatures protesting Cooper's sentence. Pelke's grandson, Bill Pelke, who organized opposition to the death penalty after his grandmother's killing, said he was devastated to learn of Cooper's death. He said he worked to help Cooper after realizing that's what his grandmother would have wanted. "My grandmother would have been appalled she was on death row and that there was so much hate and anger and desire for her to die. I was convinced my grandmother would have had love and compassion for Paula and her family," he said in a telephone interview from Anchorage, Alaska, where he runs the Forgiveness Project, a charity that seeks to promote understanding and forgiveness. Pelke said he visited with Cooper while she was in prison and had last spoke to her last August. He was expecting to hear from Cooper next month, when she was scheduled to be released from parole. He said she had expressed an interest in speaking for his organization. "I have no idea what was going on in her life. I thought she was doing well from everything I had heard," he said. "I had hoped she would travel with us. She had always told me she wanted to help young people to avoid the pitfalls that she had fallen into. She said she knew she had done something terrible to society and she wanted to give back." 2 years after Cooper was sentenced to death, the US supreme court ruled in an unrelated case that those under 16 at the time of an offense couldn't receive the death penalty. The court said such sentences were cruel and unusual punishment and thus unconstitutional. Indiana lawmakers later passed a law raising the minimum age limit for execution from 10 years to 16, and in 1988, the state's high court set aside Cooper's death sentence and ordered her to serve 60 years in prison. Cooper's sentence was reduced due to her behavior in prison, where she earned a bachelor's degree. She was released from prison on 17 June 2013 after spending 28 years behind bars. (source: The Guardian) KANSAS: Kansas State study finds link between belief in pure evil, desire for death penalty----Study used fake newspaper articles about alleged murder in Kansas City A new study co-authored by a Kansas State University psychology professor finds beliefs in the existence of pure evil influence opinions on capital punishment. Donald Saucier, an associate professor of psychological sciences at K-State, is a co-author of "Demons are everywhere: The effects of belief in pure evil, demonization, and retribution on punishing criminal perpetrators," which appears in the scientific journal Personality and Individual Differences. For the study, 212 psychology students read 1 of 2 articles which allegedly appeared in The Kansas City Star newspaper. The articles described a recent murder in Kansas City, Mo., by a man who then admitted to committing the crime to police. Some students were shown an article in which the murderer, "Mr. Beatty," was described as stereotypically evil, taking joy from teasing and taunting area children and keeping to himself. Other students were shown an article in which the murderer was described in non-evil terms, as a typical family man who was looking forward to going camping in the near future. Both articles were fictitious. "Reading about a stereotypically evil perpetrator increased perceptions of him as evil, recommendations for jail time, recommendations to not grant parole, and support for his execution," Saucier and co-author Russell Webster wrote. However, for study participants who believed strongly in the existence of pure evil, details of the murderer's private life were inconsequential. "If they believed in pure evil, it didn't matter the characteristics; they were more likely to support the death penalty or life in prison," Saucier explained in an email. "The belief in pure evil overrode our stereotypically evil person." "Thus, the results indicate that the 'person' (i.e., people's preconceived beliefs about evil) had much more predictive value than the 'situation' (i.e., our manipulation of criminal evilness) in our study," the researchers wrote. The reason for this, according to Saucier and Webster, is demonization. Strong believers in the existence of pure evil tend to demonize and dehumanize those they see as being evil, making it easier to justify capital punishment. "Given their support for extreme violence and pre-emptive aggression ... it is reasonable that people who more strongly believe in pure evil possess stronger feelings about seeking retribution in general," the researchers wrote. Such findings could have real-world applications, Saucier said, in understanding how judges and juries determine prison sentences or capital punishments for those convicted of the most heinous crimes. "Thus, just portraying others as 'demons' can induce harsher reactions to perpetrators, regardless of any preconceived beliefs about good and evil," the researchers wrote. Study participants had their demonization measured on a scale by noting their level of agreement with phrases such as, "I feel that everything would be better if Mr. Beatty simply ceased to exist, but not before he suffers a lot." Saucier said life experiences are likely a stronger influence on beliefs in pure evil than religion. The researchers found that beliefs in pure evil didn't necessitate beliefs in pure good as they researched whether religious upbringings played a role in beliefs in pure evil. "This belief may change based on traumas, victimization and the celebrations of human success in our life," Saucier said. "We think it's a dynamic variable and influences our social interaction and social perceptions." Saucier said he will be conducting a follow-up study to determine how people who believe in pure evil and pure good would punish leaders of the Islamic State terrorist group. (source: Topeka Capital-Journal) From rhalperi at smu.edu Tue May 26 20:24:02 2015 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Tue, 26 May 2015 20:24:02 -0500 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----NEB., UTAH, CALIF., ORE., HAW. Message-ID: May 26 NEBRASKA: Nebraska Governor Vetoes Bill to Abolish Death Penalty Gov. Pete Ricketts of Nebraska vetoed a bill on Tuesday to abolish the death penalty in the state, testing the strength of a bipartisan group of lawmakers who said they would try to override his decision. "This is a matter of public safety," he said. "It's also a matter of making sure the public prosecutors have the tools they need to put these dangerous hardened criminals behind bars." "We have 10 inmates on death row - we don't have hundreds," he said. "We use it judiciously and prudently, and therefore we need to retain it. I urge all the senators who are making this vote, please sustain my veto." Nebraska is poised to become the 1st conservative state in more than 40 years to strike down the death penalty. Republican legislators who have voted in favor of abolition said they believed the death penalty was inefficient, expensive and out of place with their party's values. Other lawmakers cited religious or moral reasons for their support of the death penalty ban. Nebraska officials have had difficulty procuring lethal injection drugs in recent years. The state last executed a prisoner in 1997. In Nebraska's unicameral Legislature, 3 rounds of voting are required to approve a bill before it can reach the governor's desk. Last week, in the 3rd round, the Legislature voted 32 to 15 in favor of abolition. Governor Ricketts, who said the death penalty is necessary as a deterrent to dangerous criminals, had vowed for weeks to issue a veto. Lawmakers said the override vote, which could happen as early as Wednesday, would be extremely close: 30 votes are needed to override. State Senator Ernie Chambers, an independent from Omaha who sponsored the legislation, said in a telephone interview on Tuesday that he planned to make a motion to override the governor's veto. He declined to say whether he was fully confident the override would be successful. "I expect those people who voted for the bill 3 times, during the 3 stages of debate, I would expect them to do the same thing," he said. "But you never know. We'll just see how it turns out." (source: New York Times) ******************* 'This stops the trauma,' says sister of Michael Ryan's victim ---- Man convicted in 1985 cult killings dies in Nebraska prison Michael Ryan, who had spent 3 decades on Nebraska's death row for the 1985 cult killings of 2 people, including a 5-year-old boy, has died in prison, officials said Monday. Miriam Thimm Kelle never wanted the state to execute the man responsible for the torture and murder of her brother, James Thimm. But that doesn't mean she wanted Michael Ryan to escape justice. So she took solace from the news that the former doomsday cult leader had died Sunday evening, apparently from a condition related to a brain tumor, after spending the last 3 decades on Nebraska's death row. The 57-year-old Beatrice woman said Ryan's death means no more appeals, no more execution dates and no more opening of old wounds. "This stops the trauma," she said Monday. Ryan, 66, died at 7:45 p.m. Sunday while being treated for a "medical condition," according to Jessica Houseman, spokeswoman for the Tecumseh State Prison. The Tecumseh prison houses death row, which is where Ryan had spent nearly 30 years fighting first the electric chair and later lethal injection. Richardson County Attorney Doug Merz said Monday as far as he knows, Ryan never publicly expressed remorse for orchestrating one of the most sadistic murders ever described in a Nebraska court. Merz and another attorney prosecuted Ryan in a trial that had to be moved to Omaha to find an impartial jury. "The case has now been concluded," Merz said. The prosecutor disagreed with those who might argue Ryan cheated justice, pointing out that the man never saw a free day again after his 1985 arrest and subsequent conviction. "He was never able to be released from prison," Merz said. "He was prevented from doing any more harm to any individuals, so that is my position." Ryan's death comes just days after the Nebraska Legislature voted to repeal the death penalty and replace it with a maximum sentence of life in prison. Gov. Pete Ricketts is expected to officially veto Legislative Bill 268 today. Omaha Sen. Ernie Chambers, who sponsored the repeal bill, said Monday he expects to have the minimum 30 votes necessary to override the veto. Earlier this year, Chambers predicted Ryan would die of brain cancer before he could be executed. Chambers said Monday the Ryan case illustrates that legal battles mean "in effect, the death penalty can't be carried out." Sen. Beau McCoy of Omaha, who has led the fight against the repeal measure, said he disagreed with those who argued Ryan never would have been executed. "Had he survived, the sentence certainly would have been carried out," McCoy said, predicting a close vote on the veto override. Attorney General Doug Peterson recently identified Ryan as 1 of 3 death row inmates - along with Carey Dean Moore and John Lotter - who had exhausted their appeals. Lawyers who represent condemned inmates, however, argued that the state???s recent purchase of new drugs to use for a lethal injection would open new avenues for appeal. The state has not carried out an execution since 1997. Ryan came within 3 weeks of being put to death, in 1995 and again in 2012, before winning stays of execution. In 2008, he saw the Nebraska Supreme Court declare the electric chair cruel and unusual, which led the state to adopt lethal injection as its execution method a year later. During recent weeks, Ryan's name has come up during legislative debates, mostly by lawmakers who argued his actions cry out for the ultimate punishment. Ryan was a 37-year-old, small-town Kansas truck driver and self-declared prophet who gathered about two dozen followers by exploiting racial and ethnic prejudice during the farm crisis of the early 1980s. He set up a commune on a former hog farm outside Rulo, a tiny Missouri River community in far southeastern Nebraska. Ryan claimed he communicated directly with God, which helped him convinced his followers to steal farm equipment and sell drugs to finance a stockpile of weapons. Ryan promised his flock it was all part of a grand plan leading to the Battle of Armageddon. But cult member James Thimm, 25, of Beatrice, questioned Ryan's teachings. In response, the cult leader ordered a series of punishments for Thimm, which culminated with 4 days of torture in late April 1985. Thimm was chained in a hog shed, where his torturers took turns lashing him with a cord and sodomizing him with a shovel handle. His legs and one arm were broken, the fingertips on 1 hand were shot off and Ryan used a razor blade and pliers to remove a graft of skin from 1 of Thimm's legs. Ryan eventually killed Thimm by stomping on his chest. After dumping the body in a grave, the cult leader ordered one of his followers to shoot Thimm in the head. Witnesses also testified that Ryan repeatedly abused 5-year-old Luke Stice, the son of another cult member. Ryan shoved the boy into a wall, which cause a fatal injury. Ryan eventually pleaded no contest to a reduced charge of 2nd-degree murder for the boy's death. Ryan and 4 cult members - including Ryan's 15-year-old son, Dennis - were convicted of crimes related to the Thimm murder. The other 4 have been released after serving varying prison terms. Lincoln attorney Jerry Soucie is one of several attorneys who represented Ryan over the years on death penalty appeals. While they never discussed details about the crimes, Soucie said Ryan was intelligent and knew his way around a prison law library. "Mike Ryan was just an old school outlaw," Soucie said. "He had a different view of where he fit into society, which is that he didn't fit into society." James Thimm was struggling to make sense of the farm crisis when he became involved with Ryan's cult so many years ago, his sister said Monday. She described her younger brother as a kind, considerate man who loved to make others laugh. Thimm Kelle said she was angry and distraught after learning what Ryan had done to her brother. But she survived the grief and,with the passage of time and a reliance on her Mennonite faith, she gradually forgave a killer. "I felt the evilness of Michael Ryan's actions would win if I didn't let it go," she said. Twice she wrote him letters in prison, asking to meet. He never responded. In recent years, Thimm Kelle has become an outspoken opponent of the death penalty. It's not a view all of her siblings share, she said, but she argues had Ryan been sentenced to life in prison, at least it would not have been a source of dispute in her family. Now, she hopes any lingering disputes just go away, along with the man who caused them. "We need to work toward as much peace as we can," he said. (source: Omaha World-Herald) ********************* Red, red Nebraska moves to abolish the death penalty By standard measures, Nebraska is a deeper shade of red politically than Texas. It's a place where Texas favorite son George W. Bush twice got a greater share of the presidential vote than he did in his home state. Still, the conservative bona fides of Nebraska's Legislature were questioned last week by its Republican governor, Pete Ricketts, after lawmakers there gave final passage to a bill that would abolish the death penalty. Vowing to veto the bill, Ricketts insisted his Legislature was out of step with the public's views on the matter. Nebraska's emotional debate and historic vote highlighted a question that's particularly relevant to Texas: Can opposition to the death penalty be consistent with political conservatism? More and more conservatives, in Nebraska and elsewhere, are saying yes, that capital punishment is a crude, unreliable stab at justice that society should discard as a relic of the past. They cite the enormous expense, questionable deterrent value and uneven application. Conservatives are more likely today to look at the justice system as a government program with a level of flaws inherent in any bureaucracy. In Texas and elsewhere, they are saying this: When the inertia of the justice system unfairly or wantonly threatens an individual's life or liberty, the state has crossed a line and needs to be restrained. This newspaper agrees with the fundamental criticisms of capital punishment and has opposed it since 2007. We take that stand with eyes wide open about Texas' strong support of the death penalty. A majority of self-described Democrats and Republicans and every ethnic group in Texas support capital punishment in opinion surveys. At a different level, no one can reasonably assert that Texas justice is airtight, or even close to it. Texas leads the nation in DNA-proven exonerations. Innocent men have walked free from Texas' death row. Wrongly convicted men who spent years in Texas penitentiaries testified in the state Capitol last week for different proposals to modernize the state's justice system. Republicans are increasingly working with Democrats on these issues. Many have come to regard the prison system as a vast, wasteful gulag that exacts too high a toll on humanity and the state treasury. They have come to see the war on drugs for the failure that it is. They see instances of prosecutorial misconduct that offend the American ideal that individuals must be protected from malicious power unleashed by the state. Conservative leaders in Texas talk increasingly about smart justice, as opposed to hard-nosed Texas law and order the way their daddies might have preferred it. We look forward to the day when it's not political suicide in Texas to ask whether smart justice might lead down the same path Nebraska has found. It's the right path to take. Death no more The 18 states without the death penalty and when they abolished it: Alaska (1957) Minnesota (1911) Connecticut* (2012) New Jersey (2007) Hawaii (1957) New Mexico* (2009) Illinois (2011) New York (2007) Iowa (1965) North Dakota (1973) Maine (1887) Rhode Island (1984) Maryland (2013) Vermont (1964) Massachusetts (1984) West Virginia (1965) Michigan (1846) Wisconsin (1853) Also: District of Columbia (1981) * New Mexico and Connecticut did not make their repeals retroactive, so they left people on death row. [source: : Death Penalty Information Center] (source: Editorial, Dallas Morning News) *************** Zeal for death penalty has been withering on judicial branch, too In his 4 decades as a public defender, Tom Riley has watched the mobs outside the state penitentiary in Lincoln cheer as his former client, Harold Lamont Otey, was strapped in the electric chair. He's watched another on-again, off-again client sit on death row for 35 years, sometimes asking to die. He's watched authorities march toward their hope of executing his current client, Nikko Jenkins, for shooting and killing 4 Omahans. So Riley has a grasp of the sobering power of the state. But in the past 15 years, Riley has seen something else: a slow withering of zeal for the death penalty in a key battleground, the courtroom. Riley and other longtime legal observers said they are only mildly surprised that the Legislature has come remarkably close to repealing the death penalty. The death penalty has been dying a slow death in Nebraska courts for years, said Riley, who was one of Otey's trial attorneys, and James Mowbray, who was Otey's appellate attorney and heads the Nebraska Public Advocacy Commission. Some of its decline has been procedural, the product of precedent, Riley and Mowbray said. In a landmark 2002 ruling, the U.S. Supreme Court said prosecutors had to declare at the outset whether they would seek the death penalty. No more tacking on the death penalty just before or after trial. The high court also added a layer to the process, ruling that juries had to decide whether aggravating factors existed to merit the death penalty. Then in 2008, the Nebraska Supreme Court ruled the electric chair unconstitutional - and Nebraska switched to the slightly less controversial 3-drug lethal injection cocktail. The change didn't pump any momentum into the capital punishment cause. In honest moments before hearings, Riley said, prosecutors, even judges, privately decried the death penalty as an exercise in futility, a dinosaur without any roar. Prosecutors began to grumble about the extensive exercise of going through death penalty hearings - often as the state had no means to carry out an execution. Even judges griped as the state combed Europe and India, looking for a supplier to provide a key death drug that U.S. pharmacies would not. Soon, those private grumbles bubbled to the surface. Retired Sarpy County District Judge Ronald Reagan, who presided over the case of child killer John Joubert, testified against the death penalty at a legislative hearing in March, saying most current judges would speak out against the death penalty if they were at liberty to do so. Even as Douglas County Attorney Don Kleine testified in support of capital punishment, he said: "The (death penalty) process as set out (in court) is a good process. (But) I do have reservations. ... I am in the trenches. ... I go before juries right now and I go before 3-judge panels. And, de facto, we don't have a death penalty here because the state can't ... get its act together as far as the penalty." So Riley, Mowbray and others got the sense that the death penalty was on its last legs. Still prosecutors such as Kleine pressed on with cases, securing the death penalty in what courthouse types called no-brainers: -- The 2001 conviction of Arthur Lee Gales for strangling and raping 13-year-old Latara Chandler and strangling 7-year-old Tramar Chandler, who witnessed Gale's attacks on their mother. -- The 2007 conviction of Roy Ellis for sexually assaulting and killing 12-year-old Amber Harris after kidnapping her when she got off a school bus. Then came another expected no-brainer. It would make courthouse attorneys rethink everything about the death penalty. Jose Oliveira-Coutinho killed his Brazilian boss, Vanderlei Szepanik, in Omaha in December 2009. He then ordered the hanging deaths of those who witnessed the crime - the boss's wife, Jaqueline, and 7-year-old son, Christopher, who were then dumped in the Missouri River. Oliveira was sentenced not to death but to life in prison. Riley said that ruling, known in Douglas County as "the Brazilians' case," sent shockwaves, crumbling the concept of proportionality: that similar crimes receive similar penalties. The question of justice, or proportionality, leads attorneys to engage in a sort of grisly grading system, comparing one killing to another. "It's a ghoulish exercise," Riley said. With the Brazilians' case, it becomes an exercise in futility, Riley said. Consider: Gales and Ellis both killed children to cover up crimes. Oliveira killed a child and his mother to cover up a crime. Yet Oliveira didn't get the death penalty. "What it showed more than anything is, the way we separate life-and-death cases is far too arbitrary," Riley said. The reason Oliveira didn't get the death penalty? One member of the 3-judge sentencing panel didn't believe the state's evidence, and a jury's conclusion, that Oliveira was the ringleader of the trio who committed the crimes. That judge's dissenting view spared Oliveira. That case, argued by defense attorneys Horacio Wheelock and Todd Lancaster, changed the landscape of all future death penalty arguments, Riley said. Put simply, Riley said, any competent attorney would argue: If Oliveira didn't get the death penalty, how in the world can you sentence my client to death? Madison County Attorney Joe Smith, a death penalty proponent, said 1 ruling isn't a death knell for the death penalty. At most, he said, it proved how thorough the process is and how much it weighs in favor of the defendant. Smith, who prosecuted 3 death row inmates who killed 5 people at a Norfolk bank, said he can hardly believe that the Legislature might be on the verge of eradicating executions. "It's tremendously hard for prosecutors to secure the death penalty," Smith said. "We use it sparingly in Nebraska - and the system is set up to protect the defendant. "A lot of people on both sides of the issue are frustrated that we haven't had an execution in a long time. But it's the Legislature where the holdup is. Not with the people. Not with the courts." Mowbray and Riley, who have represented dozens of killers, have witnessed 2 other death penalty pitfalls: -- It has created celebrities out of killers, disgusting victims' families. "You can name most, if not all, of the guys on death row," Riley said. "But name 1 person who is doing a life sentence from a crime 35 years ago? You can't do it. After their appeals are over, they sink into oblivion." -- It has created inefficiency. The death penalty phase for Nikko Jenkins originally was scheduled to begin last summer. Instead, it has been stuck in neutral for nearly a year after a judge declared Jenkins incompetent, then competent, to understand the proceedings. Nowhere is the churn more evident than in the case of Carey Dean Moore. Moore was sentenced to death in 1980 for the 1979 killings of Omaha cabdrivers Reuel Van Ness and Maynard Helgeland. Since then, the procedural history of Moore's court case reads like a manual on inefficiency. Sentenced to death. Sentence stayed. Then reinstated. Then stayed. Then reinstated. Then stayed. Then reinstated. Then stayed. Then reinstated. Then stayed. (6 times, in all.) At least twice, Moore wrote to the court saying that he wanted to be killed. Then he changed his mind. 35 years later, he's still awaiting execution. Few will celebrate if and when the death penalty dies, Riley and Mowbray said. But even fewer in the court system will mourn its passing, they say. "I think people are running out of energy - it just seems like we have better things to be doing," Mowbray said. "It's not something to celebrate or to curse. It's just time." (source: Omaha.com) ********************** Living without the death penalty "We got the state out of the killing business today," Nebraska state Sen. Ernie Chambers said Wednesday, according to the Omaha World-Herald. His state would not be the first to live without the death penalty; it would be the 19th. It also would not be the first to eliminate it recently; Maryland, among others, marked earlier points in the trend. But Nebraska is remarkable in 2 ways: It is deep-red, and the legislature's vote against executions was overwhelming. It is therefore the latest manifestation of a growing and positive movement, bridging left and right, toward smart justice reform. The vote in the 1-house legislature was 32 to 15, a resounding margin. Gov. Pete Ricketts (R) promised to veto the measure, but lawmakers are poised to override him. They should - and leaders in other states, including Virginia, should take their example. Mr. Ricketts went to great lengths to neutralize the arguments of death-penalty opponents. He dug up a case in which a murderer sentenced to life in prison eventually got out and committed sexual assault. The death penalty, he insisted, plays an "important role in prosecuting criminals, protecting our families, and ensuring that criminals remain locked behind bars." But, since 1973, there have been more than 140 examples nationwide of people sentenced to death who were later exonerated, pardoned or saw their charges dropped. Judges can adequately protect public safety without risking the heinous possibility of executing innocent people by locking up convicted murderers for the rest of their lives and blocking parole. Mr. Ricketts also procured drugs for use in lethal-injection procedures - which are increasingly difficult for state officials, because suppliers don't want to take part in executions - to make the point that the state still has a "functional death penalty." Yet the death penalty is wrong even if prison officials have the right drugs and condemned prisoners die peacefully. The possibility of killing the innocent is only 1 reason Nebraska's lawmakers voted the way they did. Some were motivated by religion, finding the death penalty incompatible with the imperative to cherish human life. Others objected to the cost of administering a system that demands exceptional care and still makes mistakes. "If capital punishment were any other program that was so inefficient and so costly to the taxpayer, we would have gotten rid of it a long time ago," state Sen. Colby Coash said. We would add that, regardless of your creed or your concern about public budgets, the death penalty is hostile to the essential dignity that civilized societies afford all human beings. Conservatives everywhere should consider what's happening in Nebraska. One place that could use some change is Virginia, the last jurisdiction in the Washington area that still executes people. The General Assembly killed a bill this year that would have limited the application of the death penalty to cases where there is conclusive evidence of guilt - DNA or a voluntary confession, for example. This would have a step in the right direction - if not the leap that Nebraska is taking. (source: Editorial, Washington Post) UTAH: Utah lawmaker seeks death penalty for sex traffickers Even as other states move away from capital punishment, a lawmaker has prepared legislation to expand the death penalty in Utah. Rep. Paul Ray's proposal would allow the state to execute child-sex traffickers. The Clearfield Republican floated the idea last session. Now, he has drafted a bill that he hopes to bring before a legislative committee this summer. "It's a huge problem right now, and the criminals want to take a risk [thinking], 'Hey, I'll take a few years in jail for this,' " Ray said. "Understand, these are the baddest of the bad. These people are monsters. I think it sends a message: Don't do this in Utah. Don't take our kids. ... Don't operate here." The proposal could spark a wider debate about whether Utah should execute criminals and whether, logistically, it can continue the practice. Ray successfully sponsored a measure this past session that drew global attention, bringing back the firing squad as a backup for executions if Utah is unable to obtain the chemical cocktail for lethal injections, a problem that has arisen in other states. When that bill passed, Utah's Senate Judiciary Committee voted to study the death penalty more broadly. Meanwhile, opponents of capital punishment cited a growing chorus from groups in Utah seeking to abolish the practice - although they still are seeking a sponsor for such a measure. Nebraska's Legislature passed a bill last week repealing the death penalty, although the governor may veto it. Ray's latest bill comes, he said, partly as a result of vice squad ride-alongs he has taken. The experiences prompted him to push several bills cracking down on prostitution and sex trafficking. He said he was inspired by the anti-sex-trafficking work of Utah Attorney General Sean Reyes, who traveled to South America last year as part of an undercover sting to break up such a ring. Ray is prepared for pushback from civil-liberties groups and others - and they are ready to deliver it. Marina Lowe, legislative and policy counsel with the American Civil Liberties Union of Utah, said expanding the death penalty is the wrong way to go, arguing it would not deter child-sex traffickers. In addition, the group generally objects to capital punishment because it is costly to carry out, does not provide closure to victims and has resulted in the execution of people wrongly convicted. "It's increasingly becoming more and more difficult to figure out ways to humanely, if that's even possible, put people to death at the hands of the state," Lowe said. "So expanding the death penalty seems odd." The Libertas Institute, a libertarian think tank, published an opinion piece in The Salt Lake Tribune last week calling for an end to the death penalty in Utah on similar grounds. There also may be constitutional problems with Ray's proposal. In the 2008 case of Kennedy v. Louisiana, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down a statute that imposed a death sentence for rape of a child and said that execution would be disproportionate punishment, violating the Eighth Amendment, in cases that don't involve the death of the victim. (source: Salt Lake Tribune) CALIFORNIA----new death sentence Convicted murderer sentenced to death----Miguel Enrique Felix commited multiple crimes in month-long spree throughout Coachella Valley in 2004 A man convicted of murder and other crimes in a months-long spree of home invasion robberies a decade ago has been sentenced to death. Miguel Enrique Felix was convicted in March of 2 dozen counts stemming from crimes that occurred from the summer of 2004 until the spring of 2005 in Desert Hot Springs, Thousand Palms, North Palm Springs, Cathedral City, Beaumont and unincorporated county areas. In the most serious crime, Felix was convicted of 1st-degree murder for gunning down Armando Gonzalez at the victim's Desert Hot Springs home on Aug. 11, 2004. Jurors found true a special circumstance allegation of murder in the course of a robbery, making him eligible for the death penalty. The same jury recommended capital punishment over the only other sentencing option -- life in prison without the possibility of parole. The judge had the option of imposing the lesser sentence. Felix was among several people who grabbed victim after victim at or near their homes, forced them inside at gunpoint, then tied them up with zip-ties, pistol-whipped and beat them, and ransacked their homes in search of money or valuables. In some cases, victims were kidnapped and taken to automatic teller machines or other locations to obtain money, while their children or other relatives were held at gunpoint by accomplices. It was during this spree that Felix and alleged accomplice Javier Rodriguez Hernandez, who has been at large for more than a decade, went to Gonzalez's home to rob him and shot him repeatedly when he resisted, prosecutors said. (source: KESQ news) OREGON: Death-penalty politics shift----It's time for Oregon to have statewide discussion Nebraska Gov. Pete Ricketts says he plans to veto a bill passed last week that would abolish his state's death penalty, declaring "the Legislature is out of touch with Nebraskans." It may be the governor, not state lawmakers, who is out of touch. In the state's unicameral legislature, which has 49 state senators, it takes 30 votes to override a veto by the governor. 32 senators voted in favor of ending the death penalty. That means Ricketts will have to persuade some lawmakers to change their minds if he wants to prevent Nebraska from becoming the 19th state - and the 1st red state in recent years - to formally abolish the death penalty. Nebraska has been steadily moving away from the death penalty for years. The Legislature voted to ban executions in 1979, but the move fell prey to gubernatorial veto. A temporary moratorium in 1999 met a similar fate, and a proposed ban in 2007 failed by a single vote in the Legislature. Nearly a quarter century has passed since the state's last execution. Nebraska's Legislature is nonpartisan, but it is dominated by conservatives. Its support for ending the death penalty reflects a growing shift within the nation's political right. While Republicans once defended capital punishment as a necessary deterrent, a growing number have begun supporting repeal for religious reasons, while others point to wrongful convictions and botched executions. Others cite it as a prime example of a wasteful government program. Executions have dropped to a 2-decade low in the United States. 35 people were executed in 2014, compared with a peak of 98 just 15 years ago. In 43 states, no executions were carried out last year. So far, 18 states have abolished the death penalty. In Oregon, voters abolished the death penalty in 1914, reinstated it in 1920, repealed it in 1964 and reinstated it again in 1978. After the Oregon Supreme Court declared it unconstitutional in 1981, voters approved a constitutionally proper version in 1984. Oregon carried out its last 2 executions in 1996 and 1997, during Gov. John Kitzhaber's 1st term - the state's 1st executions since 1962. Since then there have been none, and 3 years ago Kitzhaber, saying he believed the death penalty has been unjustly administered and is morally wrong, declared a moratorium on executions as long as he remained governor. Gov. Kate Brown, who succeeded Kitzhaber following his resignation, says she intends keep the moratorium in place. It's time for Oregon to have a long-overdue debate about the death penalty, a discussion that ideally leads to a statewide vote that clarifies where citizens stand on the issue. (source: Editorial, The Register-Guard) HAWAII: Settlement reached in mother's lawsuit over daughter's death A settlement has been reached in a mother's lawsuit against the federal government over the death of her 5-year-old daughter at the hands of a former Hawaii-based soldier. Tarshia Williams filed the lawsuit against the government over the 2005 death of her daughter, Talia. The lawsuit claims the military didn't report to the proper authorities that Talia's father and stepmother "abused and tortured" her throughout the 7 months she lived in Hawaii. In what was the 1st death penalty case to go to trial in the history of Hawaii's statehood, Naeem Williams was convicted of murder last year in his daughter's death and sentenced to life in prison without possibility for parole. Talia's stepmother, Delilah Williams, testified against her husband as part of a deal with prosecutors for a 20-year sentence. She provided disturbing details of abuse that included withholding food for days at a time and beating the child while she was duct-taped to a bed. Talia died July 16, 2005, after prosecutors say her father dealt a blow so hard it left knuckle imprints on her chest. A non-jury trial was scheduled for June in Tarshia Williams' lawsuit. According to court records online, a settlement was reached last week. Details are expected to be announced in court Tuesday. One of her Honolulu attorneys, Mark Davis, declined to provide details Friday. She testified at Naeem Williams' trial, saying the last time she saw Talia was when the child left South Carolina to live with her father in Hawaii. She said the last time she spoke to Talia was by telephone on July 2, 2005. Talia died 2 weeks later. After Naeem Williams was convicted, she told The Associated Press she believes the government could have done more to help her daughter, since military police had shown up at the house for various domestic incidents. Her lawsuit was put on hold pending the criminal trial. The government has denied that officials failed to protect Talia from the abuse that caused her death. Tarshia Williams and Talia's father weren't married but share the same last name because they are distant relatives. (source: Associated Press) From rhalperi at smu.edu Tue May 26 20:24:59 2015 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Tue, 26 May 2015 20:24:59 -0500 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide Message-ID: May 26 EGYPT: Arab Sharkas executions in Egypt: Justice or revenge? On May 19, the Egyptian Court of Administrative Judiciary was scheduled to look into a lawsuit that demands annulling the death sentence handed to 6 young men on charges of carrying out terrorist attacks in the case known as Arab Sharkas. On May 17, the same 6 were executed by the Military Court, which issued the initial sentence. The heated debates following the executions were different from others commonly associated with this type of trial, such as how politicized the verdict might be, the culpability of the defendants, or the referral of civilians to military courts. The controversy revolved around what was specifically unique about this case: the speed with which the executions were carried out, and the reasons for not waiting for the result of the lawsuit contesting the verdict. Lawyer Fatma Serag sees the lawsuit filed with the administrative judiciary as "the only available window for appealing the Military Court's verdict and putting the death sentence on hold." Serag said the decision to execute the defendants broke all the rules that have always been observed in such cases. "There's always a long time, usually years, separating the issuance and implementation of a death sentence, even when the verdict is final," she said. "The Prisons' Authority does that in order to give the chance for new evidence to emerge, and which may lead to postponing or annulling the verdict. Why was this verdict in particular carried out that quickly?" Mohamed Adel, head of the Litigation Unit at the Egyptian Center for Economic and Political Rights, said he had the answer to Serag's question. "The execution was carried out 2 days before the hearing of the other lawsuit to close any door to a verdict that might postpone the execution," Adel said. He added that even when a death sentence becomes final, it has to take a turn on death row, which means it waits until earlier death sentences are carried out. "This usually takes at least 6 months. In this case, only two months had passed since the verdict became final," he said, referring to the Military Court's rejection of the appeal in March. Adel said the defendants were deprived of their legal rights when they were executed that fast. "According to the law, families of the defendants have to be notified of the time of the execution, and defendants should be allowed final visits." Mahmoud Salmani, a member of the movement "No to the Military Trial of Civilians," saw the execution as an indication of the main problem inherent in the idea of military judiciary, since its very presence violates the principle of the separation of powers. "Judges in the Military Court are appointed by the head of the Military Judiciary Authority. This authority reports to the minister of defense who, in turn, is affiliated to the executive power," he said. "This means that the military judiciary isn't independent." A Human Rights Watch report voiced the same concern and demanded, weeks before the execution, that the defendants be retried before a civilian court. "Egypt's military courts, whose judges are serving military officers, are neither independent nor impartial, but in October 2014 President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi increased their powers to try civilians by expanding their jurisdiction over any crimes that occur on state or public property," said the report. Criminal sciences expert General Refaat Abdel Hamid said in the case of defendants facing trial before two courts, the court that issues the 1st sentence has the right to carry it out. "This applies to the death penalty and to cases where one court is civilian and the other military," he said. "In case of execution, the 2nd pending trial is automatically dropped." Ahmed Helmi, a member of the defendants' defense team, agreed with Abdel Hamid. "Filing a lawsuit against the verdict doesn't oblige the Prisons Authority to postpone carrying out this verdict," he said. "When the Military Court rejected the appeal, the verdict became enforceable and filing a lawsuit with an administrative court wouldn't stop it. The only exception would be if the administrative court accepts the case." Professor of criminal law Mahmoud Kobeish blamed the administrative judiciary for not treating the matter with more urgency. "The administrative court should've set an earlier date for looking into the case to guarantee that the execution could be put on hold," he said. Analysts who supported the execution of the verdict expressed their concern over the reaction of the militant group to which the defendants reportedly belong, namely Ansar Beit al-Maqdes. "The group will do its best to prove its existence, and to convince Egyptians and the international community that the verdict was politicized," said political writer Gamal Asaad. "That's why the Ministry of Interior declared a state of emergency right after the executions were carried out." Asaad also expected that several countries and human rights organizations that have opposed the ouster of the Muslim Brotherhood would condemn the executions. Revenge Professor of political science Tarek Fahmy said the revenge of militants has become more immediate than expected. "This was made very clear when 3 judges were assassinated in Sinai on the same day [former President Mohammed] Mursi and several Brotherhood leaders received a death sentence." The link between the executions and the killing of the judges took the controversy to a different level, as it was debated whether the decision to hasten the execution was aimed at avenging the judges. Hesham al-Mayani said what was more serious than whether the executions were fair is for the state to become party to a feud with militants and to allow this to impact its decisions. "It is obvious that members of the Arab Sharkas cell were not scheduled to be executed on that day, especially that the state had enough on its plate with the strong reactions the latest death sentences against Mursi and Brotherhood members brought about on both the domestic and international levels," he wrote. "This changed when the judges were killed." Mayani said he did not object to the verdict but rather to the timing, since it demonstrated that militants have succeeded in dragging the state into a cycle of revenge. "We will be fooling ourselves if we believe that the judges are now avenged because all what the state did was punishing terrorists it already had under its control for a crime committed by other terrorists," he said. "Punishment for each crime should target those who committed this crime. We cannot assume that punishing another criminal would stop the criminals who are still at large." Security experts, however, see fast executions as the way to speed up the elimination of terrorist cells. "It's important to get rid of members of those cells as fast as possible so that Egypt can regain its security," said strategic expert General Hamdi Bekheet. "Executions should be accompanied by a series of clampdowns on those terrorists in their strongholds." Military expert General Talaat Mussallam disagreed with speculation about an increase in terrorist operations following the execution: "Militants strike whenever they get the chance, regardless of death sentences their fellow-militants receive." For Mussallam, the assassination of the judges illustrates the growing danger of militant groups, and which necessitates their immediate elimination. "Militants were targeting army and police officers; now they've added judges." (source: Al Arabiya) ****************************** Egypt summons Pakistani ambassador over statement on Morsi's penalty Egyptian Foreign ministry summoned the Pakistani ambassador to Cairo Tuesday to inform him that Cairo rejects a Pakistani statement over Former President Mohamed Morsi's death sentence. The Pakistani statement included unacceptable comments against the Egyptian regime, Egypt's Foreign Ministry said. "Further, our embassy in Islamabad conveyed the same message to the Pakistani side to express complete rejection of the latest statement by the Pakistani Foreign [Ministry,]" Egypt's statement added. On May 19, the Pakistani Foreign Ministry issued a statement expressing its concerns over Morsi's death sentence, along with more than 100 others. "Therefore, Pakistan underscores the fact, highlighted by many other countries, that the dispensation of justice must be based on the principles of equity and fairness," Pakistan's Foreign Ministry said. "This is all the more important when political prisoners especially a former elected President, who was ousted from office, is brought before the court of law, Pakistan hopes that the Government of Egypt would take steps to meet the requirements of justice under law and would show compassion in case of political prisoners" the statement added. On May 16, Cairo Criminal Court sentenced Morsi and 105, including Muslim Brotherhood senior figures, to death for escaping from jail in 2011. On Jan. 29, 2011, assailants raided Wadi al-Natroun prison, freeing a large number of prisoners, including members of Egyptian, Palestinian and Lebanese Islamist groups. Morsi, who was jailed on remand, was among those who fled the prison. (source: The Cairo Post) KUWAIT: Kuwaiti student escapes death penalty A Kuwaiti student has escaped the death penalty after his victim's family pardoned him on Tuesday morning. The ruling was announced by the Sharjah Appeal Court on Tuesday. Another Kuwaiti student was also sentenced to death in the case but he did not receive a pardon from the family of the victim. A 3rd student involved in the beating of the dead victim was fined Dh1,000 earlier in absentia. The 2 Kuwaiti students have already spent more than 2 years in jail for their part in the death of Mubarak Mesha'al Mubarak, 19, a unversity student in Sharjah who died at University City Hospital on February 24, 2013, following several days of physical abuse, said police. The verdict is expected to be final as the victim's family's signed a paper pardoning the suspect, a prosecutor told Gulf News. The parents of the victim as well as the family members of the pardoned Kuwaiti attended the session. The decision is a reversal of earlier circumstances when the Kuwaiti victim's family asked the judge to give the duo the death sentence. They told Gulf News earlier they would never pardon the killers. The verdict was issued by Judge Hussain Al Assofi on Tuesday morning. (source: Gulf News) PAKISTAN: Pakistan SC dismisses plea seeking abolition of death penalty Pakistan's Supreme Court on Tuesday dismissed a petition seeking abolition of the death penalty in the country. Pakistan resumed imposing the death penalty in December after a Taliban attack on an army school in Peshawar killed 150 people, mostly children. Various rights groups have criticised the government for resuming the executions. Barrister Zafarullah had filed a petition seeking the abolition of the death penalty arguing that capital punishment was contrary to the fundamental rights. A three-member bench of the court headed by Justice Saqib Nisar dismissed the petition. The judge said that right to life and liberty are not absolute in the Constitution of Pakistan. He said that the death penalty was provided in the law and in accordance with the law, a person can be deprived of life. The court asked the petitioner to approach the parliament for change of laws to abolish death penalty in the country. There are more than 8,000 death-row prisoners in Pakistan and more than 110 have been executed since resumption of the death penalty. (source: firstpost.com) IRAN: Negotiating with the Executors of Children 5Despite pressure from global community and human rights organizations, a young man, Hamid Ahmadi, is at imminent risk of execution, according to Amnesty international. A few months ago, a Kurdish Juvenile "offender" was executed for charges such as "enmity against God" and "corruption on Earth." Iranian authorities carried out the execution despite international pressure. His family members were asked to collect his body the next day. In addition, although the increasing number of executions for minor crimes is appalling in itself in the Islamic Republic, the execution of children adds more evidence of the egregious human rights abuses committed by the ruling clerics of the Islamic Republic. In 2014 alone, 14 executions of people, who were less than 18 years old at the time of their "crime," were reported to Amnesty International. Possibly many other executions went unreported. Speaking on Ahmadi???s case, Said Boumedouha, Deputy Director of Amnesty International's Middle East and North Africa Programme, pointed out, "The death penalty is the ultimate cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment, but it is particularly troubling that in this case Iran is again set to violate the clear prohibition in international law of executing those who were children at the time of the alleged crime. If the execution goes ahead while the case is under review at Iran???s highest court, it would also be an appalling miscarriage of justice." He added, "The Iranian authorities should halt all plans to carry out this execution immediately. They must allow justice to run its course without resorting to the death penalty." Even under the new Islamic Penal Code of Iran, which is now in place, the Islamic Republic of Iran continues to executes children or those who commit adultery, sodomy, or drink alcohol repeatedly.M The ruling clerics consider the age of puberty as the legal age for considering someone an adult. In addition they consider a lunar year, which is shorter than the solar year at roughly 354 days, as a basis for calculating someone's age. According to the Shari???s Penal Code of Iran "A child is a person who has not reached the age of puberty as stipulated in Islamic Shari'a." As a result, a girl who is 9 years old can be legally executed for committing a crime based on the Islamic Penal Code of the Islamic Republic. Hypocritically, the Islamic Republic is a signatory member of the Convention on the Rights of the Child and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. Yet the ruling mullahs of the Islamic Republic blatantly continue to violate the Convention on the Rights of the Child. Iranian leaders point out that the new Islamic Penal Code has abolished child execution. Nevertheless, even under the new Islamic Penal Code the allowance of child execution is clear, according to article 146 and 147 of the Penal Code. Article 146 states that "Non-mature children have no criminal responsibility." And Article 147 indicates that "The age of maturity for girls and boys are, respectively, a full 9 and 15 lunar years." If a juvenile execution case draws international pressure, the mullahs utilize another tactic. They usually keep the child in the prison until he/she is 18 years old, then the government executes them, arguing the offender is executed as an adult. Iranian authorities continuously violate the following 4 crucial articles of the Convention on the Rights of the Child (a) No child shall be subjected to torture or other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. Neither capital punishment nor life imprisonment without possibility of release shall be imposed for offences committed by persons below 18 years of age; (b) No child shall be deprived of his or her liberty unlawfully or arbitrarily. The arrest, detention or imprisonment of a child shall be in conformity with the law and shall be used only as a measure of last resort and for the shortest appropriate period of time; (c) Every child deprived of liberty shall be treated with humanity and respect for the inherent dignity of the human person, and in a manner which takes into account the needs of persons of his or her age. In particular, every child deprived of liberty shall be separated from adults unless it is considered in the child's best interest not to do so and shall have the right to maintain contact with his or her family through correspondence and visits, save in exceptional circumstances; (d) Every child deprived of his or her liberty shall have the right to prompt access to legal and other appropriate assistance, as well as the right to challenge the legality of the deprivation of his or her liberty before a court or other competent, independent and impartial authority, and to a prompt decision on any such action. The case to execute Ahmadi is only one example among many. He was forced into giving a "confession," as many other prisoners have been. And his trial, as many other trials, was unfair, and flawed, with no adequate legal representation. Based on the Iranian Islamic principle of "knowledge of the judge," the judge subjectively decided to sentence Ahmadi to death. As Boumedouha pointed out, "Instead of sending another young man to the gallows after a flawed judicial process, the Iranian authorities should be launching an independent investigation into the allegation that Hamid Ahmadi was forced to 'confess' and incriminate himself." According to an annual report on the death penalty in 2014, 1193 people had been executed in the Islamic Republic since President Hassan Rouhani came to power; that means that approximately 2 executions occur every day. It is worth noting that we are negotiating and sitting on the same table with those Iranian leaders who are not only notorious for their anti-American and anti-Semitic sentiments, but also well known for egregious human rights violations against children. What kind of message are we sending to many Iranian people who are oppressed under the Ayatollah regime? (source: frontpagemag.com) SRI LANKA: Sri Lankan President pledges maximum punishment for culprits of Jaffna rape and murder May 26, Jaffna: Sri Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena today pledged maximum possible punishment to the perpetrators of the brutal gang-rape and murder of a 17-year-old schoolgirl in Jaffna. President Sirisena, who paid a sudden visit to Jaffna Tuesday, assured to take all measures to impose maximum punishment to the suspects of the crime through a special court. He stressed not to leave any room in the future for such crimes to happen in the country. The President met with the mother and the brother of the murder victim, Sivayoganathan Vithya today (26) at the Jaffna Governors Official Residence. Chief Minister of the Northern Province C.V. Vigneswaran, Deputy Minister Vijayakala Maheshwaran and Member of Parliament Mavai Senathirajah joined the President at this meeting. The 18 year old student of the Pungudutivu Maha Vidyalayam was gang raped and strangled to death. Her body was found with her hands and legs tied to a log inside a run-down house in Pungudutivu. The police have arrested nine suspects in connection with the crime. The gang rape and the killing shook the island nation sparking violent protests in Jaffna seeking justice for the young victim. The police arrested scores of protesters who demanded the police to hand over the suspects to them to meet justice. The protesters demanded a swift trial and death penalty for the suspects. Meanwhile, the Inspector General of Police has ordered to deploy 3 police teams to carryout expeditious investigations into the crime. The investigations have been expedited on the instructions of the President. (source: colombohomepage.com) INDIA: 2 persons get death in triple murder A Basti court on Tuesday awarded death sentence to 2 persons after finding them guilty of committing triple murders in 2011. The murders were a result of a dispute related to then panchayat elections, police said. 3 persons -- Pankaj Pandey, Shiv Prakash and Ratnakar -- were at a tea stall in Keswapur village under Paikulia police station of Basti on September 26, 2011, when 4 miscreants came on 2 motorbikes and opened fire on them. Pankaj died on the spot, while Shiv Prakash and Ratnakar died later in the hospital. A named FIR was lodged against 4 persons. 2 accused, Dharmendra and Surya Prakash, were convicted in the case, while other 2 were acquitted by the court lack of evidence. On Tuesday, the court awarded death penalty to Dharmendra and Surya Prakash. (source: The Times of India) INDONESIA: Wife planned Aussie businessman's Bali murder: prosecutor An Indonesian woman on trial for ordering her Australian husband's Bali murder did not act spontaneously out of anger, but planned the hit and stuck with the plan despite having time to change her mind, the prosecution has argued. Noor Ellis could receive the death penalty for pre-meditated murder, but the prosecution has recommended a maximum 15 years for arranging the ambush of her husband of 25 years, Robert Ellis. The 60-year-old businessman's throat was slashed in the kitchen of his Bali villa in October last year, and his body wrapped in plastic and dumped in a ditch. The crime has torn the family apart, with their sons Peter and John distressed by what they believe is too light a sentence. Ellis has asked for a sentence lighter than 15 years so she can support her sons. But Peter Ellis last week made it clear they don't want her support, walking away when his mother approached him at court. The son of murdered businessman Robert Ellis has snubbed his mother in court who is accused of plotting his father's death. Before Tuesday's hearing she told reporters she hoped her sons would one day forgive her. "I will keep on loving my children even though they hate me," she said. Prosecutor Ida Ayu Sulasmi said Ellis' defence had been inconsistent, selective and dishonest. It was clear from the evidence of 7 witnesses - the 5 men involved in the killing and 2 maids who abetted them - that Ellis planned it and played a role, she said. Ellis had picked up the men, given them a signal when Mr Ellis arrived home at the villa and later helped dump his body. Rather than ordering the hit in a fit of rage, as the defence had argued, Ellis had made a deal on the price and requested that it not be done "sadistically". "There was quite a time gap between the 1st time the defendant contacted Aril until the implementation of murder that proves that the defendant had the intention to kill the victim or there was no intention to abort (the plan)," she said. Aril, or Andreanus Ngongo, is 1 of 5 men on trial over an alleged involvement in the killing. Ellis has claimed she resorted to violence after suffering neglect at the hands of her wealthy husband for years. Her defence chose not to respond, meaning she will be sentenced next Wednesday. (source: 9news.com.au) PHILIPPINES: Shades of Sarah As of last month, per the records of the Department of Foreign Affairs, 88 overseas Filipino workers are on death row in a number of countries for various crimes, mostly murder and illegal drugs. Saudi Arabia has 28, Malaysia 34, China 21, the United States 2, Vietnam 2, Kuwait 1, Indonesia 1 (the celebrated case of Mary Jane Veloso, whose execution was stayed at the last minute by the Indonesian government), and Thailand 1. That number now goes up to 89 with another Filipino having been sentenced to death, this time in the United Arab Emirates, for allegedly killing her employer. Jennifer Dalquez, 28, reportedly stabbed her employer last Dec. 7 after the latter attempted to rape her at knifepoint. She was arrested 5 days later, and was meted the death penalty by a trial court last May 20. Dalquez, according to her family based in General Santos City, had been working in the UAE since 2011, and was scheduled to return home in January. The DFA says it has extended all help to her, and will continue to do so as she appeals her sentence. Another day, another OFW in peril. The DFA should ensure that, this time, Dalquez gets the best legal and professional help every step of the way to be able to present a thorough defense of her case. It's been only weeks since Veloso's reprieve in Indonesia, and the DFA should now have learned its lesson from the belated revelation of deficiencies, even instances of neglect, in its handling of her case. Notably, Veloso's parents have claimed that no DFA representative was present at the beginning of her trial for drug smuggling; she was represented by a pro bono Indonesian lawyer appointed by the court, and the interpreter tasked to help her was only a student at a local foreign language school. Veloso was apprehended in Yogyakarta airport in April 2010; the prosecutors had only asked for life imprisonment, but the court sentenced her to death. The Aquino administration, based on the timeline it has provided, claims to have unceasingly if quietly worked on her case by filing several appeals with the Indonesian government, all the way to its Supreme Court, which also upheld the verdict. But cause-oriented groups say the government was remiss in many instances, from neglecting to arrest Veloso's illegal recruiter immediately to buttress the case of human trafficking that could have been used to defend her (and that became, indeed, Indonesia's rationale for staying her execution), to the years-long runaround that her parents claim they were subjected to at the DFA as they repeatedly sought help for their incarcerated daughter. It's worth noting that before Veloso was arrested in Indonesia for alleged drug smuggling, she had first worked in Dubai as a domestic helper, until she had to flee and return to Manila when her employer reportedly tried to rape her. In this, Veloso and Dalquez, and Sarah Balabagan before them, share the common ordeal of often barely educated Filipino women forced by poverty to seek work abroad, where they are preyed upon, if not by illegal recruiters, then by employers who take advantage of their helplessness in a foreign land. Dalquez's case, in fact, bears uncanny similarities to Balabagan's. A Muslim from Maguindanao, Balabagan was a minor who lied about her age to obtain employment as a maid in the UAE. In July 1994, she stabbed her employer 34 times because, she said, the man wanted to rape her. She was first convicted of manslaughter and sentenced to 7 years' imprisonment plus the payment of blood money to the slain man's family. But a higher court convicted her of murder and sentenced her to die by firing squad. As in Veloso's case, her then-impending execution prompted frantic last-minute negotiations by the Philippine government, helped along by international outrage at perceived oppressive conditions of foreign workers, especially women, in the Middle East. Balabagan' s sentence was eventually commuted. Incidentally, Al Ain, the UAE town where she worked, is where Dalquez also ended up; it was the Al Ain trial court that meted her the death penalty. If the parallels between these two cases hold true some more, then perhaps Dalquez can hope for some form of relief. But that hope rests squarely on how the DFA and the Philippine government will handle her case. Balabagan's is a precedent case; her employer's family agreed to waive execution in exchange for blood money and 20 lashes. The DFA should exhaust all options to save Dalquez from death. source: Editorial, Philippine Daily Inquirer) PAPUA NEW GUINEA: PNG police to hear complaint over sorcery axe murder A group of Papua New Guinea highlanders are on their way to the police station in Enga province to lodge a formal complaint over an alleged brutal axe murder. A woman named Misila was reportedly killed after locals accused her of sorcery. Local men who believe in ancestral spirits had blamed 3 women following a measles epidemic that killed several people in Enga last year. The women were saved by a Lutheran missionary, Anton Lutz, and policemen in January, after they persuaded the men to give up the superstitious beliefs. However, Mr Lutz says on Monday 10 men came to Misila's home and killed her with an axe. He says a plane has been arranged to take a group from the village today so they can make a police complaint, which they hope will lead to a formal investigation. PNG passed a law bringing back the death penalty in 2013, and repealed its archaic Sorcery Law, after a spate of killings. However the death penalty has not been implemented and the Government says it will be debated again in Parliament this year. (source: Radio New Zealand International) BANGLADESH: Revisiting mandatory death penalty case Recently, the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court has been reported to declare section 6(2) (3) (4) of the Nari O Shishu Nirjaton (Bisesh Bidhan) Ain, 1995 (the Ain of 1995) and section 34(2) of the Nari o Shishu Nirjaton (Bisesh Bidhan) Ain, 2000 unconstitutional. According to news reports, the aforesaid provisions have been held unconstitutional because they provide for mandatory death penalty as punishment for the offence of causing death after rape. It may be recalled that section 6(2) of the Ain of 1995 was first held unconstitutional by the High Court Division in Bangladesh Legal Aid and Services Trust (BLAST) and Another v Bangladesh represented by the Secretary, Ministry of Home Affairs and Others [2011] 63 DLR 10. Pending availability of the judgment of the Appellate Division, it will be worth taking a fresh look at the judgment of the High Court Division. The material facts of the case is Md. Shukur Ali was convicted of rape and murder and was eventually sentenced to death under section 6(2) of the Ain of 1995. At the time of trial, Md. Shukur Ali was a minor. The petitioners filed a writ petition impugning, inter alia, section 6(2) of the Ain of 1995 primarily on the grounds that it provides for mandatory death penalty which is repugnant to the Constitution. In this case, the petitioners' first submission (which actually comprises 3 propositions) was that any laws providing for capital punishment if enacted before the Constitution's coming into force would be valid. And, if the laws which have been enacted after the Constitution's coming into force provide for capital punishment would be unconstitutional. However, in any of the aforesaid cases, the provision of mandatory death penalty would be unconstitutional. The aforesaid submission was mainly built on a combined reading of Articles 26, 32 and 35 of the Constitution. Relying on Article 35(5) of the Constitution - which provides that no person should be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman, or degrading punishment or treatment - the petitioners construed death penalty as a cruel and inhuman punishment. The petitioners' argument about validity of the pre-constitutional laws providing for death penalty derived from Article 35(6) which provides that the operation of any existing law which prescribed any punishment or procedure for trial should not be affected. In addition, referring to Article 26(1) & (2), the petitioners sought to vindicate the arguments that all lex lata and lex ferenda providing for mandatory death penalty would be repugnant to the Constitution and therefore, section 6(2) of the Ain of 1995 would be void. The petitioners, furthermore, submitted that any provision of mandatory death penalty was arbitrary for the reason that it curtailed the discretionary power of the court in adjudicating cases and therefore, would be repugnant to Part VI of the Constitution. The petitioners quoted from the Universal Declaration of Human Right (UDHR), 1948 and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), 1966 as well as cited foreign case laws in support of both of the submissions. The High Court Division dismissed the first two propositions of the first submission on the grounds that if death penalty is not allowed to be incorporated in the post-constitution laws, there would be discrimination in regard to treatment of offenders under the new laws as compared to those dealt with under the earlier laws. However, the High Court Division appreciated the second submission by noting that the provision of mandatory punishment would render the court into a simple rubberstamp of the legislature. The High Court Division observed that any provision of mandatory punishment would result in prejudicing the court's power of adjudication since the court would be prevented from considering the attenuating factors and compulsorily impose the mandatory punishment upon finding the accused guilty. Accordingly, the High Court Division concluded that the court should not be bereft of its discretionary power to determine appropriate punishment for any given crime. The High Court Division decided that any provision of law which provided for a mandatory death penalty would be unconstitutional and accordingly held section 6(2) of the Ain of 1995 repugnant (paragraphs 38, 42 & 45). The reasoning that mandatory death penalty is unconstitutional because it curtails the discretion is clearly the ratio decidendi of this case. The High Court Division's decision in this case deserves some discussion. For example, it appears from the reasoning of this case that section 6(2) of the Ain of 1995 (provision of mandatory death penalty) was held inconsistent with Part VI of the Constitution ('Judiciary'), and not with Part III ('Fundamental Rights'). Had the opposite been done, alternative sentencing would have been recognised as a fundamental right of the convicted persons. The High Court Division did not specifically point out which particular provision of the Constitution invests her with 'mandatory power of judicial discretion' in determining the degree and amount of sentence and how it is in conflict with a mandatory sentencing provision of law. If mandatory death penalty is unconstitutional because it limits the court's judicial discretion, all other mandatory penalties should accordingly be unconstitutional for similar reason although the court did not elaborate on this aspect anywhere in its judgment. Although in the final sense, the ratio of this case strictly involves aspects relating to functions of the judiciary or judicial independence, the decision, nevertheless, carries a strong human rights message which we are eagerly waiting to see to be capitalised. (source: Kawser Ahmed; The writer is an Advocate, Supreme Court of Bangladesh----The Daily Star) SAUDI ARABIA----execution Saudi executes 88th person this year, topping 2014 total Saudi Arabia on Tuesday carried out its 88th execution so far this year, surpassing the total for all of 2014 despite activists' concerns that trials are not conducted fairly. The interior ministry identified the latest to be put to death as Saudis Awad al-Rowaili and Lafi al-Shammary, who were convicted of smuggling amphetamines. They were executed in the northern region of Jawf, the ministry said in statements carried by the official Saudi Press Agency. Another Saudi, Mohammed al-Shihri, was separately put to death in the southwestern region of Asir for murder. The conservative Islamic kingdom executed 87 people in 2014, according to an AFP tally. Those beheaded this year include Siti Zainab, an Indonesian domestic worker convicted of murder despite concerns about her mental health, according to the Indonesian newspaper Kompas. Jakarta summoned Riyadh's ambassador over her case, a rare diplomatic incident linked to Saudi Arabia's executions, around half of which involve foreigners. Also among this year's dead are at least 8 Yemenis, 10 Pakistanis, Syrians, Jordanians, and individuals from Myanmar, the Philippines, India, Chad, Eritrea and Sudan. Saudi Arabia ranked among the world's top 5 executioners in 2014, according to rights group Amnesty International. Under the Gulf nation's strict version of Islamic sharia law, drug trafficking, rape, murder, apostasy and armed robbery are all punishable by death. Executions are carried out in public, mostly by beheading with a sword. A surge in executions began towards the end of the reign of King Abdullah, who died on January 23. It accelerated this year under his successor King Salman, in what Amnesty has called an unprecedented "macabre spike". Activists are unable to explain specific reasons for the surge, and officials have not commented. One activist said the death penalty is carried out only with the king's final approval. "So if the king is strict he will sign this paper," said the activist, asking for anonymity. - 'Secret' trials - Salman has adopted a more assertive foreign policy, and in April promoted his powerful Interior Minister Mohammed bin Nayef to be crown prince and heir to the throne. The Berlin-based European Saudi Organisation for Human Rights said in a report that the death penalty in the kingdom is "often applied to powerless individuals with no government connection". Ali Adubisi, the group's director, told AFP that economic factors could be leading to a rise in drug crimes. Many are turning to the illegal business "because they are poor", he said. Drug and murder convictions account for the bulk of executions in Saudi Arabia. But according to London-based Amnesty, only crimes of "intentional killings" meet the threshold for use of the death penalty under international human rights standards. It said court proceedings in the country "fall far short" of global norms of fairness. "Trials in death penalty cases are often held in secret. Defendants are rarely allowed formal representation by lawyers" and may be convicted solely on the basis of "confessions", Amnesty said in a report. With the number of beheadings soaring, the civil service this month advertised for eight new "executors of retribution". In a country where government officials are not known for their openness, all executions are publicised by the official press agency, and the interior ministry has cited deterrence as a reason for the punishment. The number of executions will rise even higher if death sentences are carried out against nine people who activists say were convicted after demonstrations that began in 2011 by the minority Shiite community. Among them is Shiite cleric Nimr al-Nimr, a driving force behind those protests. Adubisi said three teenagers, aged 15-17 at the time of their arrests, are also among the condemned. Although death sentences can be appealed to higher courts, he said there is "no transparency at all" about which stage the cases have reached, in what can be a lengthy process. "It's a type of torture for these people and their families," he said. (source: Yahoo News) From rhalperi at smu.edu Wed May 27 10:49:36 2015 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Wed, 27 May 2015 10:49:36 -0500 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----FLA., GA., ALA., OHIO, IND., KY. Message-ID: May 27 FLORIDA: Attorneys appeal convicted murderer's death sentence David Beasher Snelgrove, sentenced to death in 2002 by an 8-4 jury vote after he was convicted in the 2000 beating and stabbing deaths of his elderly Palm Coast neighbors, Glyn and Vivian Fowler, has appealed his death sentence multiple times. He was back in court in Flagler County Tuesday, May 26, as his defense team attempted to convince Circuit Judge David Walsh to throw out his conviction and his death sentence and grant him a new trial and penalty phase. Snelgrove, wearing the green and white jumpsuit of an inmate on death row, was largely expressionless throughout the hearing. The victims' children, Randy Fowler and Pamela Fowler Norko, traveled from their homes in California for the hearing. Norko, who dabbed at her eyes with a tissue throughout the proceedings, said the repeated appeals - which have included 2 before the Florida Supreme Court - have been hard on the siblings. "We went through the 1st trial back in 2002, then there was another hearing for the penalty phase, and we've been though 2 appeals in Tallahassee, and now this," she said. Her brother was also frustrated with the lengthy process. "All they're doing is pulling at straws trying to save him, after he murdered 2 wonderful people," he said. Norko said she is hoping Walsh, who will rule in the future after reviewing the case documents which must be submitted in the coming 30 days, will find for the prosecution. "We will fight to the end," she said. She noted that her parents had been friendly with Snelgrove, who lived across the street from her parents. They'd loaned him money in the past. But Snelgrove, then 27, broke into their home one night to steal money or jewelry to pawn to support a cocaine addiction. "All he had to do was ask my dad, and my dad would have done anything for him, for anybody," Norko said. But when the couple awoke and interrupted Snelgrove's burglary, he killed them, beating 84-year-old Glyn Fowler so brutally that he died of blunt force trauma to the head, according to Florida Supreme Court records. Vivian Fowler, 79, died of a stab wound to the heart, and both had "multiple fractures and stab wounds spread throughout their bodies," according to the document. Snelgrove pawned the couple's jewelry and used their bloodstained cash to buy cocaine. Detectives arrested him after a bloodhound tracked a scent trail to Snelgrove's house, where "police recovered a knife in the woods next to the Snelgrove home with blood matching Snelgrove's DNA," according to the Florida Supreme Court document. There were blood droplets containing Snelgrove's DNA throughout the Fowler home. The Florida Supreme Court overturned Snelgrove's sentence in 2005, then reversed itself in 2009, again sentencing Snelgrove to death. A subsequent hearing in 2013 also upheld the sentence. Most states with the death penalty require a unanimous jury recommendation to implement it. In the hearing Tuesday, Snelgrove's defense team, led by Tampa-based attorney Richard Kiley and attorney Ali Shakoor, made two claims of ineffective counsel during the trial: that Snelgrove's counsel failed to address a possible mental disability that could have prevented him from being sentenced to death, and that Snelgrove???s defense team failed to object to improper comments by the prosecution. Snelgrove's lead counsel at the time of his trial, James Valerino, testified Tuesday that an initial IQ test administered to Snelgrove in jail showed an IQ of 77 - too high for Snelgrove to be considered what was, at the time, referred to as "mentally retarded." The current term is "mentally disabled." A subsequent test found a score of 70, Valerino said. A score of 70 was, at the time, the very highest someone could have if they were to be considered mentally disabled. Valerino said in the hearing Tuesday that he had requested a continuance from the judge at the time in order to pursue the possibility that Snelgrove was mentally retarded, but the motion was denied. A forensic psychologist, Gregory Prichard, evaluated Snelgrove for the prosecution, judging him at the time to functioning at a "borderline" range of mental functioning that was not so low as to be considered mentally disabled. He'd evaluated Snelgrove's IQ as 75. In court Tuesday responding to questions from the prosecution, Prichard noted that Snelgrove hadn't been classed as intellectually disabled as a child. He'd instead been listed as emotionally disabled. "When they're saying it's emotional, they're essentially ruling out that it has anything to do with intellectual condition," Prichard said. And, he said, Snelgrove's written communications from prison didn't seem like that of someone with an intellectual disability, and people didn't react to him as someone who was mentally disabled. "In my mind, everything was consistently pointing that Mr. Snelgrove was functioning in a borderline intellectual range, not in a disabled range," Prichard said. Kiley asked Prichard if he had any way of knowing if other inmates had helped Snelgrove write the communications that Prichard had reviewed. He did not. Snelgrove's current defense team also found a former employee of Snelgrove's Miami-Dade county high school - Christine Mack - who had worked with Snelgrove when he was a child. Valerino hadn't done that, and Shakoor argued that he should have, and that his failure to do so constituted ineffective counsel and grounds for a retrial. But Valerino, who came to court Tuesday with a trolley loaded almost 5 feet high with file boxes full of case documents, said from the witness stand that he'd found no school documents listing Snelgrove as intellectually disabled. Shakoor asked Valerino if he'd traveled to Miami or sent a special investigator there to look for a witness who could testify to Snelgrove's intelligence. After the continuance he'd requested was denied, Valerino replied, "We did not have time to find a witness when we were in the middle of the penalty phase." Shakoor argued that Valerino could have sent a special investigator to Miami to look for witnesses who'd provide mitigating information, and that fact that he hadn't - and that he had not objected to statements made by prosecutor and former State Attorney John Tanner in openeing and closing arguments, when Tanner told the jury that Vivian Fowler hadn't run away the night of her murder because she'd been with her husband too long to flee, and that she must have known what was coming - constituted ineffective counsel. "These were objectionable matters," Shakoor said of Tanner's statements. "The first 2 statements ... were an example of Mr. Tanner inflaming the jury by getting in the mind of the victim." The defense team questioned Mack Tuesday through a video link to the courtroom. She testified that she'd seen Snelgrove regularly, though not frequently, when she was an ESE program specialist at Miami Central Senior High School, which he attended. "Mr. Snelgrove, I remember, was a tall skinny young man," she said. "He was pleasant, he was not a disruptive student. He did have a tendency to be truant." Shakoor noted that many of Snelgrove's school records - such as possible IQ tests that might establish mental disability before the age of 18, a potential mitigating factor in his case - had been destroyed by the Miami-Dade County School District by the time of his trial. He asked Tanner if it was possible for students who'd been classed as emotionally disabled for ESE classes to also have an intellectual disability. It was possible, Mack said, though common. When Snelgrove was in high school, she said, it wasn't possible for students to double up on ESE programs. On occasion there were other conditions, but the students were placed based on what was the best setting for them at that time," she said. But Snelgrove wasn't able to take regular courses, and was instead on an alternate diploma course, available only to students whose reading level in high school was below the 4th grade level. "He could not be mainstreamed into the regular academic classes," she said. Mack said in response to Shakoor's questions that she would have been willing to testify at previous hearings. "As a lay witness, Ms. Mack's testimony could have been very beneficial for Mr. Snelgrove," Shakoor said. "Mr. Snelgrove's lay witnesses were mostly family members or close friends. ... But as a juror, they're going to see somebody testifying for a family member, they???re not going to take it ... with possibly the same level of scrutiny as they would with somebody who was a non-relative, who's an education professional. ... Trial counsel, he had no reason for not finding Ms. Mack." Kiley said Mack's testimony satisfied the need for evidence that Snelgrove had an intellectual disability before the age of 18, despite the destruction of some of his school records before the trial. "The only records that could save this man's life have been destroyed," Kiley said. "This man was never going to graduate from high school like a normal person; he was reading at a 4th grade level when he was in the 9th grade. ... Evidence of onset under the age of 18 had now been satisfied." Attorney Scott Browne, arguing the case for the State Attorney General's Office, said that wasn't the case. "Did you see the number of boxes in here, your honor?" he said to Walsh. "Did that seem like an attorney who took his job lightly in this case? These defense attorneys left no stone unturned. ...Was (Mack's) testimony inconsistent with anything understood at the time? The answer is no." And the comments by Tanner during the trial also weren't grounds for scrapping it and starting over, he said. "Mr. Snelgrove received a death sentence not because of any brief comment by Mr. Tanner - he did it because he committed 2 heinous and atrocious, cruel murders," he said. "Nothing that has occurred in this courtroom should undermine the confidence in the death sentence that Mr. Snelgrove received for committing 2 murders in this case." (source: palmcoastobserver.com) GEORGIA: U.S. Supreme Court to hear Ga. death penalty case The U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to hear a death penalty case in which Floyd County prosecutors struck all prospective jurors who were African American in a capital case against a black man. The justices voted Tuesday to hear the arguments in the next term, which starts in October. Timothy Foster was sentenced to die in 1987 for the murder of a 79-year-old woman, Queen Madge White. Rome police found White Aug.28, 1986, on the bedroom floor in her home, where she lived alone, after her frightened sister reported it appeared someone had broken into White's house. A blanket covered White up to her chin and her face was coated with talcum powder. White had a broken jaw and a gash on the top of her head. She had been sexually molested with a salad-dressing bottle before she was strangled. Foster was arrested for White's murder a month later after police, responding to a report that he had threatened his live-in companion. The found items reported missing from White's house. He eventually confessed, according to court records. Lawyers from the Southern Center for Human Rights, who are representing Foster, say prosecutor's notes show a racial bias in jury selection. According to the appeal, the name of prospective black jurors were highlighted and the word "black" was circled in the race question on the questionnaires given to each prospective jurors. The notes identified them as "B#1," "B#2," and "B#3." The notes also show that the prosecution's investigator ranked black prospective jurors in case they had to seat an African American. There were 4 prospective jurors in the pool of 42 people qualified to hear a death penalty case; prosecutors struck all 4. Attorneys for the state successfully argued before the Georgia Supreme Court that prosecutors had legitimate, race-neutral reasons for striking the 4 African Americans and they did not rely on the investigator's notes. Those same arguments have been raised with the U.S. Supreme Court. Foster went to trial the year after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled it was unconstitutional to exclude jurors based on their race. (source: Atlanta Journal-Constitution) ALABAMA: Man charged with capital murder in 3-year-old son's 2013 death denied bond A Huntsville man charged with capital murder in his 3-year-old son's 2013 death was denied bond in a hearing held in Madison County last week. Maurice Antionne Cartwright, 35, is accused of choking and hitting his son, Jeremyah Shoulders, and causing bleeding on the boy's brain. The boy was taken to Huntsville Hospital by a relative on April 30, 2013, and died of his injuries 2 days later. Assistant Madison County District Attorney Tim Gann told AL.com Tuesday that the office is still deciding whether to seek the death penalty for Cartwright. Cartwright was initially charged with aggravated child abuse, but the charges were amended after Jeremyah died. Huntsville Police Investigator Chad Smith testified at Cartwright's July 2013 preliminary hearing that Jeremyah had marks on his head and neck when he was admitted to the hospital. The boy's mother said she had not seen marks on her son before he went for a visit with his father. A pathologist found that the child had suffered multiple blows to the head and nose. "She said injuries couldn't be from a fall and couldn't be from being shaken," Smith testified of the findings. "He was hit with something and it was more than one time." Cartwright reportedly told investigators that Jeremyah was taking a nap and when he went to wake the child up, he couldn't. He said that he put the boy on the floorboard behind the seat of his Ford Ranger and took him to meet his aunt, who then drove the child to Huntsville Hospital. Smith said at the hearing that Cartwright has 1 other son 2 years older than Jeremyah. The suspect told investigators that he would never hurt his children. (source: al.com) OHIO: 25 years later, Atwater murder case, conviction still generate controversy More than 25 years after an elderly Atwater couple were found shot to death in their home following what appeared to be a botched robbery, controversy continues to surround the conviction of a man sitting on Ohio's death row for the crime. Tyrone L. Noling, now 43, has been on death row since 1996, when he was convicted of aggravated murder in the deaths of Bearnhardt and Cora Hartig, both 81 years old, who were found shot to death in their home in the 6500 block of Moff Road on April 7, 1990. The Portage County Coroner's Office estimated the Hartigs had been dead for 2 days before their bodies were found. Both had been shot multiple times with a .25-caliber handgun. Noling, then 18, was a suspect in several prior home invasion robberies in nearby Stark County in the week prior to the murders. He reportedly was armed and pointed weapons at the victims in those incidents, but did not shoot anyone. The state Public Defender's Office and Ohio Innocence Project at the University of Cincinnati College of Law have been arguing in Noling's defense for several years. Portage County Prosecutor Victor Vigluicci said Noling's attorneys have put up "an endless string" of delay tactics and "red herrings" in their client's defense over the years. "We have vowed to continue to fight for the imposition of the death penalty in this case, and we'll do that as long as it takes," he said. Noling was indicted for the Hartigs' murder in 1992, while he was serving a prison sentence at the Southern Correctional Institution for burglary. His initial trial date in 1993 was postponed and he was not convicted until 3 years later. He has filed repeated appeals and seen several execution dates come and go. Numerous factors appear to aid Noling's defense. Noling's 3 alleged accomplices, Joey Dalesandro, Gary St. Clair and Butch Wolcott, were identified as suspects by the Portage County Sheriff's Office early on in the case. Called to testify against Noling, they have all since recanted their statements that Noling shot the Hartigs, or got on the witness stand and denied that he did so. St. Clair, now 46, continues to serve a sentence of 20 years to life in prison for aggravated murder in the Hartig case. He testified for the prosecution at Noling's 1996 trial, and dropped a bombshell: Neither he, nor Noling, were at the Hartigs on the day of their murder. Noling was convicted despite that testimony. Dalesandro was convicted of related charges, served 11 years in prison and was released in 2003. Wolcott, who was 15 at the time of the murders, received immunity for his testimony. Both have told other media outlets they were fed a story by investigators and coerced into repeating it in court. Noling has long sought DNA testing on a cigarette butt found near the Hartig residence. Earlier testing excluded Noling and his co-defendants as sources of DNA on the cigarette butt. In 2013, the Ohio Supreme Court recommended new testing on the cigarette. Portage County Common Pleas Judge John Enlow ordered the cigarette butt re-tested for DNA following a December 2013 court hearing, but it did not return any hits in the state DNA database, according to Vigluicci and court records. Noling's attorneys sought DNA testing on other items, including shell casings and some of the victims' property, in the hopes it might point to different suspects. No testimony was ever given that Noling was in the Hartigs' bedroom, but jewelry boxes from there were seized as evidence by investigators. Part of the state's argument against further scientific testing is that the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation "determined those items were so contaminated, back in 1990 when this crime occurred, when the case was investigated" that there is little chance any DNA from a suspect would remain on them, Vigluicci said. DNA testing was "practically unknown" in 1990, and "the protocols for handling evidence were not the ones we have now," he said. "Sterile gloves were not used, items were placed in the same (evidence) bag. They are not able to be tested for DNA because of that, were contaminated by officers holding them, and writing on them." Noling's attorneys countered that they wished to have a private lab test the items for DNA, because the Ohio BCI did not have all the necessary equipment to do so, according to court records. Vigluicci said former Portage County Common Pleas Judge John Enlow denied Noling's application for further DNA testing last year. Noling's attorneys appealed the ruling to the 11th District Court of Appeals in Warren as well as the Ohio Supreme Court. He said he expects the Supreme Court "will probably end up taking a look at" the appeal, as appeals in death penalty cases go directly to the high court, he said. In addition, the murder weapon has never been recovered. A handgun of the same caliber seized from Noling, one he stole during a previous robbery in Alliance, turned out not to have been used to shoot the Hartigs. A phone message seeking comment on the case was left for Noling's public defender. A witness, Nathan Chesley, came forward for a second time several years ago claiming his foster brother, Daniel E. Wilson, admitted to him that he committed the Hartig murders. Wilson, a 20-year-old Rootstown High School graduate, was living in nearby Edinburg at the time, and allegedly threatened to harm Chesley if he told anyone what Wilson allegedly said one night while intoxicated. Chesley reported the statement to Southeast school officials, who called the Portage County Sheriff's Office. However, it is not clear if the tip was ever followed up. Convicted of involuntary manslaughter in the 1984 death of an 81-year-old Elyria man during an attempted robbery, Wilson later was convicted of aggravated murder for locking Carol Lutz, 24, alive in her car trunk, then setting it on fire after she drove him home from a bar in Lorain County on May 4, 1991. Wilson was executed by lethal injection in June 2009. Another potential suspect was Bearnhardt Hartig's insurance agent, Lewis Lehman. Hartig allegedly told his doctor he was angry Lehman had defaulted on a $10,000 personal loan the couple gave him, and was planning to confront him. Lehman, who at one point had owned a .25-caliber handgun but claimed he had sold it to an "unknown individual," died in 1998, according to a September 2003 article on Noling's case in Cleveland Scene magazine. (source: The Alliance Review) *************** Death penalty should not apply to the seriously mentally ill: editorial Legislation introduced by Ohio State Sens. Bill Seitz, a Cincinnati Republican, and Sandra Williams, a Cleveland Democrat, would prohibit the state from executing murderers determined to have been seriously mentally ill when they committed their crimes. Under Senate Bill 162, someone who was "significantly impaired" by such illnesses as schizophrenia or bipolar disorder, and as a result unable to understand what he or she was doing or to obey the law, could not be put to death. That would be the case even for defendants deemed competent to stand trial and those ruled unable to pursue a defense of not guilty by reason of insanity. Those already convicted and on death row would have one year to appeal their sentences after the law went into effect. The proposal, which was among 50 recommendations made last year by an Ohio Supreme Court task force on the death penalty, deserves serious consideration. Mental illness is not something people choose, and if it is found to have contributed to their actions -- no matter how heinous they may have been -- it would be unconscionably callous to make them pay the ultimate penalty. Other sentences can meet the state's burden of protecting the public from further harm, up to and including a sentence of life in prison without parole. To pursue the death penalty, a prosecutor would have to prove that a defendant claiming a serious mental illness was not suffering from it when the crime was committed, or that the illness did not contribute to the crime. A disorder brought on "primarily by repeated criminal conduct or attributable solely to the acute effects of voluntary use of alcohol or any other drug of abuse" would not make a defendant ineligible for the death penalty. It's the position of the editorial board that the death penalty should be abolished altogether for several reasons, including its inconsistent application, the financial cost to the taxpayer, the potential for cruel and unusual punishment in carrying out the execution, and a belief that it is morally wrong to take a life in such a fashion. But as long as the death penalty remains on Ohio's books, the provisions of SB 162 would be a step toward guaranteeing that justice is served more fairly and humanely. (source: Editorial; Editorials express the view of the editorial board of The Plain Dealer and Northeast Ohio Media Group) **************** 'Victory' of death penalty for wife's killer gone, man says There was no doubt in Joe Byrne's mind that David Brewer should be put to death for killing Byrne's wife. "There simply was no alternative to death for David Brewer," Byrne said minutes after Brewer's execution on April 29, 2003. Today, 12 years later, Byrne says the thrill of "victory" he felt that day is long gone, replaced by ambiguity about capital punishment. "I felt like I'd won something," he said of witnessing the death of his former fraternity buddy. "But the death penalty is not all it's cracked up to be." Byrne, who now lives in New Jersey, returned to Ohio to speak at a "Voices of Experience" anti-death penalty event on Tuesday in Cincinnati, along with former Ohio prisons Director Terry Collins, exonerated death row inmate Derrick Jamison and retired Montgomery County Appeals Court Judge James A. Brogan. Byrne said in a Tuesday interview with The Dispatch that he still believes in capital punishment, but the "justice system is a mess," and not enough is done for crime victim survivors. "I was very disappointed afterward," he said of witnessing Brewer's execution. "I did not feel like I thought I would. I continued to feel very angry. I had let the death-penalty process consume me." Byrne watched from a nearby witness room on April 29, 2003, when Brewer was executed at the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility near Lucasville for murdering Sherry Renee Byrne. Court records show that on March 21, 1985, Brewer abducted the 21-year-old wife of Byrne, sexually assaulted her, threw her in the trunk of his car and drove around southwestern Ohio for 8 hours before strangling, hanging and stabbing her to death on a rural Greene County road. The morning of the execution, Byrne sat with his late wife's family members and then-Greene County Prosecutor Bill Schenck in a waiting room at the prison. Byrne had headphones on, listening to Bruce Springsteen's Thunder Road on a portable CD player. It was his slain wife's favorite song. Later, he angrily watched as Brewer died, never having apologized for taking the life of a young wife. "Where's the remorse?" Byrne said quietly from his seat behind a large window, a few feet from Brewer. 2 days after the execution, Byrne remembered being back home in New Jersey watching his son from his second marriage at a Special Olympics event. "I felt so sad. I couldn't stop crying," he said. "I didn't understand, because I thought I had got everything I wanted" with Brewer's execution. Since then, Byrne has come to grips with the sadness and anger, acknowledging that the feelings will never go away. "In theory, I believe in the death penalty, but not the way it's operating in Ohio," he said. "I would not want other victims to go through what I went through." House Bill 663, legislation approved last fall to permit the state to secretly buy drugs for executions, also contained a provision to create a joint House-Senate 6-member committee to "study the manner in which families of homicide victims in this state can best be supported by government programs, social service entities, and charitable organizations." The House just named its 3 members, but no Senate appointments have been made. (source: Columbus Dispatch) INDIANA: Paula Cooper, once youngest Indiana death row inmate, found dead ---- May 15, 1985: The body of Ruth Pelke, a 78-year-old Bible teacher, is discovered in her Gary home by a stepson. Pelke had been stabbed 33 times, and her home had been ransacked. May 16, 1985: Paula Cooper, then 15, and 3 other teenage Gary girls are arrested and charged with slaying Pelke. Cooper, Karen Corder, 16; April Beverly, 15, and Denise Thomas, 14, are said to have gone to Pelke's home under the pretense of seeking information about her summer Bible classes. The girls also took $10 from Pelke and fled the scene in her car. Lake County Prosecutor Jack Crawford says he will seek the death penalty in the case. April 21, 1986: Cooper pleads guilty to the murder of Pelke. Authorities say Cooper orchestrated the crime and stabbed Pelke 33 times. July 11, 1986: Lake County Court Judge James Kimbrough sentences Paula Cooper to death, making her the youngest person in Indiana history to receive the death sentence. No execution date is set because death penalty cases are automatically appealed. Feb. 21, 1987: William Touchette, a lawyer for Cooper, says he has written to Pope John Paul II, asking him to write a letter to Gov. Robert D. Orr in an effort to have Cooper's sentence commuted. May 9, 1987: Ruth Pelke's grandson, William R. Pelke, says he has forgiven Paula Cooper. He writes to Gov. Robert D.Orr, asking him to reduce the sentence, and begins a crusade to spare Cooper from execution. June 20, 1987: The Rev. Vito Bracone, an Italian priest who organized a massive petition drive in support of Paula Cooper, meets with her and says he will ask the governor to spare her life. March 2, 1989: The Indiana Supreme Court hears oral arguments in the Paula Cooper case. Amnesty International had filed a friend-of-the-court brief in support of Cooper. July 13, 1989: The Indiana Supreme Court rules Cooper cannot be executed and orders her sentence reduced to 60 years in prison. On May 11, 2001, 17 female prisoners including Paula Cooper line up in the hallway with bars on the windows at the Indiana Women's Prison as they prepare to be graduated from college. May 11, 2001: Paula Cooper receives a bachelor's degree in humanities from Martin University. On June 17, 2013, Cooper was released from the Rockville Correctional Institute after earning credits for an early release. ---------- A woman who was once the youngest Indiana Death Row inmate was found dead Tuesday morning in Indianapolis, police said. The campaign to save the life of Paula Cooper, who at 16 became the youngest death row inmate in Indiana, attracted international attention after she pleaded guilty to murder in 1986. Her successful appeal eventually led to her June 2013 release after serving 27 years in prison. But on Tuesday, Cooper's story came to a somber end in Indianapolis. Police say she was found dead, apparently by her own hand. Cooper, 45, died just after 7:15 a.m. from a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head in the 9500 block of Angola Court, according to Indianapolis Metropolitan Police. Her death is still under investigation, and the Marion County coroner's office says it expects to conduct an autopsy Wednesday. "It's an unusual ending to a tragic case," said Indianapolis attorney Jack Crawford, who was the Lake County prosecutor when Cooper was charged. "I've been involved in a lot of cases in my life, and nothing compared to this case." Cooper became infamous in 1985 when at 15 she was charged with murder in the stabbing of 78-year-old Ruth Pelke during a robbery. Law enforcement identified Cooper as the ringleader in the slaying. She and three friends went to Pelke's Gary home armed with a 12-inch butcher knife. An investigation showed Pelke allowed the teens into her home after they said they were interested in Bible study lessons. But the scene turned grisly when they knocked Pelke to the ground and Cooper climbed on top of her. "Paula Cooper got on top of her and kept saying to her, and this is her own admission, 'Where's the money, bitch?'" Crawford told The Indianapolis Star during a 2013 interview. He said Cooper began slicing Pelke with the butcher knife. The woman's last words were the Lord's Prayer. The other teens involved were sentenced to lengthy prison terms on robbery or murder charges: 25, 35 and 60 years. But when Cooper was sentenced, the judge invoked capital punishment. The decision led to an immediate shift in public outrage. Cooper was among only a handful of women in Indiana to receive the death penalty, and she was the youngest in the state's history. At the time of her sentencing, she was also the youngest death row inmate in the United States. The 30th anniversary of the murder was just 2 weeks ago. Bill Pelke, a grandson of the slain Bible teacher, told The Star on Tuesday that he forgave Cooper, who said she had been abused as a child. He said he visited her in prison 14 times. They exchanged emails almost weekly the last 2 years of her incarceration. In one of their last messages, Cooper told Pelke her time in prison was about up and she was scared. She had spent most of her life incarcerated. She had never written a check or paid a bill. There was so much, Pelke said, that she didn't know how to do. He offered to help. But the 2 talked only once after she was released. Pelke said he was devastated to hear of Cooper's death. "We had wanted to do things together around restorative justice and the death penalty," he said. She wanted to be an example for other young people who have been abused. "She wanted to tell them, 'Look, this is how I responded to the hate and anger, and look at all the trouble I got into,'" he said. "She wanted to give them alternatives so they didn't end up like her." Cooper's pursuit of an appeal made her world renowned. According to the Indiana Historical Society, the Indiana Supreme Court received 2 million signatures in support of her appeal. Pope John Paul II sent an emissary to Crawford's office and wrote an appeal to then-Gov. Robert Orr. The United Nations received a million signatures in support of overturning Cooper's death penalty. 2 years after Cooper's sentencing, the U.S. Supreme Court, which was already considering the issue of imposing death sentences on teens, ruled it was unconstitutional to execute anyone who was younger than 16 at the time the person committed a crime. Indiana lawmakers later raised the minimum age from 10 to 16 in 1989 and again to 18 in 2002. "A lot of things have changed," Crawford said. "It was a truly unique case." The Indiana Supreme Court commuted Cooper's death sentence and sent her to prison for 60 years. She served 27 years of that sentence until her 2013 release. Kevin Relphorde, who served as Cooper's public defender, said Tuesday he was stunned by the news. He said he hadn't spoken to Cooper in years and had lost track of her. "Paula was a good person," he said. "She was very misunderstood. She went through a lot at the hands of her father, with physical abuse, and I think that led to the situation with Mrs. Pelke." Her time at the Rockville Correctional Facility began with troubles. In 1995, she was sentenced to three years of solitary confinement for assaulting a prison guard. "I was very bitter and angry, so I was in a lot of trouble. I hated it. But I learned to adapt eventually," she said in a 2004 interview with The Star. Cooper soon began pursuing educational opportunities, first earning her GED, then a vocational degree, and in 2001 a bachelor's degree. Beginning in 2011, she worked as a tutor. "She couldn't deal with the outside world," speculated Warren W. Lewis, a retired dean and professor at Martin University who taught Cooper at the Indiana Women's Prison. "I knew her well, and I loved her," Lewis said Tuesday. "She was practically a child, and she shouldn't have been treated like an adult." Lewis said he taught Cooper and other female inmates a college-level Introduction to Philosophy class. He had not had any contact with her for several years. "My goal," he said, "was to work up to a level of trust to ask, 'Why are you in this prison?'" When he reached that point with Cooper, Lewis said, the young prisoner told him no one had ever asked her that question. "I really don't know why I did that" was the best she could offer in regard to her role in the killing. Like a lot of prisoners, Cooper had difficulty connecting the cause and effect of crime -- "there's a disconnect," Lewis said. Lewis said he took her death as a personal failure. "My question," he said, "is what happened to her once she got out?" It's unclear how Cooper was spending her time since she was released. Rhonda Labroi, her sister, declined to comment about Cooper's death Tuesday. "It's just amazing that after all those years of incarceration that she would be released and then something like this would happen," said Relphorde, who added that Cooper was remorseful about the killing. "She was willing to pay her debt to society." (source: Indianapolis Star) KENTUCKY: Ricky Kelly to face death penalty One of Louisville's most notorious accused killers will face the death penalty. Ricky Kelly is charged with capital murder in connection to the Aug. 2005 shooting death of Lajuante "B.B." Jackson. The Commonwealth announced 2 new prosecutors will present the case, which is set to go to trial on April 15, 2016. Prosecutors believe Jackson's death is a murder for hire case. Kelly originally faced 8 counts of murder at the state level after investigators claimed he killed several people during a 10 year period from 1996 to 2006, including victims Gail Duncan Deron Cole, and John Sanders all in 1996; Charles Lewis and Blair Kidwell in 1998; Craig Jones and Jackson in 2005; and Warren King in 2006. On March 25, 2011 those charges were dismissed in Jefferson Circuit Court so Kelly could be tried for Jackson's murder in a federal court. However, on Aug. 11, 2014 federal prosecutors filed a motion to dismiss their case against Kelly and sent his case back to state court. (source: WAVE news) From rhalperi at smu.edu Wed May 27 10:50:13 2015 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Wed, 27 May 2015 10:50:13 -0500 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----NEB., NEV., CALIF., USA Message-ID: May 27 NEBRASKA: Senator supports repeal of death penalty This past week, the Legislature held the final round of debate over one of the toughest issues lawmakers face: the death penalty. While dealing with an issue that involves so much sorrow for many families, lawmakers must take many viewpoints and facts into account when arriving at a decision. Many of you have contacted my office via email, phone, and mail to share heart-felt opinions both against and in support of the death penalty. Thank you for contacting our office. Your input truly has an impact on the decisions that we make in the Legislature. During my conversations with those who are in support of keeping the death penalty, many people expressed frustration related to the lengthy appeals process that is the norm when dealing with death penalty cases. This is certainly one of the major problems within our broken capital punishment system. Many constituents shared the common opinion that the problem could be fixed by speeding up the appeals process through our judicial system. Though I wish there were a quick fix, this is not a viable solution to our problem. The U.S. Constitution guarantees the right to due process in civil and criminal proceedings. This protects the defendants' rights to work within the system and appeal court decisions. We can lower Nebraska's number of lengthy appeals by sentencing criminals to life in prison without the possibility of parole instead of death. Nationally, the average defendant sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole files for an appeal 1.5 times, compared to the 7 appeals for which the average death row inmate files. I have also heard from many people that support repealing the death penalty. Some of the most important perspectives to consider are those of the victims' families that have endured this lengthy appeals process. Every time a case is appealed, the families often attend the trial and are forced to face their loved one's murderer once again. Reliving this past trauma makes it very difficult to finally move on. It is unfair to put them through this decades-long process. This is especially true because the state does not possess the ability to carry out executions, so the criminal will just remain on death row for years. By sentencing criminals to life in prison without the possibility of parole, we are allowing the victims' families to achieve closure. As a conservative, I am committed to protecting life and getting rid of government waste. I have always stood as a strong pro-life advocate. I truly believe that life begins at conception and should end at natural death. Also, as I wrote in one of my March editorials, the state has spent approximately $100 million on death penalty related cases since 1976, but has only executed three people. It is evident that the state of Nebraska cannot enforce the death penalty in a prompt manner and it is time to look at other avenues. For all of these reasons, I will continue to support the repeal of the death penalty in the state of Nebraska. As always, I am honored by the faith that you, the voters of District 24, have placed in me. My door is open and I have made it a goal to be accessible to the constituents of our district. You may continue to follow me on Facebook at Kolterman For Legislature and on Twitter at @KoltermanforLegislature. My office in the State Capitol is Room 1115, which I share with my colleague Senator Bob Hilkemann from Omaha. Stop by anytime. My e-mail address is mkolterman at leg.ne.gov and the office phone number is 402-471-2756. Kenny Zoeller, my legislative aide, and Katie Quintero, my administrative aide, are always available to assist you with your needs. If I am not immediately available, please do not hesitate to work with them to address your concerns, thoughts and needs. (source: Sen. Mark Kolterman; York News Times) ****************** Nebraska lawmakers to vote to override governor's veto of death penalty repeal Nebraska lawmakers plan to hold a vote Wednesday afternoon to override Gov. Pete Ricketts' veto of a bill to repeal the death penalty. Ricketts vetoed LB268 Tuesday, which was passed last week with a 32-15 vote. "Today, I am vetoing LB268 which would repeal the death penalty in Nebraska. Repealing the death penalty sends the wrong message to Nebraskans who overwhelming support capital punishment and look to government to strengthen public safety, not weaken it. Under this bill, there is no guarantee that convicted murderers will stay behind bars for life or not harm other innocent victims," Ricketts said in a prepared statement. Below is how each state senator voted when the bill passed, according to the legislative journal: Affirmative: 32 Baker, Bolz, Campbell, Chambers, Coash, Cook, Crawford, Davis, Ebke, Garrett, Gloor, Haar, K., Hadley, Hansen, Harr, B., Hilkemann, Howard, Johnson, Kolowski, Kolterman, Krist, Lindstom, McCollister, Mello, Morfeld, Murante, Nordquist, Pansing Brooks, Schumacher, Seiler, Sullivan, Williams Negative: 15 Bloomfield, Brasch, Craighead, Friesen, Groene, Hughes, Kintner, Kuehn, McCoy, Riepe, Scheer, Schnoor, Smith, Stinner, Watermeier Present and not voting: 2 Larson, Schilz The vote to override the governor's veto is scheduled for 1:30 p.m. 30 votes are needed to override the veto. (source: KMTV news) NEVADA: New execution chamber an outrageous boondoggle In a historic vote May 20, the Nebraska Legislature abolished the state???s death penalty. The vote was based on concerns about the high cost of capital punishment and a protracted appeals process that prevents families of murder victims from reaching closure. Nebraska is the 1st "red" state to repeal capital punishment, but Republicans have been leading efforts to repeal capital punishment in at least a half-dozen states. Regrettably, on the same day in Carson City, and in stark contrast to Nebraska???s conservative Legislature, conservative members of both houses of Nevada's Legislature voted to spend almost $1 million to build an unneeded new execution chamber. Considering the other vital needs of our state that are much higher priorities, this boondoggle is an outrageous waste of taxpayer money. In 2011, when the Legislature voted to close the Nevada State Prison in Carson City, the Department of Corrections assured lawmakers that the chamber would remain available should an execution be scheduled. Nonetheless, in 2013, the governor???s budget included a proposed "remodel" project to construct a new execution chamber at the prison in Ely at a cost of $760,000. However, the Department of Corrections acknowledged that the existing chamber was still functional and available if an execution were to be scheduled, and the expensive project was wisely and unanimously rejected. Unfortunately, conservative Nevada legislators imprudently approved the construction of an execution chamber that is unlikely to ever be used. The constitutionality of lethal injection is being litigated in the courts, and no executions are scheduled in Nevada, with the last one occurring almost 10 years ago. This proposed new facility may sit unused forever, or it could require further remodeling if lethal injection is rejected in court. Even if lethal injection is upheld, there are serious doubts about the availability of the lethal drugs needed for an execution. Building an execution chamber in Ely to replace the one in Carson City will increase the cost of carrying out executions in Nevada because it will mean transporting many people (victims and official witnesses, the director of the Department of Corrections and others) at least 250 miles to remote Ely. Transporting one individual (the inmate) from death row in Ely to Carson City is much less expensive. Furthermore, the project is to be funded by new bonds, which means the state will incur almost $1 million in debt and taxpayers will be paying the interest on that debt via their property taxes for up to 20 years. This $1 million in debt also reduces the amount of money that is available for maintenance of existing buildings. An additional concern about building the chamber in Ely is that it makes it less accessible to the press and to the government institutions that should be monitoring its overall operation. This is not a policy decision about whether to have the death penalty in Nevada - that is for another day. This is a basic budgetary issue: whether we should spend close to a million dollars to construct a new and unnecessary execution chamber. A cost audit of Nevada's death penalty recently concluded that we spend at least twice as much money prosecuting a death penalty homicide case as prosecuting a non-death penalty homicide case. Republicans in Nevada voted to add to the cost of maintaining the death penalty in Nevada, something that will be hard for them to defend as their fellow conservatives around the country - as in Nebraska - continue to raise fiscal and other concerns which demonstrate the ineffectiveness of even having the death penalty. (source: Opinion; Nancy Hart is president of the Nevada Coalition Against the Death Penalty. Tod Story is executive director of the ACLU of Nevada----Las Vegas Review-Journal) CALIFORNIA----inmate commits suicide Man on death row for Riverside pizza-store murder kills himself Michael Lamont Jones, 44, who was convicted of murdering a Riverside pizza restaurant employee in 1989, committed suicide on Monday, May 25, at San Quentin State Prison, the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation announced Tuesday. The cause of death is pending the results of an autopsy; however, the death is being investigated as a suicide, a news release said. Jones was in a cell by himself. Jones was sentenced to death on Dec. 13, 1991, by a Riverside County jury, for the Jan. 21, 1989, murder of Herman Weeks, 24, during the armed robbery of a Domino's Pizza store. Jones had been on death row since Jan. 2, 1992. Jones appealed his conviction, citing incompetent defense counsel, erroneous jury instructions, tainted witness identification and unconstitutionality of the death penalty. In 2003, the state Supreme Court affirmed the conviction. According to trial testimony, Weeks had his hands in the air when Jones fired 2 shots. Jones and an accomplice decided to rob the Domino's because they needed money for admission to a party, prosecutors said. According to court documents, a witness, Erin Burton, testified that in May 1989 she encountered Jones and asked, "Mike, about the Domino's thing, did you do it?" He replied, "Yeah." She asked, "How could you do it? How could you kill someone? Don't you feel any remorse?" He responded, "Nah. It was a good party." A month before the Domino's robbery, Jones robbed the Mad Greek restaurant in Riverside and shot a customer, who survived. Since 1978 when California reinstated capital punishment, 66 condemned inmates have died from natural causes, 24 have committed suicide, 13 have been executed in California, 1 was executed in Missouri, 7 have died from other causes, and the causes of death are pending for four condemned inmates, according to the Department of Corrections. There are 749 people on California's death row. (source: Press-Enterprise) USA: Justice Stevens Says Death Penalty Unnecessary, Wasteful, and Creates Higher Risk of Error In a discussion at the George Washington University School of Law, retired Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens said the death penalty creates a higher risk of error than other criminal cases and is unfair, unnecessary, and a "terrible waste" of resources. Using the Boston marathon bomber trial as an example, Justice Stevens said jury selection procedures in capital cases produce juries who are "not representative of the community." He said that, under these procedures, "most of the 75%" of Bostonians who opposed the death penalty "could be challenged for cause and do not make it" onto the jury. "That's one reason that the death penalty is much more unfair than we thought it was at the time back when we decided the 3 cases" that reinstated the death penalty in 1976 after the Court had previously ruled its application unconstitutional. Justice Stevens went on to say, "I had expected that the procedures would be more protective of the defendants in death cases than in ordinary criminal cases. And in several respects, ... they in fact are more pro-prosecution. And so the risk of error is larger in death cases than it is in other cases, and that certainly can't be right." Finally, he compared the death penalty unfavorably to the alternative of life without parole: "it's really not necessary because life imprisonment without parole protects the public at least as well as execution does and so the justification for the death penalty is diminished. And I think if you make a cost-benefit analysis - the cost of the trials and all the rest - it is a terrible waste of society's resources to have these capital trials that go on for so long and produce an awful lot of unfortunate results." Justice Stevens also mentioned a death penalty case as the vote he most regretted during his tenure on the Court. In Jurek v. Texas (1976), Stevens said, "I voted to uphold the Texas statute and I was wrong." He said that the Texas law should have been treated as a mandatory death penalty statute because, "if you read one of the instructions that they had to give the jury, a certain answer really required the death penalty." (source: Death Penalty Information Center) ************** Federal judge keeps accused gang members in custody More than a dozen suspected gang members arrested last week in a sweeping roundup appeared in federal court on Tuesday. As expected, U.S. Magistrate Judge David Keesler ordered that all 16 remain jailed. The defendants, reputed members of the MS-13 gang, are charged with crimes ranging from racketeering and drugs to robbery and attempted murder. A federal indictment accuses 37 suspected MS-13 members of operating a criminal enterprise in and around Charlotte since at least 2009. 3 of the defendants face murder charges in connection with killings that took place in Charlotte in 2013 and 2014. If convicted, Miguel "Most Wanted" Zelaya, 19, and Christian "Pitbull" Pena, 19, both of Charlotte, along with Luis "Big Boy" Ordonez, 36, of Concord, face the death penalty. They were among 16 defendants already in state custody at the time of the federal roundup. 5 remain at large. The arrests mark the 2nd federal crackdown on Charlotte gangs in the last month. On April 22, the U.S. Attorney's Office charged 12 suspected members of the United Blood Nation with a series of racketeering crimes, including the October murders of Doug and Debbie London. Prosecutors say the Charlotte business couple was killed to keep them from testifying against 3 UBN members who tried to rob their mattress store last May. (source: Charlotte Observer) *********************** Accused Aurora shooter says he had a 'broken mind' Aurora theater shooting defendant James Holmes declared he had a "broken mind" and wrote pages of nonsensical ramblings in the same notebook he used to map and plan the shooting, witnesses testified Tuesday. Both prosecutors and defense attorneys are using the notebook - which Holmes mailed to a psychiatrist shortly before the shooting - to show his mind-set. Prosecutors argue Holmes methodically planned the July 20, 2012 shooting inside the suburban Denver movie theater, and they used portions of the notebook to demonstrate his preparations. Defense attorneys say it shows he suffers from mental illness. Holmes faces the death penalty and has pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity. Reading aloud on the witness stand, Aurora police Sgt. Matthew Fyles quoted portions of the diary: "The obsession to kill since I was a kid, with age became more and more realistic. Started with nuclear bombs, then shifted to biological agent that destroys the mind, most recently serial murder with stun gun ..." In another portion, Fyles read how Holmes wrote that he was 99% certain he'd get caught committing mass murder at the movie theater and said he didn't want to attack an airport because people would think it was a terrorist attack. "The message is there is no message," Fyles read aloud. Holmes wrote that people would think his failing university and personal life were the reasons for an attack but said they "both were expediting catalysts, not the reason." Prosecutors showed how the notebook contains diagrams of the theater complex and notes about which specific auditorium to attack, based on part on the number of exits. "Embraced the hatred," the notebook says. "The Dark Knight Rises." Police arrested Holmes outside the theater, dressed in black body armor he had amassed over several weeks, and was carrying weapons witnesses said he bought and practiced with well before the attack in which 12 people were killed and 70 injured. On cross-examination, defense attorney Dan King read aloud other passages from the notebook, including one in which Holmes referred to seeing flickers, crows or insects in his peripheral vision. King said one page of the notebook contained the phrase that Holmes had made a "self-diagnosis of broken mind" and that "my soul must be eviscerated." The notebook contains pages of the word "why" repeated over and over, along with infinity symbols. Defense attorneys say Holmes suffers from schizophrenia. "I view myself as divided," King read from the notebook. "The real me is fighting the biological me." The trial is in its 5th week out of an expected 4-month-long schedule. Prosecutors say they are a little more than halfway through their presentation. Jurors were allowed to read copies of the notebook after the presentation. (source: USA Today) From rhalperi at smu.edu Wed May 27 10:51:13 2015 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Wed, 27 May 2015 10:51:13 -0500 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide Message-ID: May 27 BANGLADESH: Death-row prisoner dies in Kashimpur jail A death-row prisoner has died at Kashimpur Jail in Gazipur. The deceased is Nurul Islam houlader, 65, son of Ashraf Ali Houlader, of Jhalakati. Zannatul Farhad, Jailer of Dhaka Central Jail Part 2 in Kashimpur, said Nurul was taken to the jail hospital as he felt chest pain around 8:45pm Tuesday. Later, he was shifted to Shaheed Tajuddin Ahmed Medical College Hospital, where doctors declared him dead. Alamgir was sentenced death penalty in a case filed under Women and Children Repression Prevention (Special) Act 2000 in 2003. (source: Dhaka tribune) EGYPT: Death sentences test fragile Hamas-Egypt ties Egypt-Hamas ties took a dramatic turn May 16 as the Cairo Criminal Court referred the death sentence against ousted President Mohammed Morsi, along with 105 others, including the Muslim Brotherhood Supreme Guide Mohammed Badie, to Egypt's Grand Mufti. Hamas was provoked by the Egyptian ruling that targeted some Hamas members, including a prisoner and several who are now dead, namely Raed al-Atar, who was killed in the Gaza war last August; Hossam al-Sanea, who was killed in 2008; Tayseer Abu Snaimeh, who was killed during an Israeli raid on Rafah in 2011; and Hassan Salameh, who has been detained in Israeli prisons since 1996 and is sentenced to 48 years in prison. On May 17, Hamas described the Egyptian ruling as a massacre against its members, adding that the ruling disregards human values, is unfair, was taken in the absence of evidences, is based on falsified facts, and provides a cover for Israeli crimes against Palestinians. "The Egyptian ruling against a number of Hamas members is deplorable; it has tainted the record of the Egyptian judiciary, and confirms that it is a politicized case," Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri said May 16. Hamas never thought that its military commanders would be sentenced to death by the Egyptian court; it always thought it would be by an Israeli one. This is because none of the movement's members were proved to be involved in armed operations on the Egyptian territory. This decision may break the thin thread between Hamas and Cairo. Hamas considers that by issuing death sentences against its members and some Muslim Brotherhood leaders, Egypt is still convinced that Hamas is linked to the main Muslim Brotherhood branch. The death sentences also prove that security authorities in Cairo did not believe all of Hamas' announcements of non-interference in internal Egyptian affairs. The Egyptian crackdown on Hamas was not limited to the shocking death sentences, and reached the point of published reports quoting security sources. On May 18, Youm7 news website, known for close ties to the Egyptian regime, said Hamas is using advanced techniques to falsify ID cards to create false Egyptian official stamps to facilitate the entry of its members into Sinai. The fake Egyptian ID cards help these Palestinians go through Egyptian airports and avoid ambushes set up inside Egypt, without raising suspicion of being non-Egyptian. On May 19, El-Watan newspaper also said that scholar Yusuf al-Qaradawi, one of the Muslim Brotherhood spiritual guides who's among those sentenced to death, gave Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal $2 million for hosting Sinai gunmen in Gaza. On May 20, Hamas categorically denied these accusations, describing them as false information that are part of the oppressive campaign against Hamas. According to the movement, this campaign spreads false stories and insists on falsely involving Hamas in the internal Egyptian file. The Egyptian accusations leveled against Hamas have prompted Ismail al-Ashqar, Hamas leader and chairman of the Palestinian Legislative Council's Security Committee, to tell Al-Monitor, "The Egyptian judiciary ruling came as a result of false documents and erroneous information that parties in Fatah provided the Egyptian regime with, in order to tarnish the image of Hamas and involve Palestinians in Egypt's internal conflict." On May 17, Fatah Revolutionary Council Secretary-General Amin Makboul refused to make any comments on the Egyptian ruling for being an internal affair of Egypt, and the Palestinian factions - including the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, the Islamic Jihad, and the Popular Resistance Committees - issued separate statements rejecting the Egyptian decisions. A former Egyptian parliament member, who spoke to Al-Monitor on condition of anonymity, confirmed that "this harsh ruling against the Hamas and Brotherhood members were expected, as the Egyptian intelligence services have been receiving local, regional and international reports on alleged activities of Hamas in the Egyptian territory. These [activities] however were never proven by the Egyptian security services investigations with many detainees. The Egyptian regime feels that it is facing a worsening internal crisis, and sought to get rid of its internal problems by issuing these rulings." The Egyptian rulings raised concerns within Hamas of a possible confrontation with Cairo; yet Hamas has preserved a thin thread that might restore ties with Egypt or at least stop them from worsening, through regional mediation that Hamas is relying on, such as Saudi Arabia, which did not announce a specific position in this regard. On May 17, Hamas implored the Arab and Islamic Ummah to interfere to halt the unfair death sentences. On May 16, Hamas members retweeted Jamal Khashoggi, general manager of Al Arab News Channel and a close associate of the royal court in Saudi Arabia; the latter had said that the absurd death sentences are painful to everyone who likes Egypt, but remaining silent is more painful. Ziad Zaza, a member of Hamas' political bureau, confirmed to Al-Monitor that the Egyptian judicial rulings "will not affect the Hamas-Cairo ties, and any tension between the 2 parties will be temporary. This is because Egypt will remain a supporter for the Palestinian cause" while calling on Egypt to review the wrongful invalid rulings. It seems that Hamas has no concerns regarding the execution of its members in Egypt, because none of them are actually present on Egyptian territory, or detained by Egyptian security forces in Cairo. Yet, Hamas is more concerned that these rulings might widen the gap with Egypt and increase the suffering of Palestinians in Gaza in light of the ongoing closure of the Rafah crossing. Since early this year, the Rafah crossing was closed for more than 100 days, and over 60,000 humanitarian cases in the Gaza Strip are in desperate need of travel, whether for medical treatment, education or work. Former Hamas government Information Minister Yousef Rizqa told Al-Monitor, "Despite the court ruling, Hamas is ready to meet and dialogue with the Egyptian leadership, as it is part of Hamas' strategy, and that it does not mind holding meetings and discussions, but Cairo is not ready for such [a] meeting." Al-Monitor learned from Hamas leaders who spoke on condition of anonymity that the movement is convinced that the Egyptian rulings will not be enforced on the Brotherhood leaders and Morsi, and that they are part of the increased pressure on the Brotherhood. They hope that ties between Hamas and Egypt will be restored. Hamas is well aware that the only way to the outside world is through Egypt. ************ Egypt sentences 8 jihadists to death An Egyptian court Tuesday sentenced to death 8 jihadists found guilty of acts of violence against the security forces and belonging to groups that incite "terrorism", a judicial official said. "The criminal court in Zagazig condemned eight jihadists to hang after they were found guilty of belonging to takfiri (Sunni extremist) groups," the official said. The city of Zagazig is in the Nile Delta north of the capital. They were also sentenced for "incitement to terrorism and violence and ... incitement to kill members of the army and police," he said. 5 of the 8 condemned men were sentenced in absentia. Jihadists in Egypt, primarily in the Sinai Peninsula, have staged regular attacks on the security forces since the then army chief and now President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi ousted Islamist president Mohamed Morsi after a single year in power. Hundreds of Morsi supporters have been killed and thousands jailed in a crackdown. Dozens more, including Morsi himself, have been sentenced to death after mass trials. (source for both: al-monitor.com) MALAYSIA: CPO: Triad operated drug lab The Pneh triad is believed to be behind the drug-processing lab busted in Lorong Padang Tembak on Monday. Police have identified the three men caught in the raid as members of the triad. Pneh means 'flat' in Hokkien. Penang police chief Senior Deputy Comm Datuk Wira Abdul Rahim Hanafi said the 3 suspects, aged 25 to 47, were busy processing drugs when police stormed the premises. "2 of them have no prior records while one has a previous drug-related offence. All three tested positive for morphine," he said. The drugs, with an estimated street value of RM1.1mil, include 34kg of heroin, 2,738 ecstasy pills, 10.4kg of caffeine, various chemicals and drug processing equipment. "The syndicate has been operating for 5 months and the drugs were meant for distribution in the northern region," he said at the police contingent headquarters in Penang Road yesterday. Police also impounded a Toyota Altis and a Proton Wira, and found RM1,382. The raid on a semi-detached house in Lorong Padang Tembak at 5.20pm on Monday was carried out by a team from the Penang Narcotics Department. The case will be investigated under Section 39B(1) of the Dangerous Drugs Act 1952, which carries the death penalty upon conviction. All 3 suspects are under remand until May 31. When asked about the 470.1kg ganja bust in Teluk Bahang on Monday, he said police were still hunting for 2 locals believed to be part of a syndicate. "The drugs were brought in from a neighbouring country," he said. On Ops Warta, he said 234 traffic offenders had been arrested here in the ongoing nationwide operation. "9 of them were women," he added. He advised the public to immediately settle their summonses instead of waiting to be arrested. (source: The Star) PAKISTAN----executions Pakistan executes 7 death-row convicts 7 death row convicts were executed in jails across Pakistan's Punjab and Balochistan provinces on Wednesday, a media report said. In Lahore Central Jail, 2 convicts were hanged. Abdul Khaliq had been convicted of murdering a woman, while convict Shahzad was also found guilty of committing a murder, Geo News reported. 2 convicts were hanged in Gujrat District Jail. Naseer Ahmed was found guilty of killing a man in 2002. Faisal Mehmood was sentenced to death for committing a murder in 1999. In Vehari District Jail, 2 prisoners were executed. Abdul Sattar was found guilty of raping and killing a 13-year-old girl in 1997. Convict Sanaullah had also raped and killed a 11-year-old girl in 2001. Khan Mohammad was hanged in Balochistan's Mach Jail after he was found guilty of killing his brother and his nephew in 2004. Pakistan lifted its moratorium on the death penalty in all capital cases on March 10. Initially, executions were resumed for terrorism offences only in the wake of a Taliban massacre at an army-run school in Peshawar on December 16, 2014, which had killed more than 140 people, mostly students. (source: manoramaonline.com) *************** 2 sent to the gallows in Faisalabad 2 prisoners on death row were hanged at the Faisalabad Central Jail on Tuesday. The jail superintendent told The Express Tribune that Iftikhar Ahmad alias Pasi, resident of Gujjar Basti, and Asif Zaib, a resident of Chak 111, Sargodha, were executed. The superintendent said Ahmad was convicted of the murder of his rivals Chaudhry Allah Rakha, Ramazan and Muhammad Ashraf, whom he had shot dead in the Gulberg police precincts on July 15, 2001. Anti-Terrorism Court Judge Chaudhry Muhammad Akram had sentenced Ahmad to death on 6 counts. The apex courts had upheld the decision and the president had also turned down his plea for mercy. ATC Judge Raja Pervaiz Akhtar had issued black warrants for Ahmad and fixed May 26 as the date of execution. Jail officials said Ahmad's family had visited him in prison before he was executed. Ahmad had tearfully apologised to his family, said he had repented of his offence and kept asking his family to save him from the gallows, they said. On Tuesday, Ahmad's body was handed over to his family for burial. Zaib was sentenced to death by then Sargodha Additional Sessions Judge Chaudhry Muhammad Asif on March 27, 1996, for killing his rival Ejaz Ahmad in a scuffle in the Sillanwali police precincts. Zaib had exhausted all avenues of appeal. The Sargodha district and sessions judge issued black warrants against Zaib and fixed May 26 for execution. The jail superintendent said they had handed over Zaib's body to his family after the execution. Security was tightened in and around Faisalabad Central Jail on Tuesday to avoid an untoward incident. (source: Express Tribune) INDIA: Explained: A Question of Life and Death The Supreme Court will hear today petitions challenging the validity of death warrants issued against Amroha couple Shabnam and Salim. The warrants were issued after the SC confirmed the death penalty for the lovers convicted of killing seven relatives of the woman in 2008. UTKARSH ANAND examines the laws, rules and issues around the death penalty, and the circumstances warranting execution in India. Which crimes entail capital punishment in India? Grave offences such as murder, rape with injuries that may result in the death of a victim and a repeat offender, waging war against the State, and terrorism-related offences causing death are some major crimes punishable with death under the Indian Penal Code. Similarly, there are provisions under The Arms Act, The Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act, The Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, The Commission of Sati (Prevention) Act, The Air Force Act, The Army Act and The Navy Act wherein capital punishment is prescribed as one of the punishments for serious offences. The now-repealed Prevention of Terrorism Act (POTA) and Terrorist and Disruptive Activities (Prevention) Act (TADA) also contained provisions for death sentence. What has the Supreme Court ruled on the constitutional validity of the death sentence? Article 21 of the Indian Constitution ensures the Fundamental Right to life and liberty for all persons. It adds no person shall be deprived of his life or personal liberty except according to procedure established by law. This has been legally construed to mean if there is a procedure, which is fair and valid, then the state by framing a law can deprive a person of his life. While the central government has consistently maintained it would keep the death penalty in the statute books to act as a deterrent, and for those who are a threat to society, the Supreme Court too has upheld the constitutional validity of capital punishment in "rarest of rare" cases. In Jagmohan Singh vs State of UP (1973), then in Rajendra Prasad vs State of UP (1979), and finally in Bachan Singh vs State of Punjab (1980), the Supreme Court affirmed the constitutional validity of the death penalty. It said that if capital punishment is provided in the law and the procedure is a fair, just and reasonable one, the death sentence can be awarded to a convict. This will, however, only be in the "rarest of rare" cases, and the courts should render "special reasons" while sending a person to the gallows. What would constitute a "rarest of rare" case? The principles as to what would constitute the "rarest of rare" has been laid down by the top court in the landmark judgment in Bachan Singh vs State of Punjab (1980). Bachan Singh formulated certain broad illustrative guidelines and said it should be given only when the option of awarding the sentence of life imprisonment is "unquestionably foreclosed". It was left completely left upon the court's discretion to reach this conclusion. However, the apex court also laid down the principle of weighing aggravating and mitigating circumstances. A balance-sheet of aggravating and mitigating circumstances in a particular case has to be drawn to ascertain whether justice will not be done if any punishment less than the death sentence is awarded. 2 prime questions, the top court held, may be asked and answered. First, is there something uncommon about the crime which renders the sentence of imprisonment for life inadequate and calls for a death sentence? Second, are there circumstances of the crime such that there is no alternative but to impose the death sentence even after according maximum weightage to the mitigating circumstances which speak in favour of the offenders? What has been the Supreme Court's view on mandatory death penalty? The Supreme Court has always said that the death sentence should be given rarely. In Mithu vs State of Punjab (1983), the Supreme Court ruled that the mandatory death penalty is unconstitutional. It struck down Section 303 in the IPC, which entailed a mandatory death sentence for a person who commits murder while serving a life term in another case. The Supreme Court ruled Section 303 violated Articles 14 (right to equality) and 21 (right to life) since an unreasonable distinction was sought to be made between 2 classes of murderes. It said all murders would come under the ambit of Section 302, where a court would have the discretion to award life term or death sentence. Similarly, the Supreme Court ruled in State of Punjab vs Dalbir Singh in 2012 that mandatory death penalty as punishment for crimes under Section 27(3) of the Arms Act, 1959, was unconstitutional. The government moved a Bill to amend the Act, which is currently pending. There are some other subsequent legislation prescribing the mandatory death penalty in drug cases, but the Supreme Court has not yet struck down the penalty as unconstitutional. A pertinent provision in the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act, 1985, is currently under scrutiny of the apex court. What are the avenues available to a death-row convict? After a trial court awards the death penalty, the sentence requires to be confirmed by a High Court. The sentence shall not be executed till the time the High Court confirms it, either after deciding the appeal filed by the convict, or until the period allowed for preferring an appeal has expired. If the High Court confirms the death penalty and it is also upheld by the Supreme Court, a convict can file a review petition and a curative petition, if the review petition is nixed, for reconsideration of the judgment. A Constitution Bench ruled last year that a review petition by a death-row convict will be heard by a 3-judge bench in open court. Such cases were earlier being heard by 2-judge benches in the judges' chamber. A curative petition is still heard in judges' chambers. Opening another avenue, the Supreme Court, by yet another path-breaking verdict in 2014, ruled that unexplained delay in execution was a ground for commutation of death penalty, and an inmate, his or her kin, or even a public-spirited citizen could file a writ petition seeking such commutation. Does the executive have a role in clemency? Yes. If the Supreme Court turns down the appeal against capital punishment, a condemned prison can submit a mercy petition to the President of India and the Governor of the State. Under Articles 72 and 161 of the Constitution, the President and Governors have the power "to grant pardons, reprieves, respites or remissions of punishment or to suspend, remit or commute the sentence of any person convicted of any offence". This power was without any conditions until the last year's verdict by the Supreme Court, which held that judicial clemency could be granted on the ground of inordinate delay even after a mercy petition is rejected. How is the execution of death sentence carried out in India? Execution is carried out by 2 modes, namely hanging by the neck till death, and being executed by firing squad. The Code of Criminal Procedure calls for the method of execution to be hanging. It states: "When any person is sentenced to death, the sentence shall direct that the person be hanged by the neck till the person is dead." In Deena vs Union of India (1993), the Supreme Court adjudicated upon whether the execution of death penalty by hanging by rope is constitutional. It held the method prescribed under the CrPC was valid. Death by shooting is contemplated under the Army Act, Navy Act and Air Force Act. They provide for the discretion of the Court Martial to either provide for the execution of the death sentence by hanging or by being shot to death. Can an order of execution be challenged in a court of law? Yes. The procedure for carrying out the execution must also fulfill certain conditions as stipulated by the Supreme Court in Shatrughan Chauhan vs Union of India (2014), and by the Allahabad High Court in Peoples Union for Democratic Rights vs Union of India (2015). The guidelines hold that a death-row prisoner must get free legal aid for drafting a mercy petition and, if it is rejected, an intimation to the prisoner and his family is imperative. A minimum 14 days' notice for execution must be given to let him "prepare himself mentally for execution, to make his peace with god, prepare his will and settle other earthly affairs", besides also allowing him "to have a last and final meeting with his family members." An execution can be stopped owing to a convict's physical or mental ill health, the top court has held. The death warrants are issued by the trial court. In the cases of Shabnam and Salim, the validity of the death warrants have been challenged, contending that the warrants did not specify any date of execution. Further, the convicts still had the legal remedies of filing review and curative petitions, apart from moving clemency petitions. When was the last execution carried out in India? The last execution to take place in India was in February 2013, the hanging of Afzal Guru who was convicted of plotting the 2001 attack on India's Parliament. 26/11 terrorist Ajmal Kasab was hanged in November 2012. Prior to these, the last execution was in 2004, when Dhananjoy Chatterjee was executed for the murder and rape of a 14-year old girl. This was the country's 1st execution since 1995, when Auto Shankar, who was convicted of 6 murders in Tamil Nadu, was executed. Therefore, while the courts sentenced more than 1,400 persons to death between 2001 to 2011, only 4 have been hanged since 1995. Many of these cases are under the consideration of the Supreme Court and the President for clemency. According to data compiled by the NGO Amnesty International, Indian courts handed down at least 64 death sentences in 2014, but no executions took place. A report by the Death Penalty Research Project of the National Law University in Delhi indicated that at least 270 people were on death row after exhausting all remedies available to them under the law. (source: Punjab Star News) PHILIPPINES: 1,288 Pinoys face drug-related charges, 41 on death row A total of 1,288 Filipinos face drug-related offenses overseas, 41 of whom are meted with death penalty, the Department of Foreign Affairs said. During the joint hearing of House Committee on Dangerous Drugs and Oversight Committee on Dangerous Drugs on Mary Jane Veloso's case yesterday, Atty. Francisco Noel R. Fernandez III of the Office of the Undersecretary for Migrant Workers Affairs (OUMWA) said those who are on death row for drug-related charges ware in Malaysia, China, Saudi Arabia and Indonesia. "We have 1,288 Filipinos facing drug-related offenses.We have 41 Filipinos meted with death penalty. They were incarcerated in Malaysia, China, Saudi Arabia, and Indonesia," he told lawmakers. Of the 41 Filipinos on death row, including Veloso, 18 are imprisoned in Malaysia, 21 in China,and 1 in Saudi Arabia. Fernandez noted that the Chinese government granted a 2-year reprieve to 21 Filipinos convicted to death. Their sentences can be commuted for good behavior, he said, adding that the remaining 1,247 Filipino convicts are serving their jail sentences. He assured that those distressed Filipinos were given necessary legal assistance to ensure that their rights are protected. (source: Manila Bulletin) ************** De Lima: PH won't pressure Indonesia on clemency for Veloso Justice Secretary Leila de Lima said on Wednesday that the Philippine government would tread lightly in seeking clemency for Mary Jane Veloso, as the country would not wish to put pressure on Indonesia in the politically charged drug trafficking case. Addressing the dangerous drugs committee of the House of Representatives, De Lima said the focus of an ongoing preliminary investigation was to determine whether Veloso, who was granted a last-minute stay on her execution last April on drug charges, was a "hapless victim or a willing participant." "On the premise that the investigation will prove she was a hapless victim, [then we may ask for] possible executive clemency, which may mean either pardon or the commutation of sentence. But we don't want to be harping on this," she said. "We would not want the Indonesian government to be pressured by our government," De Lima said in answer to a question on what concrete steps the government was taking to save Veloso from the death penalty. The 30-year-old Veloso was supposed to have been executed by firing squad on April 29, until last-minute appeals by President Aquino and the surrender of her alleged recruiter, Maria Cristina Sergio, prompted Indonesia to give her a temporary reprieve. De Lima said the national prosecution service, under the Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty of Asean countries, had made a request to Indonesia and Malaysia with respect to proving Veloso's claims of innocence but she added she could not disclose the details of the request. Veloso, who had been caught trying to bring in a suitcase that was found to contain heroin from Malaysia to Indonesia, had said the luggage had not been hers and she had been duped by her recruiter and a syndicate of "African-looking" men. De Lima said the DOJ was trying to confirm Veloso's allegations. A case of illegal recruitment, human trafficking and swindling has been filed against her recruiter, Sergio, Sergio's partner, Julius Lacanilao, and a certain "Ike." She also said she was keeping Indonesia's Attorney General abreast of the developments on Veloso's case. "We need to help each other so we can find solutions to drug trafficking," De Lima said. "Based on many indications, we're looking at the West African Drug Syndicate (WADS), those African-looking men, are most probably members of the WADs," she said. "We don't want to push executive clemency, because in the final analysis, it's going to be the call of the Indonesian authorities. We will let the Indonesian lawyers to make their next move," De Lima said. Francisco Noel Fernandez, the special assistant to the Department of Foreign Affairs' Office of the Undersecretary for Overseas Workers Affairs said a total of 41 Filipinos have been meted the death penalty worldwide, out of 1,288 who have been serving sentences. "They are all incarcerated in 4 countries, 18 in Malaysia, 21 in China, 1 in Saudi Arabia, and Mary Jane Veloso in Indonesia," he said. Also at the hearing, the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) said Veloso's husband Michael Candelaria and their 2 sons would be placed under the custody of Witness Protection Program in response to threats against their lives. (source: globalnation.inquirer.net) INDONESIA: Indonesia Sets Date For Final Death Row Appeal Of Frenchman Serge Atlaoui An Indonesian court said it would hear a last-ditch appeal by a French man on death row on 3 June, after a verdict expected this week was delayed by the absence of the presiding judge. Serge Atlaoui had been due to face the firing squad with other prisoners in April but won a last-minute reprieve for the completion of his legal appeals. France's president, Francois Hollande, has warned Indonesia it would face "consequences" if it were to press ahead with his execution. Indonesia has harsh penalties for drug trafficking and resumed executions in 2013 after a 5-year lull. The president, Joko Widodo, has rejected clemency pleas from foreign nationals who are among a group of about 60 drug convicts scheduled for execution. 14 have been executed this year, including Australians Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran; Nigerians Raheem Salami, Silvester Obiekwe Nwolise, Okwudili Oyatanze and Martin Anderson; Brazilian Rodrigo Gularte and Indonesian Zainal Abidin, who were all shot dead in April. Mary Jane Veloso, from the Philippines, was given a last-minute reprieve from execution, but remains on death row. Widodo has declared the death penalty "positive" for his country, adding: "My duty as president of Indonesia is to carry out the law and I'm sure other countries will understand this. "Every day 50 young Indonesians die [drug-related deaths]; in 1 year that is 18,000 dead. I hope they understand about that." The Jakarta administrative court is reviewing Atlaoui's challenge against the president's refusal of clemency. "As our presiding judge is in training, the court hearing could not take place and we postponed to next week," Judge Indaryadi said in a court session on Tuesday. The hearing has been rescheduled for 3 June and a verdict is expected soon after. The attorney general's office has said Atlaoui's current legal challenge would be his last appeal. Atlaoui was sentenced to death for his involvement in an ecstasy factory in Jakarta that was capable of producing 100kg (220lb) of the illegal pills every week. He has always protested his innocence, saying he believed he was carrying out work installing industrial machines in an empty factory building. If Atlaoui were to be shot by Indonesian firing squad, he would be the 1st French person to be executed in 38 years. (source: Malaysian Digest) From rhalperi at smu.edu Wed May 27 16:17:33 2015 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Wed, 27 May 2015 16:17:33 -0500 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----ARK., NEB. Message-ID: May 27 ARKANSAS: Jury, judge impose death penalty for girl's murder A jury said a man from northwest Arkansas should be executed for raping and strangling a 6-year-old girl 2 years ago. A judge agreed on Wednesday and set an execution date for Zachary Holly for Nov. 16, 2016. Jurors deliberated 3 days before recommending death by lethal injection for Holly. Despite the judge's order, the execution date likely is years away, following years of appeals. On Nov. 20, 2012, Jersey Bridgeman's body was found in a vacant house next to Holly's home in Bentonville. Holly was charged with capital murder, kidnapping, rape and burglary. After 2 mental evaluations, a judge ruled he was competent to stand trial. Jersey Bridgeman's mother called police early in the morning to report her daughter was missing. Officers found the child's body within 15 minutes in a nearby vacant house. Investigators said Holly and his wife babysat the child the night of her death while her mother, DesaRae Bridgeman, and Bridgeman's boyfriend were working at a nearby convenience store. A swab test on Jersey Bridgeman's body showed traces of sperm, according to the affidavit. Holly, who was 28 at the time, consented to cheek swabs for DNA comparison and also gave authorities the clothing he had worn since going to bed the night of Jersey Bridgeman's death, according to the probable cause affidavit used as the basis of charges. DesaRae Bridgeman called police about 6:45 a.m. Jersey Bridgeman and her younger sister shared a bed, but Jersey was not there. An autopsy found her death occurred sometime after midnight. While searching for Jersey Bridgeman, an officer noticed the back door to a vacant home was open. The child's body was inside. The girl died of asphyxiation, according to the probable cause affidavit. (source: KY3.com) NEBRASKA----death penalty repealed Nebraska lawmakers vote to abolish death penalty With a vote to override a veto by Gov. Pete Ricketts, The Nebraska Legislature repealed the death penalty in the state. With 30 votes needed to override, the motion received 30 votes. 19 senators voted with the Governor. 2 senators changed their vote since final passage of LB 268. Wahoo State Senator and Jerry Johnson and Gretna State Senator John Murante initially supported the repeal, but on the floor Wednesday said they had changed their minds. "I am personally conflicted on the death penalty,' said Murante, who noted he was a practicing Catholic. "One truth is undeniable. Taking human life under certain circumstances can be justified." Murante said despite appeals by Archbishop George Lucas and priests, the majority of Murante's constituents overwhelmingly support the death penalty. Governor Ricketts vetoed the bill Tuesday, arguing it was a necessary deterrent. Omaha State Senator Ernie Chambers sponsored LB 268. Wednesday's vote was the culmination of a 40-year effort by Chambers to end capital punishment in Nebraska. As debate began, he urged Senators to stand by their decision. "Don't sacrifice what you are, and what you've stood for in response to temporary political pressure of the kind that might discard you later," said Chambers. After the vote, applause broke out in the legislative chamber. Senator Chambers thanked colleagues for their vote. During Wednesday's debate, Omaha Senator Bob Krist said, "Taking a life is not the right way for the state to maintain the safety of its citizens." "This program is broken," said Lincoln Senator Colby Coash. "Executions are done. LB 268 is the way to put it in our past... Now is the time to do it." Nebraska had not executed a prisoner since 1997, when the electric chair was used. It hasn't imposed the punishment under the lethal injection process now required by state law. (source: KETV news) ******************* Death Penalty: Arguments Align A coalition of motives have come together in Nebraska to do what might have seemed unthinkable a few months ago: repeal the state's death penalty. This happened last week when the Nebraska Legislature - a unicameral body governing a very conservative state - voted 32-15 to repeal the penalty. Gov. Pete Ricketts has promised to veto the legislation, but the 32-15 margin is veto-proof. Thus, in order for the measure to be stopped, some lawmakers are going to have to change their minds. But the fact that it has even reached this point may be surprising to a lot of people. It also may stir hopes in South Dakota that the same thing can happen here. Most of us are very familiar with the arguments for having a death penalty on the books, since this debate springs up regularly in both Nebraska and South Dakota and the efforts at repeal are usually defeated with those same talking points. But the Nebraska case seems to turn the argument on its ideological head. Conservatives who voted for the repeal cited their own personal principles, such bureaucratic overreach and fiscal recklessness involved in the process. According to Newsweek, they also question whether the government should have the authority to take a life, even in a case involving a capital crime. The process has also been criticized by conservatives such as columnist George Will as a protracted and flawed process. The former prolongs the emotional suffering and doubt of families for years; the latter cannot be corrected once the deed is done. So, in some ways, this has become a philosophical alignment, in which both conservative and liberal philosophies have melded together. The aforementioned points sound a lot like the progressive arguments that have heretofore failed to repeal the penalty. And so, the future of the death penalty in Nebraska, which has not conducted an execution in 18 years and has 10 inmates awaiting execution, seems to be very much in doubt. Could the same be true in South Dakota? That's a big question and a big leap, but the Nebraska case sheds a new, nonpartisan light on the issue. Lawmakers tried to repeal the penalty this past session with Senate Bill 121, but the idea was mowed down in committee. The arguments that failed in Pierre sounded somewhat like the arguments that succeeded in Lincoln "I guess the question that we ask ourselves on Senate Bill 121 is, 'Do we want a government so big, so powerful, they can decide life and death?'" stated District 18 Sen. Bernie Hunhoff (D) of Yankton in an Associated Press report. That argument was echoed by Will in a column about the "withering" of the death penalty this past week: "The power to inflict death cloaks government with a majesty and pretense of infallibility discordant with conservatism." None of this suggests that the death penalty will be repealed next winter in South Dakota, where 3 people currently sit on death row. A lot has to change before that can take place. But change can come quickly and in the unlikeliest places. Nebraska will be a rallying point for future repeal efforts to come. (source: Associated Press ) From rhalperi at smu.edu Wed May 27 16:18:20 2015 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Wed, 27 May 2015 16:18:20 -0500 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide Message-ID: May 27 HUNGARY: PM proposes to debate EU on having capital punishment instead of real life prison sentence Hungary must remain a member of the European Union and NATO, the prime minister said during questions in Parliament. In response to a question by Gabor Vona, leader of the radical nationalist Jobbik party, concerning whether a referendum would be held on renegotiating Hungary's position with the EU, Viktor Orban said Jobbik "can hide behind a referendum" but "the fact is that Jobbik wants us to leave the EU and NATO." It is in the interest of the Hungarian people that Hungary should remain a member of both organisations, he said. Meanwhile, Jobbik lawmaker Adam Mirkoczki asked Orban to support a parliamentary debate on capital punishment, initiated by Jobbik. Mirkoczki noted that in 2012 Orban had referred to EU principles to explain why the death penalty would not be restored. Noting the murder of a young tobacconist in south-west Hungary, Orban insisted the EU had "attacked" the implementation of real life prison sentences and now the situation had changed. If Brussels can "force" the country to let habitual offenders back into society then "we shouldn't take defensive action but instead take a step forward." "We need to respond by saying: let's have a debate on capital punishment," Orban said. (source: politics.hu) PAKISTAN----impending executions PIA Flight 544 hijackers to be hanged on Thursday The convicts in hijacking case of Flight 544 Shahsawar Baloch and Sabir Baloch are scheduled to be executed by handing on Thursday at Hyderabad Central Jail, Dunya News reported. The terrorists had hijacked a passenger flight on May 25, 1998 with 33 passengers and 5 crew members on board in order to stop testing of nuclear weapons Pakistan developed. The flight took off from Gwadar International Airport and was scheduled to land at Hyderabad airport. The told the pilot to take the flight to New Delhi. What followed is no less than a plot of an action film. The pilots told the hijackers that the flight, Fokker F27 model, did not have enough fuel to make it to New Delhi to which the hijackers demanded to land the flight at nearest airport in India. The pilot then contacted Hyderabad airport and addressed it as Bhuj airport. Comprehending the signal, Hyderabad airport staff pretended to be from Bhuj airport and told the pilot Bhuj was waiting for the plane to land. This was a sort of assurance for the hijackers. The Pakistan Air Force (PAF) had intercepted the communication and joined the operation. Upon landing, Rangers' Major Aamir Hashmi, SSP Akhtar Gorchani, and Deputy Commissioner Suhail Akbar Shah waited outside the aircraft while dressed as Indian personnel which led the hijackers to believe they had landed in India. Acting as Indian airport staff, communicating in Hindi and introducing themselves to the hijackers with Indian names, Pakistani officials successfully convinced the hijackers to let women and children go. The final showdown happened when the commandos' reinforcement stormed the aircraft chanting "Allahu Akbar" (God is great) slogan which left the hijackers shot. 1 of the hijackers fired at Deputy Commissioner but missed and shot one of his own accomplices instead. Subsequently the hijackers were arrested and transferred to Karachi for prosecution. The anti-terrorism court awarded them death penalty and despite issuance of death warrants only to be canceled owing to temporary moratorium on death penalty. However, the fresh death warrants have been issued and their execution is scheduled for May 28, the date on which Pakistan successfully test fired nuclear weapons in 1998. The final meeting of death-row inmates with the families took place on Wednesday at the Central Jail. Talking to the press, Shahsawar's son said that his father is 'innocent' and should be pardoned. (source: Dunya News) ALGERIA: Algeria sentences 12 Islamists to death over 2008 bombing An Algerian court sentenced 12 Islamist militants to death today and 2 more to life imprisonment for their involvement in a 2008 bombing that killed a Frenchman and his driver. The APS news agency said the accused were all members of Katibat el-Arkam, the most dangerous branch of Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), and were behind several attacks in the Boumerdes region 50 kilometres east of Algiers. Those given the death penalty are all on the run and were sentenced in absentia by Algiers criminal court, while the 2 present in court were sentenced to life. All were found guilty of "forming an armed terrorist group and premeditated voluntary homicide". The 2 defendants in court, Khaled Asalah and Brahim Brahim, admitted membership of AQIM and taking part in several attacks. On June 9, 2008, engineer Pierre Nowacki of the French firm BTP Razel and his Algerian driver were killed by a remotely controlled roadside bomb in the Beni Amrane area east of the capital. A 2nd blast in the area minutes later wounded 7 people. The Frenchman had been overseeing repair work on a railway tunnel. (source: The Business Standard) SAUDI ARABIA: Saudi execution surge 'very disturbing': UN rapporteur Saudi Arabia's execution surge is "very disturbing" and out of line with global trends, the UN special rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions told AFP Wednesday. He spoke as the number of beheadings in the kingdom hit 89, compared with 87 during all of 2014, according to tallies by AFP. "It is certainly very disturbing that there is such a fast pace of executions at the moment," Christof Heyns said in a telephone interview from South Africa. "If it continues at this pace we will have double the number of executions, or more than double the number of executions than we had last year." Heyns, who submits annual reports to the U.N. Human Rights Council and General Assembly, said Riyadh's use of the death penalty "is just so way out of line" with global trends where the number of executions and states which apply the death penalty is decreasing. "So this is going in the opposite direction. It's going against the stream," he said. Heyns, a professor of human rights law at the University of Pretoria, said statistics indicate that Saudi Arabia last year had the world's third highest number of executions after China and Iran. He said there are a number of concerns about the kingdom's use of the death penalty. Under international law, if capital punishment is imposed at all it should only be for murder, he said. But in Saudi Arabia "more than half" the executions are for non-lethal crimes. Under the Gulf nation's strict version of Islamic sharia law, drug trafficking, rape, murder, apostasy and armed robbery are all punishable by death, as are other offences including espionage. In a country of about 29 million, a "very high number of people for the population" are sentenced to death and executed, the special rapporteur said. "It seems that many of these trials are in secrecy and that lawyers are not available and they do not comply with the standards of fair trial." Saudi Arabia's Interior Ministry has cited deterrence as a reason for implementing capital punishment. (source: The Daily Star) ******************** 89 in 5 months: Saudi Arabia continues executions A man was beheaded in Saudi Arabia on Wednesday, with the convicted murderer's execution becoming the 89th case this year, according to an AFP count. The death toll has already overtaken the total for all of 2014. Fahd bin Hussein Daghriri was found guilty in participating in the murder of a fellow Saudi citizen, AFP reported on Wednesday, citing an interior ministry statement published by the official Saudi Press Agency. Authorities executed the convicted criminal in the southern region of Jazan. The man was sentenced to death according to the nation's strict version of Islamic sharia law, under which such crimes as murder, rape, armed robbery and drug trafficking are punishable by death. Executions are mostly conducted by decapitating the accused with a sword in public. The Gulf kingdom had already executed 88 people across 2015 before the newest case, both locals and foreigners. This month, 5 foreigners were executed in Saudi Arabia, causing international outcry, with human rights groups having condemned the country. Daghriri's beheading was the 89th since the beginning of the year. In comparison, in all of 2014, 87 people were executed in Saudi Arabia. The "fast pace" of executions in Saudi Arabia was deemed "very disturbing" by a UN special rapporteur. "If it continues at this pace we will have double the number of executions, or more than double the number of executions, that we had last year," Christof Heyns who submits annual reports to the UN Human Rights Council and General Assembly, told AFP on Wednesday. Observing that how, in a country of approximately 29 million, the number of people sentenced to death and executed is "very high," Heyns said Saudi Arabia "is going against the stream," while execution figures are decreasing in other countries. The UN official called the practice "something which really doesn't belong in the 21st century," adding that in the Gulf kingdom trials leading to beheadings are often carried out "in secrecy," with lawyers being unavailable. "They do not comply with the standards of fair trial," Heyns told AFP. Out of the 22 countries currently known to practice capital punishment, in 2014 Saudi Arabia was ranked 3rd on Amnesty International's list of countries that carry out the most executions, surpassing Iraq and the United States. (source: rt.com) CHINA: China's top court stresses death penalty for drug crimes The Supreme People's Court (SPC) on Wednesday published a circular emphasizing that death penalty should be used to punish drug crime. In cases involving drug lords, professional drug dealers or re-offenders, if the crimes were serious enough, capital punishment should be handed down, said the circular formulated at a recent national conference on trials of drug crimes. Death sentences may also be used to punish drug smuggling, organized transnational drug crime and armed or violent drug crime. The top court also required more stricter standards for reprieves, ruling them out for re-offenders. Reprieves for those found to have induced, instigated, conned or forced others to commit drug crimes should also be strictly controlled, the SPC said. Abatements or probation for sentenced drug gang bosses, professional traffickers and re-offenders also needs to be scrutinized, the circular added. The document went on that the amount of narcotics the suspects held for their own use will no longer be an element when the judges decide on convictions, and such facts will only be considered during the sentencing process. The circular pledged equal punishment for drug-related crimes conducted via the Internet and vowed to step up the confiscation of the drug criminals' assets. (source: Global Times) ************************ Former Chinese legislator stands trial for sex business A 5-star hotel owner and former national legislator went on trial in south China's Guangdong province for alleged involvement in prostitution, Xinhua news agency reported on Wednesday. Liang Yaohui, and his 46 hotel employees, were accused of arranging prostitutes, including underage girls, in Crown Prince Hotel in Dongguan city since 2004, according to Dongguan Intermediate People's Court. The city, which is about 80 km away from provincial capital Guangzhou, is famous for casinos, bath houses and massage parlours. The hotel made about 48.7 million yuan ($7.8 million) by organising over 100,000 illegal sexual acts in 2013, according to the court. In February 2014, Liang's hotel was closed down together with some other hotels and entertainment venues involved in sex trade in Dongguan after media exposed the city's sex business. The scandal was followed by a 3-month crackdown on prostitution in Guangdong. Liang, born in 1967, was stripped of the title as a deputy to the National People's Congress (NPC), China's top legislature, after being detained in April 2014. Prostitution has been outlawed in China since the People's Republic of China was founded in 1949. According to Chinese laws, organising prostitution can result in life in prison or even the death penalty. (source: The Business Standard) BANGLADESH: Mujahid appeal verdict June 16 The Appellate Division of the Supreme Court has fixed June 16 for delivering its verdict on an appeal filed by Jamaat leader Ali Ahsan Muhammad Mujahid, challenging his death penalty. The 4-member Appellate Division bench headed by Chief Justice SK Sinha passed the order on Wednesday afternoon. On July 17 last year, International Crimes Tribunal 2 awarded the death penalty to Jamaat leader Mujaheed for committing crimes against humanity during the Liberation War. He received death penalties in 2 cases filed for abetting and facilitating the killing of intellectuals during the Liberation War and participating in and facilitating the murder of 9 Hindu civilians in Faridpur. On August 11 last year, Mujahid filed an appeal with the Appellate Division against his capital punishment. On April 29, the SC started the appeal hearing of the condemned prisoner for committing crimes against humanity during the Liberation War. (source: Dhaka Tribune) ***************** Bangladesh to 'form tribunals at divisional headquarters to try human trafficking offences' Law Minister Anisul Huq today said the government will form 7 special tribunals at 7 divisional headquarters of the country to try and punish the offences of human trafficking, and curb such crimes. District and session judges concerned will conduct the tribunals, which will be established under the Human Trafficking Deterrence and Suppression Act 2012, the minister said while talking to reporters after a meeting with Swedish Ambassador Johan Frisell at his Secretariat office. Highest punishment for such organised crimes under this law is death penalty, he added. The law minister said his ministry has already sent proposal for formation of the tribunals to the ministries concerned. He said there are 557 cases, filed on charges of human trafficking, are pending with different courts across the country. Charge sheets were submitted in 257 cases and trial proceedings of 12 cases have been finished, he said. Anisul also said the trial proceedings of the pending cases will be conducted at the women and children repression prevention tribunals concerned of the districts until the special tribunals are established in the divisional headquarters. (source: The Daily Star) From rhalperi at smu.edu Thu May 28 10:44:10 2015 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Thu, 28 May 2015 10:44:10 -0500 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----ALA., NEB. Message-ID: May 28 ALABAMA: 'Bizarre' verdict: Heather Leavell-Keaton guilty of capital murder, manslaughter in deaths of DeBlase children Heather Leavell-Keaton intentionally killed 3-year-old Chase DeBlase in 2010, but only recklessly caused the death of his 4-year-old sister, Natalie, a jury said Wednesday. For more than 2 weeks, Keaton stood trial for capital murder in the deaths of the 2, who were the biological children of her common-law husband John DeBlase. He was convicted on multiple counts of capital murder in the children's deaths in late 2014 and sentenced to death. According to its verdict, the jury felt Keaton's role in Natalie's death was different. After the verdict was read, several on the prosecution's side of Circuit Judge Rick Stout's courtroom seemed perplexed and 1 prosecutor not working the case was overheard calling the verdict "bizarre." Immediately following the verdict, District Attorney Ashley Rich asked the judge for some time to confer with defense attorneys Jim Vollmer and Greg Hughes due to possible "inconsistencies" in the verdict. Keaton was found not guilty on the count of capital murder related to Natalie, and a 2nd capital charge alleging she intentionally killed 2 or more people. She faced capital murder charges in relation to Natalie's death, as well. According to prosecutors, the little girl was choked to death in March 2010 after being duct-taped and placed in a suitcase which was set in a closet for 12 hours. Her body was later dumped in a wooded area near Citronelle. Based on her conviction on the manslaughter charge, the jury believed Keaton did not intend to kill Natalie, but was guilty of recklessly causing her death. Chase died in June 2010, having been taped to a broom handle and left in the corner of the couple's bedroom overnight. He was also choked to death, according to testimony, and his body was found in the woods outside Vancleave, Miss. The jury, which consisted of 9 women and 3 men, deliberated for more than 7 hours over Tuesday and Thursday, stopping 3 times to ask Stout questions. They spent several hours over both days re-watching video interview footage of Keaton in late 2010 both before and after her arrest. She faces either the death penalty or life without possibility of parole for killing Chase, and 2 to 20 years in prison on the manslaughter charge. Sentencing will begin at 8:30 a.m. Thursday and include testimony from witnesses for the defense and prosecution. Parties on both sides of the case declined to comment after the verdict, and said they could not speak until after the penalty phase concluded. (source: al.com) NEBRASKA: Nebraska lawmakers officially abolish the death penalty, overriding governor's veto Nebraska lawmakers voted to abolish the death penalty Wednesday, overriding a veto from the governor and making that state the 19th in the country to ban capital punishment. The vote on Wednesday in Lincoln made Nebraska the 1st state in 2 years to formally abandon the death penalty, a decision that comes amid a decline in executions and roiling uncertainty regarding how to carry out lethal injections. Gov. Pete Ricketts (R) had been a vocal critic of the bill before he vetoed it on Tuesday afternoon. Ricketts called it "cruel" to the relatives of the victims of people sentenced to death and wrote in a letter to the legislature that "the overwhelming majority of Nebraskans" want the death penalty to remain in place. The state's lawmakers voted last week to abolish the death penalty, passing the measure with enough support to override a veto that Ricketts had said was coming. In the unicameral Nebraska legislature, it takes 30 of the 49 senators to override the veto. Last week, 32 senators voted to repeal the death penalty. A spokesman for Ricketts said that he had been traveling the state to visit senators in an effort to sustain his veto. On Wednesday, 30 senators voted to override Ricketts???s veto, outlawing the death penalty by the narrowest of margins. The bill's passage in Nebraska was unusual, because while numerous states have abolished or halted capital punishment in recent years, they have typically been more politically liberal. Nebraska, meanwhile, is as red as it gets, and the legislature is largely conservative. A majority of Americans support the death penalty - a level of support has been falling consistently for 2 decades - but that sentiment is much stronger among Republicans than Democrats. Capital punishment is supported by more than three-quarters of Republicans, but it is opposed by a majority of Democrats. Some lawmakers in Nebraska offered a conservative argument for repealing the death penalty there, painting it as an example of government waste. "I've said frequently, if any other program was as inefficient and as costly as this has been, we would've gotten rid of it a long time ago," State Sen. Colby Coash, a Republican who co-sponsored the repeal bill, said after the legislature approved it last week. Nebraska has not executed an inmate since 1997. It currently has 10 inmates on death row; there were 11 inmates when the bill was passed last week, but the state Department of Corrections said that an inmate died on Sunday. Under the bill, these inmates will now get life sentences. Other lawmakers said they supported the bill for religions reasons or because of cases where people were wrongly convicted. Maryland was the last state to formally abolish the death penalty, abandoning it in 2013 and emptying its death row earlier this year. New Hampshire, the last state in New England with the death penalty, almost got rid of it last year, but the bill failed by a single vote. While 31 states and the federal government still have the death penalty, in reality only a small handful of states actually carry out executions. Last year, seven states carried out executions, about a third the number of states that executed inmates 15 years earlier. Some states have also halted the practice without formally abolishing it. Washington state announced a moratorium last year, while Pennsylvania's governor suspended the death penalty there in February. Oregon's new governor said this year she will keep that state's moratorium in place. Other states dealing with legal challenges or an ongoing shortage of lethal injection drugs have imposed their own delays, creating de facto moratoriums in some places. After Ohio adopted a new lethal injection policy this year, it pushed back its executions scheduled through January 2016. As a result, Ohio - among the most active modern death-penalty states - will go at least 2 years without any executions. Georgia suspended executions after an issue with a drug it was going to use and has not announced plans to resume lethal injections. Tennessee canceled its scheduled executions through early next year to let a court consider challenges from inmates. And 3 states have called off executions until the U.S. Supreme Court announces its decision in a lethal injection case. The federal government, meanwhile, has the death penalty, but it has a moratorium in place while it reviews its death penalty policy. The government also has no lethal injection drugs, which are much harder to get these days. Meanwhile, more than a quarter of a century after the federal death penalty statute was reinstated, the government has carried out three executions, the last in 2003. Even as other states have struggled to obtain lethal injection drugs, Ricketts said before the death-penalty repeal bill passed the legislature that the state purchased the drugs needed to carry out an execution. The state corrections department has 1 drug already, and the other 2 drugs will arrive "in the near future," according to Ricketts's office. (source: Washington Post) ******************* Death penalty facts 31 states still have some form of capital punishment. 16 states have executed a person in the past 3 years. But the number of executions and new death sentences is at a 20-year low, and just a few states are responsible for the vast majority of executions. Considering population, Oklahoma has killed more people per capita - 112 -- since 1976, when a nationwide moratorium ended. The other top 10 are Texas (525), Delaware (16), Missouri (83), Virginia (110), Alabama (56), Arkansas (27), South Carolina (43), Mississippi (21), Louisiana (28). Since 1973, more than 150 people have been released from death row with evidence of their innocence. So far this year, 2 death-row inmates were exonerated and set free: Debra Milke, jailed since 1990 in Arizona; and Anthony Ray Hinton, jailed since 1985 in Alabama by a prosecutor who said he knew Hinton was guilty "just by looking at him." 3,019 inmates are on death row in the United States. California has the most, with 743, but a federal judge there declared the death penalty unconstitutional in 2014 so executions are on hold. 105 of the 192 countries represented at the United Nations have abolished the death penalty by law, and at least 43 more have abolished it in practice, either through public moratorium or de facto moratorium (when a country declines to practice capital punishment for a decade or longer). The U.S. Supreme Court is expected to rule next month in a case brought by prisoners on death row in Oklahoma who contend that the death penalty as carried out there - they say it's by lethal injection that is secretly arranged and shoddily administered - constitutes cruel and unusual punishment. The case is the most substantive legal challenge to the death penalty in the U.S. in decades. [sources: Death Penalty Information Center, World Coalition Against the Death Penalty] **************** Death penalty in Nebraska 23 people have been killed by the state of Nebraska since it took over executions in 1903. 8 were hanged and 15 electrocuted. 2 men were electrocuted on Dec. 20, 1920, the 1st time the electric chair was used. 0 have been put to death by lethal injection. 31 death row inmates have had their sentences commuted. 1 was furloughed. 1, Jeremy Sheets, was released in 2001 after his sentence was vacated. 13 were commuted since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976. 4 died of natural causes, including Michael Ryan on Sunday. 2 committed suicide. (source for both: Lincoln Journal Star) ****************** An unexpected win for death-penalty opponents in Nebraska Since 2000, 6 states have banned the death penalty, and all 6 can fairly be described as "blue" states. 4 of the 6 - Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, and Maryland - are in the Northeast, and the other 2 - Illinois and New Mexico - are hardly conservative strongholds. But as Rachel reported on the show last night, there's a new addition to the list, and it's one that would have been hard to predict as recently as a few months ago. From Amanda Sakuma's msnbc report; Conservatives turn on Republican governor to repeal Nebraska death penalty The Nebraska legislature abolished the death penalty Wednesday in a down-to-the-wire vote overriding Gov. Pete Ricketts' veto, making Nebraska the 1st red state in decades to strike capital punishment from its books. In a 30-19 vote that crossed party lines, the unicameral legislature defied the Republican governor's opposition to the death penalty repeal, garnering the exact number of votes needed to overcome his veto. Nebraska, with its unusual unicameral legislature, technically has a non-partisan state government, but it's hardly a secret that Republican policymakers dominate in this ruby-red state. It made yesterday's vote that much more satisfying. The key to success, oddly enough, was framing the debate in a conservative way - proponents of the change made the case that the flawed existing system is too expensive; it's at odds with the values of honoring life; and the governments that kill their own citizens are the biggest of all possible governments. It was close, and the state's Republican governor lobbied hard to keep the death penalty in place, but the argument won the day. Nebraska will now join 18 states and the District of Columbia in banning capital punishment. But how secure is the victory? Rachel noted towards the end of last night's segment, "One of the things to watch on this story in Nebraska is whether or not people who support the death penalty, including the governor, try to get it back through some sort of popular referendum. We saw this work through the legislature to get it repealed, including this incredible drama today with overriding the governor's veto. It will be interesting if they put it to a vote." It's an angle well worth watching - Nebraska took an important step yesterday, but execution supporters may yet try to undo what's been done. (source: MSNBC) ***************** Nebraska legislature narrowly votes to repeal? death penalty ---- Vote abolishes governor???s veto and makes state the first majority Republican state to abolish capitol punishment in more than 4 decades The Nebraska legislature narrowly voted on Wednesday to repeal the death penalty, overriding the governor's veto and making the state the 1st majority Republican state to abolish capital punishment in more than 4 decades. The state has a unicameral legislature in which all bills must be voted on 3 times. The bill to abolish the death penalty passed all 3 rounds, 30-16, 30-13, and finally 32-15 in its third vote. The governor vetoed the bill on Tuesday. Legislators needed 30 votes to override the veto, and it earned 30. 19 voted against. The repeal is the latest move in what some experts believe is a new conservative push against executions. "In many respects, what has happened in Nebraska is a microcosm of the steady national trend away from the death penalty in the United States," said Robert Dunham, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center. 19 states and the District of Columbia now ban the death penalty, and Nebraska becomes "the 1st predominantly Republican state to abolish the death penalty since North Dakota abolished the death penalty in 1973," he said. The 10 men still on Nebraska's death row will remain there, though the state hasn't executed an inmate since 1997. The legislation passed Tuesday will abolish Nebraska's method of execution, essentially stopping the men's sentence from being carried out. In Wednesday's debate, senators spoke passionately for and against the death penalty, and many referenced the bible. "Capital punishment is not perfect, but we need it," said senator Lydia Brasch. "Is it always fairly and equally administered? Probably not. Does it need to be there? Yes it does," said senator Dave Bloomfield. Senator Ernie Chambers, who has fought for decades to repeal the death penalty, addressed his fellow senators repeatedly. "I wish that I could say that it was my brilliance that brought us to this point, but this would not be true, and we all know it. Had not the conservative faction decided it was time for a change, there's no way that what is happening today would be happening today," he said. "There has been a confluence of individuals groups and circumstances that have put Nebraska on the threshold of stepping into history, on the right side of history." Nebraska reinstated the death penalty in 1973, following the Georgia v Furman US supreme court case that paused capital punishment in the country for 3 years (another Georgia case led to the death penalty's reinstatement as a state's rights issue). Executions in the US have ground nearly to a halt this year as states wait to hear the result of a supreme court argument over whether 1 state's execution protocol amounts to cruel and unusual punishment. The case, Glossip v Gross, was argued in the Supreme Court in April, and focuses on the drug cocktail used to carry out Oklahoma death sentences. The state's reliance on the drug midazolam led to the high-profile "botched" execution of Clayton Lockett, in which it took 43 minutes for the man to be pronounced dead. That led to a challenge by Oklahoma inmate Richard Glossip. Several death penalty states have relied on the drug as part of an execution cocktail since pentobarbital, long used for executions, became scarce as the result of a European-led boycott of execution drugs. Nebraska does not use midazolam in its lethal injection process, but instead relies on a cocktail of similar drugs, which the governor recently said he had secured from a pharmacy in India. ******************* The repeal of Nebraska's death penalty means the 10 men on the state's death row are now effectively serving life sentences. There were 11 prisoners there until Sunday, when murderous cult leader Michael Ryan, convicted of killing two people, died while in prison. Here are the other inmates who were on death row at Tecumseh State Prison when lawmakers voted Wednesday to abolish capital punishment over the governor's wishes: Carey Dean Moore, 56, has been on death row since 1980. He was convicted of murdering Omaha cab drivers Reuel Van Ness Jr. and Maynard Helgeland 5 days apart. He says he has become a born-again Christian since being sentenced to death. "When I killed the 2 men, that was my responsibility, my fault," he told the Lincoln Journal Star in 2011. "The devil didn't make me do it. That was just me." Carey Dean Moore, 56, has been on death row since 1980. John Lotter, 43, was convicted of murdering transgender victim Brandon Teena and two other people in 1993 - a crime that was the basis for the award-winning movie "Boys Don't Cry." His accomplice, who got life, testified that Lotter pulled the trigger but later recanted and said he was the gunman. " I'm going to fight for every last breath that I have to prove my innocence and get out of here," Lotter said in 2013. Brandon Teena was murdered on New Year's Eve 1993 after reporting a rape. Raymond Mata Jr., 42, was sentenced to die twice - first by a panel of judges and then by a jury after the U.S. Supreme Court said jurists couldn't make the call. He was convicted of murdering and dismembering his ex-girlfriend's 3-year-old son, Adam Gomez, in 1999; parts of the boy's body were found in the killer's dog bowl and in the animal's stomach. Raymond Mata Jr. was convicted of murdering and dismembering his ex-girlfriend's 3-year-old son, Adam Gomez, in 1999. Arthur Gales, 50, was convicted of murdering 2 children, 13-year-old Latara Chandler, who was raped and strangled, and her 7-year-old brother Tramar, who was strangled and drowned in the bathtub. He allegedly killed the kids so they could not tell police he had been with their mother, who was beaten and left for dead but survived. Jorge Galindo, 34, Erick Vela, 34, and Jose Sandoval, 36, were put on death row for the murders of 4 workers and one customer during a Norfolk bank robbery. They suspects marched in and shot the victims - Lisa Bryant, 29; Lola Elwood, 43; Jo Mausbach, 42; Evonne Tuttle, 37; and Samuel Sun, 50 - in the head in under a minute. "It went to hell," Vela later told police. A state trooper committed suicide the day after the slayings in despair that he botched a stolen-weapon check on one of the suspects a week earlier. Jeffrey Hessler, 36, was found guilty of kidnapping, raping and murdering a 15-year-old newspaper carrier, Heather Guerrero, in 2003. Hessler, who had pleaded guilty to the earlier rape of another teenage paper girl, represented himself at trial and later lost a number of appeals arguing he was mentally ill and should not have been allowed to serve as his own attorney. Roy Ellis, 61, was convicted of abducting a 12-year-old girl, Amber Harris, after she got off a school bus, killing her and tossing her partially clothed body in a park ravine in 2005. Ellis, a convicted sex offender, was the 1st person sentenced to death in Nebraska after the state banned the electric chair. His victim's mother said after the sentencing that she had no hope it would be carried out. "Either he'll die before then, or me," she old the Journal Star. Marco Torres, 42, was the most recent arrival to death row, after being convicted in the 2007 double murder of Timothy Donohue, 48, and Edward, Hall, 60, possibly to cover up a robbery. In his appeals, Torres cited methamphetamine use as an excuse for the slaying. (source for both: NBC news) ******************* Reaction to Death Penalty Repeal Plenty of people came out to Lincoln Wednesday to witness the historic vote, overriding Governor Pete Ricketts' veto of a death penalty appeal, for themselves. Cheers came from outside the legislative chambers as the votes came in. "We did it. I can't believe it. They had me on pins and needles, but we did it," said Miriam Kelle. Kelle said she has been working against the death penalty for a decade. More than 30 years after her brother, James Thimm, was killed by cult leader Michael Ryan. Days after the murderer's death from a medical issue while awaiting execution, Kelle got her wish. "Just tears of joy. First time on this issue that we've had tears of joy," she said. But, Kelle said her work is not over. "We don't want anyone to be considered evil. We want behavioral health for young people and small children so that everyone can be productive," said Kelle. Pierce County Sheriff Rick Eberhardt agrees there's still work to do, but said his focus will be on getting the issue on the ballot. "I think the people of the state of Nebraska need to realize that it was one vote today. One vote made a difference. And, when you get your chance - and you will get your chance - and you pull that curtain shut, it's going to be your vote," he said. Eberhardt said if the repeal isn't rejected by voters, taxpayers will ultimately suffer. "I think by doing this it's going to make more people that are going to fight their murder trials because they're going to roll the dice and say hey, the worst they can do to me is lock me up forever," said Eberhardt. "The people of the state of Nebraska are going to be the ones that will foot the bill." On Wednesday's vote, Eberhardt said he was "shocked and dismayed, very disappointed, upset." (source: nebraska.tv) ***************** Death penalty repeal throws a lifeline to Nikko Jenkins, Anthony Garcia The repeal of the death penalty means that the 2 men each connected to 4 Omaha killings - convicted murderer Nikko Jenkins and murder suspect Anthony J. Garcia - will no longer face the death penalty. Nor will Roberto Martinez-Marinero, 25, accused of killing his mother and throwing his 4-year-old brother, Josue, into the Elkhorn River, drowning him. Douglas County Attorney Don Kleine had announced plans to seek the death penalty in that case. At a Judiciary Committee hearing in March, Kleine testified in favor of the death penalty, but he also said he was frustrated with the state's inability to "get its act together" as far as an execution method. Kleine, a death penalty supporter, said he was somewhat surprised by Wednesday's vote. The prosecutor, who helped put child killers Roy Ellis and Arthur Lee Gales on death row, said that he has spoken with Nebraska Attorney General Doug Peterson and that it is unclear how the repeal will affect current death row inmates. Nebraska has no means to carry out an execution. As for those pending a death penalty decision, Kleine said, "it's over." "To me, the Legislature represents the people - and the people have spoken," Kleine said. "It's the end of it." Solicitor General James Smith of the Nebraska Attorney General's Office has said that if a death sentence is not "final," it would become a life sentence once Legislative Bill 268 becomes law. A death sentence does not become final, he said, until the Nebraska Supreme Court affirms it in the automatic appeal afforded for such cases. The new law would affect anyone awaiting trial or sentencing for 1st-degree murder who faces the possibility of a death sentence. In addition to Jenkins, that would include Garcia, 41, a former Creighton pathology resident charged with killing 4 Omahans connected to Creighton's pathology department. His trial is pending. Jenkins, 27, was found guilty after pleading no contest to shooting and killing Juan Uribe-Pena, Jorge Cajiga-Ruiz, Curtis Bradford and Andrea Kruger in August 2013. For Jenkins, the end of the death penalty wouldn't necessarily mean the end of his case. If he has no death penalty hearing to face, Jenkins is expected to try to withdraw his no-contest pleas. But judges rarely allow such withdrawals. (source: omaha.com) From rhalperi at smu.edu Thu May 28 10:44:59 2015 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Thu, 28 May 2015 10:44:59 -0500 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----COLO., ARIZ., USA Message-ID: May 28 COLORADO: Jury Selection Begins For Denver's 1st Death Penalty Case In 14 Years Jury selection has started for Denver's 1st death penalty case in 14 years. Dexter Lewis is accused of fatally stabbing 5 people at a bar in October 2012. Lewis is accused in the brutal stabbing and killing of 5 people at Fero's Bar and Grill near Colorado and Alameda. He also allegedly set the bar on fire to cover up the crime. Police claim the attacks happened while Lewis was trying to rob the business. The men allegedly got away with just $170. Jurors will be selected from a pool of 600 people. 2 brothers, Joseph and Lynell Hill, have been sentenced after pleading guilty to their roles in the deadly stabbings. As part of their plea agreements, the Hill brothers agreed to testify against Lewis. (source: CBS news) ARIZONA: Arizona should follow Nebraska and dump death penalty When I heard that the Nebraska Legislature outlawed the death penalty, 2 words occurred to me. Jodi Arias. That case alone is enough of a reason why the Arizona Legislature should follow their conservative Cornhusker colleagues and dump our state's death penalty as well. Certainly, our leaders won't do it because innocent people wind up on death row, though innocent people do. Consider the case of Ray Krone, 1 of 8 Arizona condemned inmates who have been exonerated, according to the Death Penalty Information Center. Since 1973, when 153 men on death row in U.S. prisons have been exonerated. Certainly, they won't do it because 1 out of every 10 people who has been executed in the United States since 1977 is mentally ill, according to the National Association on Mental Illness. Certainly, they won't consider the decades it takes to carry out the death penalty, which is tough on victims' families and something less than the crime deterrent our leaders like to call it. Certainly, they won't do it on moral grounds that the state is little better than the killers we seek to punish. Certainly, they won't do it because we can't seem to get the right drugs to do the job right. So how about doing it in the name of fiscal conservatism? Our conservative Legislature is constantly cutting taxes then wondering why we don't have enough money to properly fund things like schools. Jodi Arias alone likely boosted class sizes in this state. Arias, of course, is the deranged woman who killed her ex-boyfriend by stabbing him, shooting him and slashing his throat. Taxpayers spent $3.5 million to provide her with a defense as prosecutors tried, then tried again to put her on death row. That doesn't count the cost of prosecution or putting up witnesses and family for the various hearings and trials. And that's before inevitable appeals. Or the inevitable new trial that she would someday get when the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decided that her constitutional rights were violated. Meanwhile, it would have cost a fraction of that to simply toss Arias' sorry behind into a prison cell for the rest of her life...preferably one without a mirror or a microphone. 2 juries declined to put Arias on death row. So now we're paying $3.5 million to try to kill her, plus the cost of prosecution plus the price of tossing her sorry behind into prison for the rest of her life. According to the Department of Corrections, we pay $79.40 a day to house maximum-security inmates. Lock Arias up for 30 years and you're still only at $869,430. Arizona is 1 of 31 states that still have a death penalty. The Arizona Legislature should make it 30. Why not save ourselves a few bucks and spend them on schools rather than vengeance? (source: Laurie Roberts, The Arizona Republic) USA: Why The Death Penalty Should Live----If you take lives, yours can be taken I hadn't put a lot of thought into the death penalty until I was lying on a sidewalk on Boylston Street two years ago. There, then, I believed that I was going to die and that my husband was already dead. But we're still alive. I lost my leg below the knee; both of his legs were wounded. We are lucky. When I woke up in the hospital, I decided not to use the name of the person on trial for the crimes against the 2 of us and more than 260 other people, including 4 murder victims, 1 of whom was 8 years old. Part of posttraumatic stress disorder is the feeling of losing control: one minute you're holding your husband's hand in beautiful, sunny Boston; the next, your life is changed forever. The killer never wanted to learn my name, so why should I learn his? And I also decided early on that the death penalty was the verdict that I wanted for him. I believe in my heart of hearts that he knew exactly what he was doing the moment before he did it, and possibly months before that. Among other horrific charges, he used a weapon of mass destruction to intentionally harm and kill people. You can't use a weapon of mass destruction in the United States and not think that if you succeed, you're going to face a federal jury and the possibility of the death penalty. It must have been nice for him to be surrounded by a courtroom full of people fighting about whether he should live or die. None of us in Boston that day had such a luxury. I testified in the penalty phase of the trial. When I was leaving the stand, I looked up and realized how close I was to him. I stood there and thought to myself, I wonder if he's scared. I wonder if he's scared that I'm this close. There didn't seem to be security covering him. Nobody budged. Maybe it's because of my tiny little arms that they didn't think I could do much. I certainly know I really wanted to. But I stood there. I stood there for myself, and I stood there for the survivor community, and I stood there for my husband, and I stood there for my left leg. Since that moment I feel like there's a bit of closure for me. I'm never going to have to see him again. Many in the survivor community feel like the death penalty offers a sense of justice being done. And that???s what his sentence felt like to me. I hope it also brings closure to those who lost loved ones that day. There are, of course, many in the survivor community who feel that he should spend his life in prison and sit in a cell and think about what he did. I don't speak for everybody. I hope that the death penalty in this case sets a precedent, and I hope that it's a deterrent. I hope it sends a message from Boston and America: We don't put up with terrorism or terrorists. You're not going to get a bed or a television or an occasional phone call to your family. When you take lives, yours can be taken as well. Nobody should ever have to go through what anyone in our Boylston Street family has. If anyone else is thinking of doing something like this, I hope they look long and hard at the sentence this guy got, and decide to change their minds and get the help that they need. (source: Adrianne Haslet Davis is a ballroom dancer, public speaker, and philanthropist, TIME) ******************* Why the Death Penalty Should Die----Killing killers won't bring back victims In hauntingly similar but unrelated crimes, separated by 23 years and a thousand miles, my father Robert Cushing and my brother-in-law Stephen McRedmond were murdered, both at their own houses. Family homes became crime scenes; horror displaced happiness; and homicide, as it always does, brought to my family pain for which there are no words. Nothing prepares a person for the murder of a loved one - to have what is most precious taken, forever, by another human being. Murder is the ultimate disempowerment, for both the victim and the survivors. And every family responds differently to murder and its traumatic wounds. The challenges are many: Finding the strength to get out of bed. Figuring out what to do with the empty chair at the kitchen table. Working to understand - and avoid being crushed by - police investigations and court systems. And honoring the life and the memory of the deceased while seeking justice. But I do not believe the needs of crime victims or their survivors are met by killing the killers. In 2004, I helped create Murder Victims' Families for Human Rights, an organization of survivors of homicide victims who oppose the death penalty. As a New Hampshire state representative, I work to promote policies that enhance public safety and meet the needs of crime victims. My father's murderer, who had been a local police officer, is serving life without parole; my brother-in-law's murderer, his nephew, took his own life. Our society is conflicted about the death penalty. I recognize and respect the diversity of opinions about capital punishment among survivors of murder victims. Unlike those of many death-penalty opponents, my views are victim-centered. My opposition is not rooted in what an execution does to a condemned prisoner but in what a system that embraces the ritual killing by government employees of an incapacitated prisoner does to me - to us, as individuals and as a society. Arguing that an execution is the solution to the pain of victims' families does not reflect an understanding of the journey of surviving family members after a murder, and it completely ignores the reality of our broken capital-punishment system. Most important, executions do not do the one thing we all really want: bring our loved ones back from the dead. For any person, the worst murder is the murder of a family member. A system that purports to execute only those who commit heinous murders creates a hierarchy of victims. Families devastated by crime become revictimized by a system focused on criminals, while the impact of crime itself and the needs of victims are all too often ignored. Sadly, some victims' survivors spend so much time focusing on how their cherished one died that they end up forgetting how the person lived. As a society, we can and we must do better by victims of violent crime. We can live without the death penalty. (source: Renny Cushing is a 5-term New Hampshire state representative and a founder of Murder Victims' Families for Human Rights----TIME) ******************************* VICTORY: Nebraska Becomes the 19th US State to Abolish the Death Penalty! Wow, who would have thought it possible? Red-state Nebraska (with a few purple splotches) actually has repealed the death penalty by voting to override the Governor's veto! And who were the people responsible for finally pushing this through? A strong coalition of abolitionists, plus some unlikely suspects, that's who. First, a little bit of history: Nebraska was the 1st state to legislatively abolish the death penalty in the modern era, in 1979, but the bill failed to survive the governor's veto. Subsequently, we saw 3 executions in the 1990's, the last one being in 1997. In 1999 a legislative moratorium bill passed, but was vetoed. In its place, a study was authorized, to be conducted by David C. Baldus of Iowa. The study concluded that the death penalty was arbitrarily applied, depending more on geography, class, race, and the discretion of prosecutors than on fairness. In 2008, the State Supreme Court ruled that the use of the electric chair was deemed "cruel and unusual punishment" because at that time Nebraska was the only place on earth that had electrocution as our sole method of execution. Lethal injection replaced the electric chair as the means of execution, but since legal procurement of drugs has eluded the state, the death penalty has essentially been put on hold. Finally, in 2013, we had enough votes for abolition, but not enough to overcome a filibuster. But this year, after decades of struggle, we had the votes to halt a filibuster, and the bill sponsored by Sen. Ernie Chambers of Omaha, who has fought for abolition for some 40 years, finally saw its way to final passage. The suspense was great; would we be able to override the Governor's promised veto, or would that prove to be an unsurmountable barrier as in 1979? Today, we have our answer. Let the celebration begin! So, getting back to my crediting "unusual suspects" ... Just who has helped bring us to this historic moment? Many victims' family members have spoken out about the tremendous negative impact the continuous attention presented by the media has had on their lives. Many religious voices (including the Pope and the Dalai Lama) have supported repeal. Law officers, and even some prosecutors, a former Nebraska judge, and former wardens from other states have said that it's time to move on. But in Nebraska, it's really the conservative legislators who have turned the corner and have begun to present arguments, both moral and economic, that signal an end to a failed enterprise. But clearly, this couldn't have happened without the hard work of groups dedicated to ending state barbarism. Amnesty International USA has been there for us, with phone banks and email alerts asking Nebraska's Amnesty International members to contact their legislators. Nebraska also benefits from a strong coalition of people working together; Nebraskans for Alternatives to the Death Penalty (NADP), Equal Justice USA (EJUSA), American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), and many others have worked diligently to try to educate policy makers and constituents. The media has had many editorials in the major statewide newspapers calling for abolition. So thank you all for your support, phone calls, and emails. Now Nebraska has joined the ranks of states to abandon this broken and unfixable punishment - the 19th state without the death penalty, and the 7th state to abolish in the only the last 8 years. The tidal wave of abolition is continuing to sweep over the United States, and soon the death penalty will be relegated to the history books where it belongs. Who's next? (source: Christy Hargesheimer, Nebraska resident and Nebraska State Death Penalty Action Coordinator for Amnesty International; AIUSA) ******************************* Nebraska Made History ---- Joins Growing Number of States Replacing Death Penalty with Smart Alternatives FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE----May 27, 2015 Today, a supermajority of Nebraska legislators voted to override Governor Pete Rickett's veto of LB 268, a bill that replaces the death penalty with a life sentence that has no possibility of parole. Statement from Danielle Conrad, Executive Director Today marks a remarkable and historic victory for our state. We are grateful for the dynamic leadership of policymakers, and we are proud to be part of an incredibly diverse coalition led by faith leaders, fiscal conservatives, and victim's families. This is a meaningful victory for all Nebraskans. The Nebraska Legislature, with the world watching, made their voice a part of the national conversation. We are a nation that is turning away from the death penalty. This victory stands as a testament to what can happen in our sister states. Our work helped to identify what we were hearing and seeing on the ground and across the nation a majority of voters favor smart alternatives like life in prison that put public safety first. Around the country, the number of executions per year and the number of states that carry out executions continue to decline. The state of Nebraska has been unable to carry out an execution for 15 years. Efforts to obtain drugs for lethal injection have failed time and time again. The Governor's most recent desperate attempt to secure lethal injection drugs raises the same legal and procedural red flags. Thankfully, Nebraska can now implement this law and devote more resources to solving crimes, supporting victims' families, and bringing sensible reforms to our crisis-riddled prison system. (source: ACLU Nebraska) **************************** Boston bomber sentenced to death, so why has Australia gone silent? The recent decision in Boston should reminder us of how easily the capital punishment apparatus is hijacked in pursuit of a political agenda. It's been 2 weeks since a United States federal jury handed down a sentence of death for the Boston bomber, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev. In that fortnight, Australia's apparent disinterest - and the silence of some who vowed to oppose capital punishment in all circumstances - has been conspicuous. Now that the payoffs are less clear, and when it comes to one of our closest allies, just how far are we prepared to go with our principled opposition? Perhaps we'd prefer not to see the disheartening similarities between recent events in south-east Asia and the punitive machinery of justice in the "land of the free". We're only too well-acquainted with the shortcomings of Indonesia's criminal justice system, but the recent decision in Massachusetts - a state overwhelmingly opposed to capital punishment and abolitionist since 1980 - ought to serve as a sombre reminder of just how easily the capital punishment apparatus is hijacked in pursuit of a political agenda. The particulars may be different but it's the same old story. We might like to imagine that the failings at the core of Indonesia's death penalty regime can simply be attributed to Third World legal standards and corruption, but we'd be deceiving ourselves. Former US president Bill Clinton's dramatic expansion of US federal death penalty laws - in the wake of the World Trade Centre bombings in the mid-1990s - to a broad range of terrorism offences was, according to some observers, "about politics of the most cynically expedient variety". Further reforms, particularly Clinton's duplicitously titled Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act, significantly limited appeals for all death-row prisoners, terrorist and non-terrorist alike. The fervour for a truncated capital appeals process was widespread among US "law-and-order" politicians, who presented this as a remedy to what they termed "frivolous" appeals by death-row inmates attempting to delay their executions. The trend towards fast-track capital convictions in the US is particularly alarming when viewed alongside the growing list of exonerations; since 1973, 150 people have been found to be innocent of the crimes for which they had been sentenced to death. Since Clinton enacted the one-year statute of limitations in 1996, at least 80 death-row prisoners have missed the deadline, despite, in some cases, compelling evidence of errors or bias. Of these, 16 have been put to death. The Boston verdict is not just a legacy of Clinton's enthusiasm for the death penalty - designed to underpin his "tough on crime" credentials - but also a federal jury selection process that almost guarantees its application. "Death-qualified" juries tend to be "conviction prone", according to research, and are further biased by extensive questioning on sentencing preferences, implying a guilty verdict even before the trial begins. The US is seemingly unperturbed by the prospect of proceeding with executions in violation of binding judgments of the International Court of Justice - which it has done twice in 2014, in the case of two Mexican nationals - or in cases of recorded mental illness. But it's not foreigners or the mentally unsound that appear to be the primary target of the US capital punishment machine. Victim race and geography are the key predictors of a death sentence; in the federal districts of St Louis and New Orleans, the death sentence is applied at about 6 times the rate of the federal districts of New York, Chicago, Los Angeles and Philadelphia. A review of US sentencing over the past 4 decades reveals that offenders with white victims are up to four times more likely to receive a death sentence as those with black victims, and heaven help you if you're a black offender. In light of these bleak statistics, it seems reasonable to ask whether Clinton's death penalty laws have deterred terrorism. Well, no, as it happens - no more than south-east Asia's punitive sanctions have deterred drug offenders. Bruce Shapiro, award-winning reporter on criminal justice and politics, points to a calamitous list of terrorist attacks from the Oklahoma City bombing to 9/11, and a range of lone-wolf attacks, which have all occurred on US soil in the past 2 decades. If national security was the objective, Clinton's measures have failed the US spectacularly. The forces that shape the circumstances of death-row inmates across the US are not so different, it seems, from those that sealed the fates of Myuran Sukumaran and Andrew Chan in central Java a month ago. We might like to imagine that the failings at the core of Indonesia's death penalty regime can simply be attributed to Third World legal standards and corruption, but we'd be deceiving ourselves. The evidence is mounting that flaws in the death penalty - wherever it is applied - are far more insidious, and more fundamental, than that. In which case, who are the real beneficiaries of state-sanctioned killing? This question seems particularly salient in view of the capital sentence for the Boston bomber; a sentence opposed in Massachusetts law, opposed by the vast majority of Bostonians, and even opposed by many of the maimed and the bereaved. If the death penalty - applied unjustly, expeditiously, or inequitably - doesn't even serve the victims, then just who is it serving? When we get to the bottom of that - hopefully sooner rather than later - we'll find a solid foundation for our principled opposition. (source: Sarah Gill has worked as a writer, researcher and government policy analyst. She is undertaking postgraduate study in law, policy and government at the University of Western Australia----The Age) **************** Will Republicans Follow Nebraska and Give Up the Death Penalty? Yesterday, Nebraska's legislature abolished the state's use of capital punishment, voting 30-19 to override Republican governor Pete Ricketts's veto of a bill that had repealed the state's death penalty law. As the New York Times reports, it is the 1st time in 40 years that a conservative state has banned the death penalty, and Nebraska now becomes the 19th state, along with the District of Columbia, to forbid capital punishment. The last conservative state to do so was North Dakota in 1973, though 6 blue states have banned the practice since 2006. Prior to the vote, Nebraska had 11 inmates on death row but had been unable to execute anyone for 17 years. Indeed, even if they had not repealed the practice, the state, which relied on the procedure of lethal injection after banning the electric chair in 2009, would have had the same difficulty that most other death penalty states currently have: a decisive shortage of lethal injection drugs, after European manufacturers decided it was no longer ethical to sell state governments the components they need to make their lethal injection cocktails. According to the Times, even Texas, which leads the nation in executions by a considerable margin, only has enough drugs to execute one more prisoner. The endgame in Nebraska came after months of debate and previous attempts by the state's unicameral legislature to repeal the law. The Times notes that death penalty opponents "were able to build a coalition that spanned the ideological spectrum by winning the support of Republican legislators who said they believed capital punishment was inefficient, expensive and out of place with their party's values, as well as that of lawmakers who cited religious or moral reasons for supporting the repeal." Along those lines, The Atlantic's Russell Berman spoke with Marc Hyden, of the group Conservatives Concerned About the Death Penalty, regarding his rationale for opposing capital punishment: [Said Hyden,] "It's not pro-life because it risks innocent life. It's not fiscally responsible because it costs millions more dollars than life without parole." Yet Nebraska's bumbling and occasionally shady attempts to carry out death sentences - along with incidents in neighboring states like the botched execution of Clayton Lockett in Oklahoma - have given rise to another argument that sells among conservatives: the death penalty is just another example of government run amok. "At the end of the day, this is just another big government program that's really dangerous and expensive but doesn???t achieve any of its goals," Hyden told me, summarizing his pitch to Republicans. "They don't need to ask themselves, 'Do some people deserve to die?' The question they need to ask themselves is, do they trust an error-prone government to fairly, efficiently and properly administer a program that metes out death to its citizens? I think the answer to that is a resounding no." According to the Pew Research Center, 77 % of Republicans currently support capital punishment. Looking at overall public opinion trends, NPR's Danielle Kurtzleben adds: Support for the death penalty has slowly fallen over the past couple of decades, from a high of 80 % in favor in the mid-1990s to just over 60 % currently, according to Gallup. That is actually near a 40-year low, but the longer history of public opinion on the death penalty is much more unstable. She goes on to note that a primary reason for that instability is the shifting influence of fear and distrust among Americans: "There are spikes in death-penalty support appearing during particular eras of what can be described as fear mongering," contended Robert Dunham, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, a nonprofit organization that studies the policy. He explained that during the "red scare" of the 1950s, American support for the death penalty picked up. It fell off in the early 1960s, only to pick up again in the late 1960s and early 1970s after a rash of high-profile assassinations - Robert F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr., for example, and the attempted assassination of George Wallace. All of that contributed to a national conversation about the death penalty as the Supreme Court in 1972 found some death penalty statutes to be unconstitutional (effectively ending the practice for several years), but a 1976 decision opened the doors again. Then, the racially charged political rhetoric on crime in the 1980s (think Willie Horton) likewise fueled that support, according to Dunham's explanation. Conversely, if a culture of fear contributes to support of the death penalty, public distrust of the government turns people against the policy, Dunham explains. During the Vietnam War era, when people started to question the government's choices, they also questioned the death penalty as a valid form of punishment. So theoretically, in the age of bogeyman Obama, NSA overreach, and Jade Helm paranoia, death penalty support among conservatives should be falling off a cliff. But looking at the fear dynamic, if there are additional terrorist attacks here in the U.S., would support for the death penalty then tick up? Looking at the high-profile case of Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, who was recently sentenced to die under federal death penalty law, an April CNN/ORC poll found that 53 % of Americans thought he should be executed. In addition: Fewer feel Tsarnaev ought to face the death penalty than said so about Timothy McVeigh following his conviction for carrying out the bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah federal building in Oklahoma City in April 1995. An August 1997 CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll found that 64% of Americans felt McVeigh ought to face the death penalty for his crimes, 34% preferred life in prison. Meanwhile, when the Boston Globe commissioned a Massachusetts poll on the same question, also in April, they discovered that "although nearly a third of Massachusetts residents say they support the death penalty for egregious crimes, less than 20 % [supported executing Tsarnaev]". What impact Nebraska's move will have on the national debate remains unclear, but it does seem possible the news will help convince more conservatives to reconsider their position. In the meantime, with lethal injection drugs unavailable, Utah recently reauthorized the use of the firing squad, a move three other conservative states are also considering. (source: nymag.com) From rhalperi at smu.edu Thu May 28 10:45:43 2015 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Thu, 28 May 2015 10:45:43 -0500 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide Message-ID: May 28 NIGERIA: Help Save Moses Akatugba https://act.amnestyusa.org/ea-action/action?ea.client.id=1839&ea.campaign.id=39014&ea.tracking.id=Country_Nigeria~MessagingCategory_DeathPenalty (source: Amnesty International USA) BANGLADESH: SC seeks summary on Quasem plea in 4 weeks The Supreme Court Appellate Division has ordered both the prosecutor and defense counsels to submit the separate concise statements within 4 weeks on appeal hearing against the death penalty of war crimes convict Mir Quasem Ali. The Supreme Court today gave 4 more weeks to both the defence and the state counsels for submitting separate concise statements on the appeal filed by convicted war criminal Mir Quasem Ali against his death sentence. After passing the order, a 4-member bench of the Appellate Division headed by Chief Justice SK Sinha said the appeal will be considered as ready for hearing if the concise statements are not submitted before it within the given time. A four-member bench led by Chief Justice SK Sinha made the order on the basis of the petition filed by defense counsel Jainal Abedin. On April 22, the court ordered the defense counsel to submit the statement by May 20 and prosecutors May 27. Both failed to submit in the given time. The defense counsel appealed against the death penalty of Mir Quasem Ali by the International Crimes Tribunal 2 on November 2. The tribunal awarded death penalty to the top Jamaat-e-Islami leader Mir Quasem Ali, also known as a key financier of the anti-liberation party, finding him guilty in 10 of the 14 alleged crimes against humanity and other offences committed in Chittagong during the 1971 Liberation War. (source: Dhaka Tribune) PAKISTAN----executions Pakistan Executes 8 Death Row Convicts Pakistan on Thursday executed 8 death row convicts, including 3 men who hijacked an airplane in May 1998. Shahsawar, Sabir and Shabbir Baloch hijacked a Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) flight from Balochistan province's Turbat town on May 25, 1998, Dunya News reported. The PIA Flight 544 was carrying 33 passengers, including 5 crew members. The hijackers demanded the pilot to enter India. They were arrested when the flight finally landed at Hyderabad Airport. The 3 men were sentenced to death on August 20, 1998. Shahsawar and Sabir were hanged in Hyderabad Central Jail, while Shabbir was executed in Karachi Central Jail. Death row convict, Mahmood was also hanged in Karachi Central Jail. He was sentenced for killing a minor boy in 2003. 3 convicts were hanged in jails across Punjab province. Akseer was found guilty of killing a man over a business dispute in 1998. Muhammad Ashraf was sentenced for a double murder in 2000. Amir Abdullah was found guilty of killing a man in 2002. Khurram was executed in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa's Haripur Central Jail. He was sentenced to death in 1999 for killing his friend. Pakistan lifted its moratorium on the death penalty in all capital cases on March 10. Initially, executions were resumed for terrorism offences only in the wake of a Taliban massacre at an army-run school in Peshawar on December 16, 2014, which had killed more than 140 people, mostly students. (source: focusnews.com) INDIA: Death-row convicts too have right to life, says SC The Supreme Court today ruled that the convicts sentenced to death would continue to enjoy their fundamental right to life even after affirmation of the penalty by the apex court. In other words, the death row convicts could be executed only after they had exhausted all the legal and administrative remedies available to them under law, a vacation Bench comprising Justices AK Sikri and UU Lalit explained. The SC made the clarification while quashing the warrants of execution issued by a sessions court in Amroha, Uttar Pradesh, for hanging a young couple sentenced to death for the gruesome murder of seven members of the girl's family. The convicts, Shabnam and Saleem, had committed the crime as her parents and other family members objected to their affair and marriage plan. The Bench said that after the SC had upheld the death penalty awarded to convicts involved in ghastly crimes, they should be allowed to seek a review of the SC verdict within the stipulated 30 days, if necessary by providing legal assistance to them. Review petitions stood on a higher pedestal as these were heard by a Bench of not less than 3 judges, while the regular appeals were decided by two judges, the court noted. Such petitions had assumed greater significance after a recent Constitution Bench ruling that there should be oral hearings in the open court at least for half-an-hour, unlike in the past when these were decided through circulation within the judges' chambers. Even after losing the case filed in the form of review petitions, they would be entitled to send mercy petitions to the Governor of the respective state and the President. Only if they did not get any relief from the Governor or the President, the jail authorities could start the process for the execution by giving notice to them and their relatives should be given proper notice for the execution. The Constitution had accorded great value of human beings and their right to life and this was evident from the legal provisions under which even the execution should be carried out through the least painful method, the Bench explained. The Bench noted that the Amroha judge had issued the warrants of execution without even specifying the date and time for the hanging. Further, the warrants had been issued within a week of SC rejecting their appeals on May 15. They still had the right to seek a review of the SC verdict and appeal for mercy, if necessary at a later stage, it said. (source: Tribune India) VIETNAM: Many Vietnamese legislators want to maintain death penalty for drug, corruption crimes Many Vietnamese legislators have voiced discontent at the point of view that capital punishment should be canceled for drug and corruption convictions, and requested that the death penalty be maintained for both crimes. The disagreements were voiced on Tuesday when lawmakers further discussed the amendments to the current Penal Code in groups, about a week after Minister of Justice Ha Hung Cuong introduced them to the law-making National Assembly (NA) plenary meeting on May 20, the 1st day of its 9th session. At that plenary meeting, deputies agreed to an amendment that the death penalty should be dropped for 7 crimes, which do not include corruption and drug charges. At yesterday's meeting, the issue of whether capital punishment should be dropped for these 2 counts was debated among parlimentarians. Among the many deputies who want the death penalty to be maintained as the highest punishment for those convicted of corruption is Major General Nguyen Xuan Ty, deputy director of the Vietnam National Defense Academy, an NA deputy from the southern province of Ben Tre. "Corrupt officials are usually those who have high power and positions. They often squeeze the state funds and repress the public. Therefore, if we do not apply the highest penalty to convicted corrupt officials, this will not be in accordance with the people's aspirations," Major General Ty said. There are people who have hundreds, even thousands, of billions of dong in hand, only after a few years of serving as government officials, Major General Ty told the meeting. (VND1 billion = US$46,100). "From where else could that much money come if not from corrupt acts?" the official wondered. "There are officials who get rich very fast," Major General Ty said, adding that these officials tread on the people's neck, acting more terribly than landlords and capitalists in the old days. "We are determined to fight corruption but the situation has yet to improve much. I propose that capital punishment be kept for corruption charges," he said. When discussing whether the death penalty should be maintained for drug charges, Police Major General Bui Mau Quan said, "It is not advisable to abolish the death penalty for drug-related crimes, as they are among the types of very dangerous counts." Sharing Major General Quan's view, Major General Ty said that the drug trafficking situation has become complicated and dangerous. Drug traffickers often gather in groups or rings to operate and are ready to decisively resist law enforcement officers who detect their illegal activities, Major General Ty said. "I propose that capital punishment be maintained as the highest penalty for people convicted of drug trafficking," he said. "The drug trafficking situation has not eased despite our great efforts. So what will it be like if we give drug traffickers lighter penalties?" he added. In a seminar on March 24, Dr. Nguyen Tat Vien, a standing member of the Central Steering Committee for Justice Reform, said, "There are many opinions saying that the death penalty should be abolished for corruption or embezzlement convictions, but I think that such an abolition should not be approved given the current situation." "Bribery and embezzlement are causing anger and displeasure in our society, undermining the prestige and efficiency of the state apparatus and threatening the survival of our regime. If we do not severely crack down on such wrongdoings, people will lose their trust in the ongoing fight against corruption," Dr. Vien said. On May 20, the 1st working day of the 9th session of the 13th NA, most deputies agreed to an amendment that the death penalty should be waived for 7 crimes. These crimes include plundering property, destroying important national security works and/or facilities; disobeying orders in the military; surrendering to the enemy, which is applicable in the army; undermining peace, provoking aggressive wars; crimes against mankind; and war crimes. (source: Tuoi Tre News) IRAN----executions 3 prisoners hanged in public 3 young men were hanged in public in the city of Mashhad in northwestern Iran on Wednesday. 2 prisoners who were hanged in 1 of the city's main square were 23 years old while the 3rd one was in his 30s. The public hanging in Mashhad follows a wave of secret execution inside the countries prisons. The Iranian regime's henchmen have executed at least 22 prisoners in one of the many prisons in Iran during the 3 day period of May 23-25. The Iranian regime's media has not published any information about the group executions that have been carried out. Earlier this year, the United Nations described the number of executions in Iran as "deeply troubling". >From May 19 to 21, the clerical regime in Iran executed 37 people in prisons or on the streets of various cities. The executions are aimed at raising the atmosphere of terror in the society in order to prevent any public expression of dissent in the country. (source: NCR-Iran) INDONESIA: Ex-Bali 9 lawyer questioned over bribary claims A Bali lawyer who claims bribery and politics interfered in the death sentencing of Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran will be quizzed next week. On the eve of the men's executions last month, Muhammad Rifan alleged judges who sentenced the men in 2006 asked for more than $130,000 for a lighter sentence. Mr Rifan indicated he wished to withdraw the claims after the executions but the judicial commission had already launched a probe. Commissioner Imam Anshori Saleh told AAP on Thursday the matter was still under investigation, with Mr Rifan to be questioned in Bali next week. Mr Imam says because it is an ethical probe, witnesses don't have to be sworn in and commission staff will interview Mr Rifan in private. "We would like to know why he said that in the first place and then why he withdrew it," he said. "Because it's a public report, we can't reject it, we have to follow it up. "Whether it's proven or not, that's another matter." The complaint was lodged by lawyers fighting to save Chan and Sukumaran from the death penalty. They argued the men shouldn't have been executed before the claims were investigated. Mr Rifan was the pair's lawyer when they went on trial for their part in the 2005 Bali 9 plot to smuggle heroin out of Indonesia. He first made claims of "interference" in February, and as the men went to the firing squad last month, revealed judges had asked for $130,000 to give a prison term of less than 20 years but withdrew the offer on orders from Jakarta to impose a death penalty. (source: tvnz.co.nz) From rhalperi at smu.edu Thu May 28 11:48:00 2015 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Thu, 28 May 2015 11:48:00 -0500 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----MISSOURI Message-ID: MISSOURI----impending execution Richard Strong?s execution date is set for June 9, 2015, and is based on? his conviction in the stabbing deaths of his girlfriend, Eva Washington and her two-year old daughter Zandrea Thomas.? His capital sentence arose as a result of the work of incompetent trial counsel, as well as behavior driven by mental illness and extreme childhood trauma.? He has been diagnosed with Major (Recurrent) Depression,? PTSD and Schizotypal Personality Disorder. Horrific childhood trauma:? Due to the incompetence of mitigation counsel, the trial jury never learned of Strong?s horrific childhood and history of mental illness.? Richard Strong?s father abandoned him soon after conception and was incarcerated when he was born. Richard grew up ?extremely poor, often not having anything to eat? and without basic necessities.? His mother lived with a series of abusive boyfriends throughout his childhood, at 26 different places, most all were ?derelict apartments in violent? St. Louis neighborhoods, many of them were rat and roach-infested often without electricity. As a child, Strong experienced a turbulent environment where his mother gambled and sold herself to support the family.? He also lived through a number of traumatic events.? He saw a friend get shot in the back and found his best friend?s mother dead.?? He and his siblings were also forced to listen to their mother?s screams as she was being raped.? He and brothers were frequently beaten by his mother?s many boyfriends.? A babysitter sexually abused Strong when he was five, as did a stranger when he was 12. Low intellectual functioning and mental illness:? Richard had to repeat first grade.? Because of his chaotic living arrangements, he would often miss school and only graduated from high school with a 1.8 GPA.? An evaluation at the Potosi Correctional Center determined he has an IQ of 74, reads at a 3rd grade level and spells like a 2nd grader.? Other mental health specialists determined he suffers from Major (Recurrent) Depression, PTSD and Schizotypal Personality Disorder among other conditions. Woefully inadequate legal counsel:? ?Richard?s trial lawyers were paid $15,000 to represent him, a fraction of the cost needed for a robust fight against the death penalty.? In violation of the ABA standards for representation in death penalty cases, the attorney overseeing the sentencing phase of trial had just finished law school the previous year and had never tried a criminal case, much less a capital case.? He had no experience with presenting a mitigation defense and only began interviewing relatives as the jury was being selected. ?He and the lead counsel chose to stress during the sentencing trial that Strong was ?a good and loving person? with a ?faith in God.? Jurors, and his own trial attorneys, had no clue about Mr. Strong?s brutal childhood and psychological issues.? It was only when post-conviction attorneys did a thorough investigation that these issues came to light. Another St. Louis County case.? Mr. Strong is the 4th African-American man set for execution this year in cases coming from St. Louis County (fortunately two of those executions were stayed.)? The county has been responsible for the 9th most executions of any US jurisdiction.? Ten of the 32 current inmates living under a death sentence is Missouri were convicted by St. Louis County prosecutors. CONTACT Gov. Jay Nixon.? Urge him to commute his death sentence.? Call 573-751-3222; send a letter, by mail: Rm 216, State Capitol, Jefferson City MO 65101; fax: 573-751-1495 or e-mail: www.governor.mo.gov. CONTACT Attorney General Chris Koster. Urge him to cease pushing for executions, including Mr. Strong?s. Call 573-751-3321, write: PO Box 899, Jefferson City MO 652101 or e-mail www.ago.mo.gov. (source: Missourians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty) From rhalperi at smu.edu Thu May 28 12:54:49 2015 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Thu, 28 May 2015 12:54:49 -0500 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, ARK., NEB. Message-ID: May 28 TEXAS: What's next for Rodney Reed? Lily Hughes of the Campaign to End the Death Penalty describes the activism that won a stay of execution for Texas death row prisoner Rodney Reed--and explains what's next in the fight to win justice, in an article written for the New Abolitionist. Death penalty opponents demand justice for Rodney Reed, on death row in TexasDeath penalty opponents demand justice for Rodney Reed, on death row in Texas On February 23, just days before his scheduled execution date, Texas death row prisoner Rodney Reed was granted a stay from the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals (CCA). In the preceding months and years, Rodney's many advocates--his family, his legal team and supporters from around the world--have fought to stop the execution and to make the courts to finally recognize the truth: Rodney is innocent of the 1996 murder of Stacey Stites in Bastrop, Texas. The order for the stay from the CCA was in response to a new appeal filed by Rodney in early January, which includes explosive new findings regarding the time of death of Stacey Stites, the victim in the case. In the course of filming a recent A&E special about Rodney's case, Dead Again: Dead Man Talking, an investigator came to the conclusion that Stacey was murdered several hours earlier than the time frame advanced by the original medical examiner and the prosecution at trial. Further examination of the forensic evidence by other experts proves that Stacey was murdered closer to 10 p.m., placing her in the apartment she shared with her fiance and former police officer Jimmy Fennell at a time when Fennell claimed to be home. In their response to the state's motion to dismiss the new appeal, Rodney's lawyers argue: Absent from the State's Motion to Dismiss is any evidence contradicting the compelling scientific proof and factual accounts which establish Mr. Reed's innocence...The State's Response appears to be aimed solely at preventing any meaningful inquiry into the growing body of evidence that the State convicted the wrong man for the murder of Stacey Stites. The lawyers further describe how the new conclusions about the time of death came about: This discovery was made on October 21, 2014, by a disinterested retired NYPD homicide investigator, Det. Sgt. Kevin Gannon as part of his review of the evidence for the television crime show Dead Again. From his review of the crime scene photos, video, autopsy report and law enforcement investigation reports, Det. Sgt. Gannon noticed evidence of decomposition pointing to a longer post-mortem interval and lividity patterns showing that the body had been moved. Neither the State's forensic team during the murder investigation or the forensic experts originally retained as part of the prior habeas investigation conducted in 2002 noticed this evidence or recognized its importance. Following Gannon's revelation, Rodney's legal team presented the evidence to 3 highly regarded forensic pathologists and all corroborated Gannon's findings. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - The appeal also includes new witness statements corroborating an ongoing relationship between Rodney and Stacey. Rodney has always maintained that the consensual sexual relationship he had with Stacey is what led to his DNA being found at the crime scene--the only physical evidence tying him to the scene. The many witnesses who would have testified to the relationship were never called to testify at trial. Now others have submitted affidavits to this effect, including a cousin of Stacey's, as well her former co-workers at H.E.B. Stacey's cousin, Calvin "Buddy" Horton describes witnessing the affair between the two. In his statement, Horton says "Sometime after Stacey's death I remember seeing pictures of Rodney Reed on the news and in the newspaper after he became a suspect in the death of my cousin. Rodney Reed is the same man I saw with Stacey at the Dairy Queen in 1995." In addition to the new appeal, the CCA is hearing a separate appeal regarding DNA testing that was denied by a lower court. Testing all the DNA that has been requested could help bolster Rodney's claim to innocence. Rodney's supporters believe that these latest revelations are further proof that Texas has convicted the wrong man. The court must examine all of the evidence closely, efforts which could include evidentiary hearings in a state district court where the forensic experts and other witnesses can offer their testimony. Because of the strength of these new findings, Rodney's supporters believe that the Court should reverse Rodney's conviction and free him from death row. As former prisoner and Campaign to End the Death Penalty (CEPD) board member Mark Clements puts it, "It is my belief that Reed will prevail and be granted evidentiary hearing on his claim of actual innocence arising from faulty and false testimony by the original pathologist." The campaign for justice for Rodney Reed that started over 15 years ago continues to the struggle toward that goal. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Shortly after Rodney's conviction in 1998, his family attended an anti-death penalty event in 2000 and connected there with activists in the Campaign to End the Death Penalty. Alongside the family, activists created a fact sheet and petition about the case and began to organize speaking events with Rodney's mother Sandra Reed. Over the next decade, Sandra, Rodney's brother Rodrick Reed and other family members spoke out about Rodney's case. They travelled all over Texas, and often flew to Chicago for the CEDP's annual convention to speak to people from around the country. Activists in Austin organized barbeques, rallies, held petition tables and other events to get the word out about the case. In 2002, the Austin Chronicle ran a long http://www.austinchronicle.com/news/2002-05-24/93214/ by reporter Jordan Smith, which helped propel local interest in Rodney case. In 2006, filmmaker Ryan Polomski, then a University of Texas film student, created the award-winning documentary, State vs. Reed, which became an invaluable tool in the campaign to win justice for Rodney. The film has been screened to large and small audiences around the country and is streaming online. The case was regularly featured in The New Abolitionist, the national newsletter of the CEDP, and the left newspaper, Socialist Worker. A blog by Rodney's pen pal and friend Caitlin Adams became a feature at nodeathpenalty.org in 2011, and the case began to attract some national media attention. A previous appeal for Rodney was denied by the federal courts in 2013, paving the way for the State to set an execution date last summer. The efforts over the years to build support for Rodney meant that a group of activists was able to jump into action once the execution date was set. Rodney was originally issued an execution for January 2015. The judge who issued the death warrant also agreed to hear a motion for DNA testing at a later date. In November 2014, activists packed a hearing where that same judge denied a motion for further DNA testing, but also reset Rodney's execution date for March 5, 2015. >From the moment Rodney's date was set, an intense campaign to stop the execution, lobby the courts to agree to DNA testing, and demand a thorough examination of the evidence in the case was underway. Activists organized a series of actions meant to draw attention to the case from the public, the media, the courts and the political establishment. At a string of organizing meetings and online discussions, activists created a sample clemency letter aimed at the Texas governor and the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles. A campaign website was created to collect information and make materials available to activists. Activists continued to promote an online petition at change.org. Campaigners also started a solidarity photo campaign on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter where supporters could post pictures of themselves holding signs of support for Rodney. These organizing meetings also brought out a contingent of students from the University of Texas, who launched the Campus Campaign to Save Rodney Reed. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - The campaign ramped up in January, when activists collected petitions, clemency letters and solidarity photos. Supporters marched in the annual MLK Day March under a banner that read "Free Rodney Reed: and signed up hundreds of people on the petition. They held a rally outside the Texas State Capitol on January 24, and a national conference call with Sandra Reed on January 26. On Valentine's Day weekend activists staged 3 separate events: -- On Friday, February 13, campaigners organized a march around the Bastrop County Courthouse with Rodney's family. A small group of supporters, including Rodrick Reed, tried to speak with the Bastrop County district attorney, but were turned away. -- On Saturday, February 14, activists, with a lot of support from the student contingent, organized a clemency event at the Governor's Mansion asking Texas Governor Greg Abbott to "Have a Heart: Stop the Execution." Activists strung dozens of homemade valentines on the fence and unveiled one huge valentine outside the mansion. -- On Sunday, February 15, the faith community came out for another clemency event--this time with Sister Helen Prejean, a nun and renowned human rights activist. Sister Helen spoke alongside Rodrick Reed and Heather Stobbs, a cousin of Stacey Stites, as well as members of the Austin faith community. Well over a hundred people crowded into to Austin's Friends Meeting House to hear these incredible speakers and to sign clemency letters for Rodney. February 16 was the premiere of the A&E special episode of Dead Again featuring Rodney's case. Millions of people watched this show, propelling the case to national attention. The Rodney campaign's activity on Twitter and Facebook during the premiere drew hundreds of new supporters to our social media network and the newly launched campaign website. During this time, the campaign in Texas was bolstered by the arrival of a group of former prisoners from around the country. One was Mark Clements, who served 28 years of a juvenile life without parole sentence before being released. Mark serves on the board of the CEDP, who sponsored his trip to Texas from Chicago to campaign for clemency for Rodney. Witness to Innocence, a group made up of exonerated death row prisoners, also sponsored several members to come to Texas in February and March. They included Shujaa Graham (former California death row prisoner) and Gary Drinkard (former Alabama death row prisoner). Shujaa is a longtime friend of the Reed family, having spoken alongside Sandra Reed at many events over the years. Shujaa and Gary joined Delia Perez Meyer (sister of Texas death row prisoner Louis Perez) at a panel event on the University of Texas campus in February. Mark, Shujaa and Gary then participated in an open-air speak-out on campus later that week and attended meetings all over Austin (and Bastrop) to build support for Rodney. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - The events in February all built toward a big "Rally for Justice for Rodney Reed!" held on February 21. The event drew over 300 people to the Governor's Mansion. Many came from Bastrop and also from around the state. An incredible line up of speakers spoke of the need to stop the execution, for the courts to reopen the case, and for Rodney to be found innocent and freed. The speakers included Sandra, Rodrick, activists in the Black Lives Matter movement, several former prisoners, and family members of people who were killed by police. One of those speakers was Ava Haywood, whose son died in police custody in Bastrop County. Ava grew up with Sandra in Bastrop and described the system there in a powerful speech: The motives that are judging Rodney Reed today are evil Jim Crow motives. June 10, 1892, Toby Cook was hanged for the rape and murder of a white woman in Bastrop County. The characteristics of this case run parallel with Rodney Reed. Many of the judges and law enforcement that were over the case of Toby Cook--they were ancestors of many of the family members in the judicial system in Bastrop Country today. Throughout the campaign, media came out to every event, and stories about Rodney were almost a nightly feature on the local news. Although the campaign for justice for Rodney has been headquartered in central Texas, the struggle has spread around the world. Today, the Change.org petition for Rodney has over 20,000 signatures. The campaign has received petitions in the mail from Japan. Supporters have sent solidarity photos from as far Australia and as near as Mexico, and activists have held solidarity events in France and Germany. The clemency campaign for Rodney drew some high-profile supporters, including actors Dick Gregory and Susan Sarandon, musician Chuck D of Public Enemy and former Olympic medalist John Carlos. Rodney was a subject of an Amnesty International urgent action to stop his execution, drawing even wider attention to his plight. Meanwhile, an increase in national media attention has helped build support and vice versa. Jordan Smith, now writing for the investigative journalism web site The Intercept, has been writing about this case for years and has continued her coverage on a new national stage. And in the days after the airing of the A&E special, Chris Hayes at MSNBC featured the case on his show All In With Chris Hayes . In an incredible turn of events, just a few days after the big rally at the Governor's mansion, the CCA announced a stay of execution for Rodney Reed. While the Court declined to offer any insight into why they granted the stay--although newly elected Texas Governor Greg Abbott had this to say: I think this is a healthy process that the court announced what it did so that we can put beyond a shadow of any doubt whatsoever, that he really is guilty of the crime for which he was convicted." - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Following the stay of execution, activists have continued to keep up the pressure. In late February, campus activists held an overnight "Sleep-in for Rodney" on the main mall at the University of Texas. Despite chilly weather, students stayed all night and were joined by Mark Clements and Rodrick Reed. In early March, Texas abolitionists held a lobby day and Day of Innocence at the Texas State Capitol. Family members of Texas prisoners were joined by Witness to Innocence members Ron Keine (former New Mexico's death row prisoner) and Sabrina Butler (former Mississippi death row prisoner), as well as Mark Clements of the CEDP. The group spent the day talking to legislators and representatives of the governor's office about the death penalty and the case of Rodney Reed. In late March, Rodney's supporters held a rally in front of the Court of Criminal Appeals. Participants took turns standing for photos inside the taped off measurements of a prison cell to demonstrate the reality of life on the row. In April, student activists led a die-in on the University of Texas campus, and held a panel discussion at UT featuring Rodrick and others. Although Rodney has been given a stay of execution, the fight is far from over. The court has agreed to look at Rodney's new appeal, but there are no guarantees of a favorable ruling. One possibility is that the court could look at the evidence and opt to deny relief, as they have done in the past. Another possibility is that the CCA could order a new trial. This wouldn't be unwelcome to Rodney and his supporters. However, if the evidence of innocence is strong enough to warrant a new trial, then it would make better sense for the court to reverse the conviction altogether. The best possible outcome from the CCA would be a reversal of Rodney's conviction and for Rodney to be released from prison. In this event, the Bastrop County district attorney could still opt to take Rodney to trial again, in which case activists should demand that the DA drop Rodney's indictment completely. In an interview following the stay, Rodney reflected on the stay of execution, saying: I'm very optimistic that if the courts are willing to acknowledge this evidence that we have, because this evidence is not made up. If they're willing to acknowledge it, I feel like they will give me the better judgment on this. The various options before the Court make the ongoing activist campaign for Rodney paramount. Rodney's family and supporters are prepared to carry on the fight. As Rodrick said at a rally in February, "If we don't stand up today, we're going to lay down tomorrow for anything they're going to make us lay down for. And I ain't a laying down kind of guy. I'm a fighter, I come from a family of fighters!" The evidence in front of the court today, combined with the body of evidence gathered over the years, makes it clear that activists must demand nothing less than a full reversal of Rodney's conviction and that Texas must FREE RODNEY REED NOW! (source: SocialistWorker.org) ARKANSAS: Jurors choose death for killer of 6-year-old ---- Holly apologizes to family of girl strangled in '12 attack Sighs seeped from the area where Jersey Bridgeman's family and supporters sat Wednesday as they heard a judge sentence her killer to death. Zachary Holly's mother sat on the other side of the packed courtroom and cried, comforted by another son. Holly, 30, of Bentonville stood by his attorneys as Circuit Judge Brad Karren sentenced him to die by lethal injection for killing 6-year-old Jersey in 2012. The jury of 7 men and 5 women found Holly guilty last week of capital murder, kidnapping, rape and residential burglary. Jurors watched and listened to Holly's recorded confession where he admitted he abducted the Sugar Creek Elementary School kindergartner from her bed. He went on to describe to Bentonville detectives how he raped and murdered Jersey. The jury spent three hours Tuesday and almost two hours Wednesday deliberating Holly's punishment. Holly spent much of the deliberation time in a holding cell where he could be seen on a closed-circuit camera constantly pacing. When the jury returned to the courtroom Wednesday 1 female juror wiped away tears before she sat down. Another woman on the jury also brushed away tears. Karren read the rape and kidnapping sentences first. He then read the sentence for residential burglary. He ended with the death sentence. DesaRae Crouch, Jersey's mother, and other family members cried outside the courthouse after the proceedings. Crouch said it was sickening to have to sit through the trial. "It's my daughter's day," Crouch said. "He can't take that away." Holly addressed the court Wednesday. With an ashen face, he stared down before reading a short statement. He said he wanted to apologize to Jersey's family, his former wife and his family. "I hope someday they can find it in their hearts to forgive me. Thank you." Benton County sheriff's deputies then led Holly from the courtroom. Jersey's nude body was found Nov. 20, 2012, in the bedroom closet of an abandoned house next to Holly's home on Southeast A Street. She had been strangled to death with her pajama pants. Nathan Smith, Benton County prosecuting attorney, described the crime as an "evil deed" that deserved the ultimate punishment -- the death penalty. In an effort to save his life, Holly's attorneys presented witnesses and testimony that detailed Holly's abusive childhood in California. "I'm disappointed," Kent McLemore, one of Holly's attorneys, said of the verdict. Jurors leaving the courtroom declined to comment. Smith thanked the jury for its decision. "It was important for our community to return with this verdict for this crime," he said. Crouch said she was grateful for support from her immediate family and backup family. One of the members of Crouch's backup family is Colleen Nick with the Morgan Nick Foundation, which provides a support network to parents and families of missing children. She sat through much of the trial to support Crouch. "It was an honor to support her," Nick said. "Today, Arkansas stood up and served justice. Justice was served today." Karren set Nov. 16, 2016, as Holly's execution date. Judges are required to set execution dates, but Holly will not be executed that day, since a mandatory appeal will be filed. Prosecutors have talked with Jersey's family and explained the appeal process, Smith said. Smith believes the verdict will stand through the appeal process. Jersey's family, their supporters, police officers and prosecutors gathered Wednesday afternoon near her grave at the Bentonville Cemetery and released doves in her memory. (source: ArkansasOnline.com) NEBRASKA: Killing it----Nebraska's ban is another sign of the decline in support for the death penalty "We would have ended any other government programmes that inefficient and costly a long time ago," says Colby Coash, a Republican lawmaker in Nebraska. Mr Coash is 1 of 32 legislators in Nebraska's unicameral parliament who, in a bipartisan effort, voted for a bill to ban the death penalty. On May 26th Pete Ricketts, the Republican governor, vetoed the proposed bill, but a day later the state house overrode his veto. Nebraska is about to become the 19th state to ban capital punishment and the first conservative state to do so in more than 40 years. (New Mexico, Connecticut, Illinois and Maryland abolished the death penalty in the past six years, but they were all then led by Democrats.) The state has not executed any prisoner since 1997, when it used an electric chair to do so, a method it subsequently declared illegal. Ten prison inmates are on death row; an 11th died of natural causes on May 24th. A growing number of Republicans have recently taken up the cause of banning the death penalty in Nebraska and other states. They argue that it is inefficient because it does not deter murderers, more expensive than imprisonment for life thanks to the costly trials and lengthy appeals, and at odds with Christian morality. The evidence seems to back their arguments. The murder rate in New York continued to go down after the state abolished the death penalty; Texas executes more people than any other state, yet does not have a lower murder rate than some states without capital punishment. A report of the California Commission on the Fair Administration of Justice showed that it costs, on average, $90,000 a year more to keep an inmate on death row than to put him into a maximum-security prison to serve a life sentence without parole. And although the Old Testament says "an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth", the New Testament teaches that it is better to show compassion and mercy than to obey the law. Marc Hyden of Conservatives Concerned about the Death Penalty, a lobby group, views it as "antithetical to conservative principles". The trend against capital punishment is part of Americans' increased scepticism about government power, he says, as there is no greater power than the right to kill a citizen. And more Americans worry that innocent people could die because of the death penalty. Since 1973 more than 150 death sentences have been reversed. Governor Ricketts refutes many of these arguments, which he says are both incorrect and do not apply to Nebraska. He argues that lawmakers are out of touch with Nebraskans, who, he says, overwhelmingly support the death penalty. He considers it an important tool for public safety and the only appropriate punishment for the most heinous crimes. In a statement after his veto, he claimed that a ban would not yield any fiscal savings because the costly trials for horrendous crimes will continue with or without the death penalty; and the bill would be "cruel" to the relatives of victims. "Nebraska is a microcosm of what is happening in America," says Robert Dunham, head of the Death Penalty Information Centre. Support for the death penalty is at an all-time low. In 1994, 80% of Americans backed it; only 56% do so today, notes Mr Dunham. Moreover, the Pew Research Centre found that young people are less keen than their elders on capital punishment, and blacks and Hispanics solidly oppose it, so in the near future the abolitionists are likely to be the majority. Will other conservative states follow Nebraska? Although a divisive topic, it seems to encourage some lawmakers to work together across party lines, as was the case in Nebraska. But it will not be easy. Ernie Chambers, an independent senator who sponsored the bill and who is 1 of only 2 African-Americans in the Nebraskan parliament, has introduced bills to ban the death penalty every year since he was 1st elected in 1970. "The moon was in its 7th house and Jupiter lined up with Mars," said Mr Chambers after senators overwhelmingly voted for the ban. The age of Aquarius might not dawn quite yet in other conservative states. (source: The Economist) From rhalperi at smu.edu Thu May 28 12:55:59 2015 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Thu, 28 May 2015 12:55:59 -0500 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide Message-ID: May 28 SINGAPORE: Urgent action required for Kho Jabing The Singapore Anti-Death Penalty Campaign (SADPC) and We Believe in Second Chances strongly urge the Cabinet to advise the President, Mr Tony Tan, to grant clemency to death row inmate, Kho Jabing. Sarawakian Kho Jabing, now 31, was convicted of murder under section 300(c) of the Penal Code on 24 May 2011, which carried the mandatory death sentence at the time of conviction. In 2012, Parliament amended the Penal Code to give judges the discretion to sentence offenders convicted under s 300(c) to life imprisonment with caning. This change was applied retrospectively and Kho was afforded an opportunity to have his death sentence reconsidered. On 18 November 2013, Justice Tay Yong Kwang re-sentenced Kho to life imprisonment and 24 strokes of the cane. On 14 January 2015, the Court of Appeal, by a majority decision (with 2 out of the 5 judges dissenting) overturned Justice Tay's decision and sentenced Kho to death. We wish to highlight 2 issues with Kho's death sentence. First, the dissent by the 2 judges should be taken as indication that reasonable doubt exists over whether Jabing should be sentenced to death. Indeed, both Justice Woo Bih Li and Justice Lee Seiu Kin reasoned that there was "reasonable doubt whether Jabing's blows were all inflicted when the deceased was laying on the ground" which made it "unsafe to conclude beyond reasonable doubt that he (Jabing) acted in away which exhibited a blatant disregard for human life". Second, Jabing did not posses the intention to kill, nor was the murder premeditated. This was a robbery gone wrong. The death penalty, if it is to be applied at all, should be reserved for the most exceptional cases. In light of the above, we urge the Cabinet take into consideration these facts in advising the President and reiterate our call for a clemency pardon. Kho's family delivered their clemency petition to the President on 27 May 2015. In their personal letters, they expressed their deep regrets to the family and loved ones of the victim, and pleaded with the President to extend compassion towards Kho and spare his life. (source: Rachel Zeng, Singapore Anti-Death Penalty Campaign (SADPC) & Damien Chng, We Believe in Second Chances) FINLAND: Finland's incoming justice minister says he approves of death penalty for major crimes Finland's incoming justice minister from the populist Finns Party says he approves of the death penalty in "some circumstances." Jari Lindstrom was expressing his personal opinion and not speaking on behalf of the incoming government. He said Thursday that capital punishment could be acceptable for "extremely heavy crimes, such as against small children." The 49-year-old lawmaker says the death penalty wasn't "one of the main issues" on his agenda when he is due to take up his ministerial post on Friday. The death penalty, banned in Finland in 1949, has been abolished in all EU countries. Lindstrom is 1 of 4 new ministers from the EU-skeptic Finns Party, which is in a ruling coalition for the 1st time. (source: Associated Press) VIETNAM: Death penalty still needed to punish corrupt officials, lawmakers say Many lawmakers have objected to the government's plan to let convicts escape death penalties by returning 1/2 of the money or property they gained from their offenses. According to the proposal, part of a series of amendments drafted for Vietnam's Penal Code, the rule should be applied to people who do not commit "extremely serious" crimes, without specifying which ones. Lawmakers interpreted the proposal as a way out for corruption convicts, arguing that they will be the main beneficiary and that the rule, if passed, will cause injustice. Nguyen Duc Chung, an assemblyman from Hanoi, said at a meeting on Tuesday it is "unfair" that corrupt officials who steal a huge amount of public money can live, while while poor people who deal drugs have to accept death sentences because they have no money to pay. The death penalty needs to remain as the highest punishment for corruption crimes, or laws will lose their deterrence effect, he said. Huynh Ngoc Anh from Ho Chi Minh City agreed, saying that it is "not right" to make light of a crime which Vietnam has been fighting but not managed to stop yet. No concession 7 crimes have been proposed to be removed from Vietnam's death penalty list. They are robbery, vandalizing equipment and works significant to national security, gross disturbances of public order, surrendering to enemy forces, acts of sabotage and waging invasive wars, crimes against humanity, and drug smuggling. However, Le Dong Phong, another assemblyman from HCMC, said some of these including war crimes rarely happen, but in many countries around the world they are still punishable by death to prevent them effectively. He also opposed a proposed rule that would reduce the highest punishment for drug mules to life sentence, arguing that not all of the convicts are poor people who desperately earn their living by smuggling drugs. Instead, the government may consider increasing the amount of involved drugs that justifies a death sentence, Phong suggested. Under Vietnam's current drug laws, which are considered among the toughest in the world, anyone convicted of smuggling more than 600 grams of heroin or more than 2.5 kilograms of methamphetamine faces death. The government is also seeking to eliminate the death penalty for criminals aged 70 and above. Currently only pregnant women and women who are raising children under 3 years old are eligible for the concession. (source: Thanh Nien News) From rhalperi at smu.edu Thu May 28 16:34:13 2015 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Thu, 28 May 2015 16:34:13 -0500 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----USA Message-ID: May 28 USA: Which State Will Be Next to Abolish the Death Penalty? Nebraska became the 1st Republican-leaning state in 4 decades to abolish the death penalty on Wednesday, the latest signal that momentum is on the side of those who oppose capital punishment. And in the next few years, it's likely that several more states will outlaw the practice. Delaware may be the next in line. Gov. Jack Markell, a Democrat, has pledged to sign a death penalty repeal bill that has already passed the Senate and is currently in the majority Democratic House Judiciary Committee. That's only if Montana or New Hampshire don't get there first; state lawmakers in Montana fell 1 vote short of passing a bill to abolish the death penalty in February, reaching a 50-50 split on the bill after the Senate passed its own version. Similarly, the New Hampshire Senate also reached a deadlocked repeal vote in April 2014. But there's a whole list of states that might yet follow in Nebraska's footsteps. The 7 states that have now done away with capital punishment since 2007 all had 1 thing in common: they essentially had stopped using their execution chambers altogether. And 6 states with death penalty laws still on the books - Colorado, Kansas, New Hampshire, Oregon, Pennsylvania and Wyoming - haven't executed anyone in more than a decade. "When you look at most repeals, they were all in states in which the death penalty had fallen into disuse," says Robert Dunham, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, an anti-death penalty group. "Nebraska followed in the pattern of states in which the death penalty had been functionally discarded in practice." According to the Pew Research Center, 56% of Americans still support the death penalty, but that number is at its lowest in four decades. Opposition is coming not just from Democrats, who have historically opposed capital punishment, but increasingly from Republicans who believe the death penalty is too costly and does nothing to deter people from the most heinous of crimes. In both Kansas and Wyoming - states which haven't executed anyone in years - conservative lawmakers have introduced repeal legislation in both states, and in South Dakota, another red-leaning state, several conservative legislators have voiced support for doing away with capital punishment. Last year, legislators in the South Dakota House were one vote shy of getting a bill to the floor. "The death penalty is no longer getting a pass," says Diann Rust-Tierney, executive director for the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty. "People may support the idea in the abstract, but when they see how it's done, how it's doing nothing to enhance public safety, and when they see innocent people being released from death row, they see that they can't square it with their other values." (source: TIME) ****************** Nebraska continues trend away from death penalty Opponents of the death penalty continue to celebrate 1 day after Nebraska abolished capital punishment. After 2 tense hours of passionate speeches from lawmakers on both sides of the argument Wednesday, the Nebraska Legislature voted 30-to-19 to override Gov. Pete Ricketts' veto, banning the death penalty in the state. Wednesday's vote ends a long battle between the Legislature and Ricketts, who have gone back and forth on the issue for months. Ricketts, a firm proponent of capital punishment, denounced the vote and insinuated several members of the Legislature, including many Republicans who voted for the repeal, had lost touch with the state's conservative majority. "My words cannot express how appalled I am that we have lost a critical tool to protect law enforcement and Nebraska families," Ricketts said in a statement. "While the Legislature has lost touch with the citizens of Nebraska, I will continue to stand with Nebraskans and law enforcement on this issue." Robert Dunham, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, said public opinion has trended largely toward abolishing the death penalty, citing Pew Research studies that show public support for the death penalty has dropped from 80 % in the 1980s to 56 % now. "When you ask Americans the policy question, not just 'Do you support the death penalty in the abstract?' but the policy question of 'What's the appropriate punishment for murder: the death penalty or life without possibility of parole?' a majority of Americans now say life without possibility of parole is the appropriate punishment," Dunham said. Dunham disagrees with Ricketts' assertion that all conservative Republicans support the death penalty. He noted several lawmakers are changing their minds on capital punishment because they are focusing on the cost and efficiency of implementing the death penalty. "What we've seen in the Nebraska debate, as one with a conservative legislature, is a shift in focus from the dogmatic to the pragmatic," Dunham said. "Conservatives are now looking at the death penalty as policy to see whether it works, not as an ideological issue or whether it can be supported in the abstract. When it's looked at pragmatically, as opposed to policy, they are agreeing with other opponents of the death penalty that the system is broken and it doesn't work. It is costly and it is ineffective." Nebraska is the 1st predominantly Republican state to abolish the death penalty since North Dakota in 1973. The Cornhusker State also is the 7th state in the past 10 years and 19th state overall to repeal the death penalty. New York (2007), New Jersey (2007), New Mexico (2009), Illinois (2011), Connecticut (2012) and Maryland (2013) are the most recent states to abolish capital punishment. Even though capital punishment still is legal in 31 states, execution rates have slowed greatly since new death penalty statutes were instituted for a majority of states across the U.S. in the 1970s. According to the Death Penalty Information Center, 7 states: - Nebraska, New Hampshire, Kansas, Wyoming, Colorado, Oregon and Pennsylvania - have not executed anyone in more than a decade. Arkansas could join that list soon - its last execution was in November 2005. 5 other states - Idaho, Kentucky, Montana, South Dakota and Washington - have averaged less than one execution per decade over the past 50 years. Michigan has not had the death penalty since 1847. It was the 1st state in the nation to do away with capital punishment for all crimes except treason. Before that, it conducted only 13 executions. (source: WOOD TV news) From rhalperi at smu.edu Thu May 28 16:34:56 2015 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Thu, 28 May 2015 16:34:56 -0500 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide Message-ID: May 28 NIGERIA: Nigeria's Delta State Governor just announced the total pardon of Moses Akatugba! A day before leaving office, Governor Emmanuel Uduaghan posted the announcement on social media: "Delta State Governor, Dr. Emmanuel Uduaghan has just granted total pardon to Moses Akatugba who was sentenced to death for stealing 3 phones.This decision was made known shortly after the last Executive meeting of his administration at the government house, Asaba today, 28th May, 2015." Aside granting total pardon to Moses, Governor Uduaghan also commute dealth sentences of 3 others to various terms of imprisonment. (source: Amnesty Internatnional) SAUDI ARABIA----execution Saudi Arabia executes 90th prisoner since start of year----The Kingdom has now executed as many people in 2015 as in all of 2014 Saudi Arabia has carried out its 90th execution of this year, equaling the total number executed in the country in 2014. Amnesty International report that the toll is "one of the highest recorded by the organization during the same period for more than 3 decades". The toll so far this year "marks an unprecedented spike in executions for a country already ranked among the most prolific executioners in the world," a statement from the group said today. Saudia Arabia is one of the world's top 3 executioner nations, behind only Iran and China. The most common method of execution is beheading, often conducted in public squares and occasionally by firing squad. "With the year yet to pass its midpoint ... this alarming surge in executions surpasses even the country's own previous dreadful records," said Said Boumedouha, Deputy Middle East and North Africa Programme Director at Amnesty International. Today's execution took place in Riyadh, and was of a Pakistani man convicted on drug-related charges. Drug-related offences are one of the most common reasons for execution, with almost 1/2 of all killings this year in some way drug-related. Amnesty International warn that the use of the death penalty for drug-related offences international law. Many of those sentenced to death in Saudi Arabia are convicted based solely on "confessions", which are obtained under duress. Many trials are also held in secret, with the accused parties not made aware of the progress of their case. The Supreme Court has recently decreed that in cases of crimes punishable by death the judge in the trial is free to sentence someone to death without a guilty conviction, but merely with suspicion. "The Saudi Arabian authorities' unwavering commitment to this brutal form of punishment is utterly gruesome considering the deep flaws in its justice system," said Said Boumedouha. "The use of the death penalty is cruel and inhumane in any circumstance, but it is even more outrageous when meted out as a punishment against someone convicted in a trial that itself makes a mockery of justice." Colm O'Gorman, Executive Director of Amnesty International Ireland said, "The death penalty is never a just response to any crime. It is no particular deterrent. Instead of expediting executions and advertising recently for more executioners as Saudi Arabia did recently, the Saudi authorities should be reversing this very worrying trend. "Saudi Arabia should establish a moratorium on executions immediately with a view to abolishing the death penalty". (source: newstalk.com) ****************** 90 executions this year beat 2014's disgraceful record Saudi Arabia today has carried out its 90th execution so far this year, equalling the number of people executed in the Kingdom during the whole of 2014, said Amnesty International. The death toll is one of the highest recorded by the organization during the same period for more than three decades and marks an unprecedented spike in executions for a country already ranked among the most prolific executioners in the world. "With the year yet to pass its midpoint, the Gulf Kingdom has raced towards this shocking toll at an unprecedented rate. This alarming surge in executions surpasses even the country's own previous dreadful records," said Said Boumedouha, Deputy Middle East and North Africa Programme Director at Amnesty International. Today's execution carried out in Riyadh was of a Pakistani man convicted on drug-related charges. Almost half of the executions carried out so far this year were for drug-related offences. These do not fall into the category of "most serious crimes", and the use of the death penalty for such offences violates international law. The authorities themselves do not categorize drug-related offences as crimes subject to divinely ordained punishment under Shari'a law, instead they consider the use of the death penalty for such offences a discretionary punishment. Saudi Arabia's most common method of execution is beheading, often conducted in public squares. Occasionally prisoners in some southern provinces are executed by firing squad. Many defendants in Saudi Arabia, including those sentenced to death, are convicted after flawed court proceedings that routinely fall far short of international standards for a fair trial. They are often convicted solely on the basis of "confessions" obtained under duress, denied legal representation in trials which are sometimes held in secret and are not kept informed of the progress of the legal proceedings in their case. For some crimes punishable by death, the Supreme Court has recently confirmed that judges do not need to prove guilt but can sentence someone to death at their own discretion based on suspicion alone. "The Saudi Arabian authorities' unwavering commitment to this brutal form of punishment is utterly gruesome considering the deep flaws in its justice system," said Said Boumedouha. "The use of the death penalty is cruel and inhumane in any circumstance, but it is even more outrageous when meted out as a punishment against someone convicted in a trial that itself makes a mockery of justice." "The Saudi Arabian authorities' unwavering commitment to this brutal form of punishment is utterly gruesome considering the deep flaws in its justice system"----Said Boumedouha Worryingly, a significant number of Shi'a protesters have been sentenced to death in the past 2 years. These are often in relation to protests in the Kingdom's Eastern Province in the aftermath of the 2011 mass popular uprisings which toppled a number of long-standing authoritarian rulers in the region. Among those sentenced to death is Saudi Arabia's most prominent Shi'a cleric Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr, who was sentenced to death in October 2014 after a deeply flawed trial. His nephew, Ali-al-Nimr, a juvenile offender, was sentenced to death in May 2014 solely based on "confessions" that he claimed were extracted under torture. The imposition of death sentences against individuals who were below 18 years of age when the crime was committed is prohibited under international law. 6 other Shi'a protestrs were sentenced to death in the past year and scores of others await trial on charges for which the prosecution has called for the death penalty. Many of them have complained of ill-treatment in detention and of unfair trials. The claim by the Saudi Arabian authorities that the death penalty is a deterrent to crime is unfounded. "There is no convincing evidence that the death penalty is a particular deterrent to crime, or that it is more effective than other forms of punishment. Instead of expediting executions the Saudi Arabian authorities should immediately establish a moratorium on executions with a view to abolishing the death penalty," said Said Boumedhoua. Background In Amnesty International's latest global report on the death penalty, published in April 2015, Saudi Arabia ranks among the top 3 executioners in the world, surpassed only by China and Iran. As of 31 December 2014, 140 countries have abolished the death penalty in law or practice. Amnesty International opposes the death penalty in all cases without exception, regardless of the nature or circumstances of the crime; the guilt or innocence of the individual; or the method of execution. (source: Amnesty International) ****************** Rights Groups: Saudi Death Penalty Rate Surges The number of executions in Saudi Arabia has surged in the past 9 months. The kingdom on Wednesday announced its 89th execution this year, roughly as many as in all of 2014, according to human rights groups. "It's absolutely scary what we're seeing in terms of the numbers of executions in Saudi Arabia," said Amnesty International's Saudi Arabia researcher Sevag Kechichian. The rise began last August after Islamic State militants attacked cities and towns in Iraq and Syria, gaining control of large areas with alarming speed. The increase in executions could be a show of force by Saudi authorities as they seek to keep a regional security crisis outside their borders, Kechichian said. "The theory is: the reason why the Saudi authorities have been carrying out executions at such a rate," he explained, "is because they want to signal to ISIS, to others throughout the region, that they are quite in charge ... and they will punish transgressions extremely harshly. It is sort of a show of power." There are alternate theories to explain the surge, like increased efficiency in the judiciary, Kechichian added. A public act Most executions are carried out in public spaces, like town squares, and the condemned are beheaded. On rare occasions, the decapitated bodies are left on display. "It is pretty much within the logic of the method of execution and the reasoning behind the execution that it is meant toward spectacle, as a deterrent," Kechichian said. "So that is partly why they do it in public." The Saudi government has not commented on the practice or the surge in numbers, other than saying capital punishment is within Islamic law, according Human Rights Watch Middle East researcher Adam Coogle. Trials in Saudi Arabia, he added, do not appear to meet international standards of fairness. "Some people allege that they were coerced into confessing," Coogle said. "Some people claim they had difficulty accessing lawyers. One of the big issues is the defendants not actually initially knowing the charges against them ... before they are actually brought before a judge." 22 countries in the world still use capital punishment, according to Amnesty International. Saudi Arabia is consistently among the top 5 countries that perform the most executions, along with China, Iran, Iraq and the United States. Nearly 1/2 of all executions in Saudi Arabia are for non-violent crimes related to drug trafficking, and occasionally people are executed for other crimes like adultery or sorcery, said Coogle. "Under international law [the death penalty] should be reserved for only the most serious crimes," he argued. "In terms of the way Saudi Arabia carries out the death penalty the most problematic aspect are all the drug-related executions." Sheikh Nimr case Last year, popular Shi'ite Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr was sentenced to death after being accused of disobeying the ruler, inciting sectarian strife, and encouraging, leading and participating in demonstrations. His case has sparked protests around the world and, if carried out, the sentence could increase Sunni-Shia tensions in Saudi Arabia and beyond. But recent Saudi efforts to appease its discontented Shia minority suggest the execution is unlikely to go forward, according to Kuwait-based analyst Haider Ghadhanfari. "Saudi Arabian government's policy is to heal the nation and there have been several signs that the rulers plan to grant amnesty," said Ghadhanfari. The potential for political upheaval could delay or cancel the execution, but al-Nimr's trial was politicized and lacking evidence, according to Amnesty's Kechichian, and some authorities appear to be determined to carry out the sentence. "It's a mix of signals," he said. "The authorities are very much insisting on this and they seem to want to go forward with it." "At the same time," he added. "There are these question marks on the meaning and significance of carrying out an execution on such a very well-known person on basis of a flawed trial." (source: Voice of America) CHINA----execution China executes patient who killed doctor over botched nose job China on Monday executed a man who stabbed a doctor to death over what he considered a botched nose operation, media reported, in a case that spotlights the country's overburdened health system. Lian Enqing was sentenced to death last year for a fatal attack on an ear, nose and throat specialist in Wenling, in the eastern province of Zhejiang. Lian attacked the doctor because he "felt displeased with his nose and claimed to be suffering respiratory problems," the official news agency Xinhua said. The death sentence was carried out Monday, the Chengdu Business Daily newspaper reported, citing family members who said they had met the condemned man briefly before his execution. The attack last October prompted dozens of the doctor's colleagues to protest outside the hospital in Wenling, urging stronger safety measures to deal with violent patients. Doctors in China, the world's most populous nation, are often poorly paid and overburdened with too many cases. Taking bribes for better care is reportedly a widespread practice. Authorities have introduced security guards at some hospitals to protect staff from attacks. (source: Japan Times) From rhalperi at smu.edu Fri May 29 14:49:07 2015 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Fri, 29 May 2015 14:49:07 -0500 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, N.C., FLA., ALA., MISS., LA. Message-ID: May 29 TEXAS: Court to hear father's appeal in girl's killing The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has agreed to consider an appeal from an East Texas man on death row for the 2002 slaying of his 2-year-old daughter. Attorneys for Robert Roberson III, 48, say his rights were violated when his trial judge in Palesltine refused to allow testimony from a neurologist. They contend the physician would have said that Roberson didn't deliberately kill Nikki Curtis. *************** Texas solidifies execution drug secrecy protections into law Texas state law will mandate keeping the identity of Texas' lethal drug suppliers confidential from the public - and even death row inmates and their attorneys. Gov. Greg Abbott signed a bill Thursday that cleared both chambers of the Republican-controlled Legislature. There was little floor opposition, despite advocates' calls that there shouldn't be secrecy surrounding the nation's busiest death chamber. Drug manufacturers say they won't sell to Texas without total confidentiality since they've faced threats from death penalty opponents. There's little evidence that such threats actually occurred, however. Abbott, then state attorney general, declared in a previous opinion that suppliers' identities should be disclosed. But he reversed himself while running for governor, siding for secrecy. That prompted legal challenges that will likely be further complicated by the new law. (source for both: Associated Press) **************** 30 years on death row and many appeals later, 'deck is always stacked against you' ---- Lester Bower will be the second-longest tenured Texas inmate to be put to death in modern era but will a 7th stay of execution save him? Lester Bower made for an unlikely mass murderer. At the time when 4 men were shot dead in an aircraft hanger near Dallas, Bower was a 35-year-old, college-educated, married father of 2 who made a comfortable living as a chemicals salesman and did not have a criminal record. That was in 1983. Bower was convicted of the killings the following year and has been on death row ever since, maintaining his innocence and launching appeal after appeal. Texas has attempted to kill him 6 times only for Bower to be granted stays when facing imminent execution, most recently in February. The state will try again 3 June, when the 67-year-old is scheduled to die by lethal injection. He will be the oldest inmate executed in Texas since capital punishment was restored in the US in 1976. Texas has executed 522 prisoners during Bower's 11,341 days on death row. Of the 265 people currently on the state's death row, 9 have been there longer. Raymond Riles, who is seriously mentally ill, has been on the row since 1976. Bower will be the 2nd-longest tenured Texas inmate to be put to death in the modern era after David Powell, a cop killer who spent 32 years on death row before his execution in 2010. Yet Bower is philosophical about his extended stay and the probability that it is about to end. "I'm not overly earth-shaken about what's going on," he said from behind glass in a cage the size of a phone booth at Texas' death row in Livingston, 70 miles north of Houston. "Once you've been through the dates 3 or 4 times, once you've been to 7 ... you get down to the captain's office to go through the last protocols, ask for your witnesses and stuff like that - geez, we're all on a 1st name basis now. They're used to it. It's kind of, I walk in and say, same as last time. Just get last time and re-duplicate it.'" Supreme court asks if execution drugs are like being 'burned alive at the stake' He expects to mount a last-minute appeal to the US supreme court, which declined to take up the case in March after granting a stay in February to give them time to decide whether to hear it. In 2013 the court opted not to stop Arizona from executing Edward Schad, a 71-year-old who had been on death row for nearly 35 years. The average time on Texas death row is 10.82 years, according to the Texas Department of Criminal Justice. That Bower has been there nearly 3 times as long has formed part of his appeal strategy. The supreme court is considering whether drug protocols using midazolam violate the constitutional ban on cruel and unusual punishment. Bower argues the duration of his stay breeches the 8th amendment by effectively being a form of torture. Courts in Texas have not bought that argument, but a federal judge in California ruled last year that the state's death penalty was unconstitutional because a "random few" who are put to death "will have languished for so long on death row that their execution will serve no retributive or deterrent purpose and will be arbitrary". Robert Dunham, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, said it is legitimate to ask whether any useful penological purpose is served by keeping inmates on death row for so long, often in harsh and isolated conditions that may affect their mental health. "3 decades is an extraordinary period of time. When you tell people that somebody has been on death row for 30 years, one of the first things you hear from them is, 'well, what's the point?'" he said. Bower said he listens to NPR and BBC news reports on the radio in his cell, especially when there's an election on - though as a felon he is not allowed to vote. "You have to keep yourself occupied. You've got to do something," he said. "For some that's drawing, painting; some people just read. A lot of people just enter into correspondence with pen pals around the world. Everybody kind of handles it different ways. You can keep a reasonable chess game going." He has been entangled in litigation for so long, he said, that changes in the legal process have complicated his appeals and left them vulnerable to being dismissed on technicalities. "If you're here long enough the laws change so much that it gets messed up," he said. "I've got the best attorneys in the world. Even the best attorneys in the world can be thwarted by the system ... the deck is always stacked against you." 'What if I'd been in the jury and heard my own case?' His problems began when he responded to an advertisement in Glider Rider magazine and agreed to buy an ultralight aircraft from a building contractor named Bob Tate on 8 October1983. That day, 4 men - Tate, Ronald Mayes, Philip Good and Jerry Brown - were shot in the head at close range in a hangar on a ranch near Sherman, 60 miles north of Dallas. 3 of the bodies were placed under a carpet pile. The crime bore many of the hallmarks of a professional-grade assassination. Initially the investigation focused on possible connections to drug dealing. Months later it turned to Bower after phone records showed he had talked to Tate. Bower, who did not want his wife to know he had bought the plane because she was firmly against the idea, was questioned by the FBI and lied to them by claiming he had no link to Tate or the aircraft. When parts of the plane were found in his garage, he was arrested. "In the long run I'm really responsible for putting myself down here. I didn't help in the investigation. It's like the quarterback for the New England Patriots [Tom Brady]; once he decided not to cooperate then they said: 'well, if you're not going to cooperate then you know more [than you're letting on]'. And they came down on him ... Now, clearly the state took advantage of that situation. But there's not much I can do about that right now," he said. "It's a difficult job being on a jury. I've thought about this. What if I'd been in the jury and heard my own case? I think that given what the jury had to go with, the evidence before them, I think I would probably have reached the same conclusion." No witnesses or evidence directly linked Bower to the crime scene and the murder weapon was not recovered. But prosecutors built the case that Bower killed Tate to steal the aircraft and shot the other 3 - 1 of them a former police officer, another a sheriff's deputy - when they unexpectedly turned up. Bower's lawyers contend that much of the evidence the state relied upon at trial was dubious, such as the speculative claim that the murders were carried out using a very rare kind of subsonic ammunition previously bought by Bower, who was a licensed weapons dealer. Prosecutors wrongly told the jury that only 15 people in Texas had access to the type of bullets. They say that since the conviction in 1984, witnesses have come forward and documents have been unearthed to suggest that the killings were indeed sparked by a drug deal gone wrong. They also argue that the jury was not given the option to take mitigating circumstances such as Bower's previous good character into account during the sentencing phase of the trial. In his dissent last March after the supreme court refused the case, justice Stephen Breyer said this was a "glaring" and unconstitutional error that should entitle Bower to a new sentencing proceeding. Prosecutors have insisted in court filings that the new witnesses were not credible, that there is no hard evidence the murders were drug related and that the case against him remains highly persuasive. As for the lengthy stay on death row? According to Texas' attorneys, this is Bower's own fault for fighting his conviction so doggedly. "Bower has consistently litigated his case without stop over the last 30 years. Any delay is purely of his own making," they wrote earlier this year. Bower was calm and measured throughout an hour-long interview, never becoming emotional and discussing his situation with clinical detachment. "I don't know if the futility has mellowed me or whatever; I have found it doesn't do any good to yell and scream and wave my hands," he said. "If it's my time to go it's my time to go ... If next week I end up in the execution chamber, my final words probably will be: 'Hey, I'm out of here, this hasn't been fun. I'm going on someplace else. Tired of this.'" (source: The Guardian) NORTH CAROLINA: Prosecutors won't seek death penalty in 'Top Model' killings Prosecutors said they will not seek the death penalty against Emmanuel Rangel and 3 other defendants accused in 4 killings in February. Emmanuel Rangel is charged with 4 counts of murder, including the shooting of America's Next Top Model, Mirjana Puhar, who was found dead in a north Charlotte home along with 2 men, who were also shot. Rangel was charged with the shooting of 2 men in the parking lot of a Microtel Inn in Matthews. 1 of those 2 men later died. Authorities said the triple murder was a dispute over drugs and that Rangel knew the victims. Edward Sanchez and David Lopez will also not face the death penalty. Both have been charged with murder. The final defendant, Emily Isaacs, was charged with being an accessory after the fact to 1st-degree murder. Prosecutors did not say why they took the death penalty off the table. (source: WCNC news) FLORIDA: Covington gets death penalty in 2008 triple murder Edward Covington has been sentenced to death for the 2008 murders of his girlfriend and her 2 children. Covington had pleaded guilty last year to to 3 counts of 1st-degree murder, abuse of a human body and animal cruelty. He was arrested in May 2008 after investigators said he killed his girlfriend, Lisa Frieberg, and her 2 children, Zachary, 7, and Heather Savannah, 2, in a Lutz mobile home. During the penalty phase, the defense had argued that Covington had a long history of mental illness that led to the murders. However, prosecutors said Covington had been abusing cocaine for several years, and that played a role in the murders. (soure: Bay News) ALABAMA: Keaton could face death penalty in deaths of kids The sentencing phase of the Heather Keaton's capital murder trial got under way Thursday with the prosecution trying to convince the jury to recommend the death penalty for Keaton, and the defense arguing for life in prison without parole. On Wednesday, the jury reached a mixed verdict in the trial. The jurors found Keaton guilty of 1 of 3 counts of capital murder in the killing of Jonathan DeBlase. The jury found Keaton guilty of manslaughter in the death of Natalie DeBlase, and not guilty on the 3rd count, which was murder of 2 or more individuals in the same course of conduct. District Ashley Rich told the jurors she expected the evidence presented during this phase of the trial would show the crime Keaton committed in killing Jonathan DeBlase was "heinous, atrocious, and cruel as compared to other capital offense." Rich said this was the only requirement the state must prove in order for the jury to return a recommendation of the death penalty. Rich's opening statement pointed out that Jonathan was duct taped with a sock in his month and poisoned with antifreeze prior to this death, which Rich said meets the requirements of "heinous, atrocious, and cruel." During Thursday's proceedings, John DeBlase was brought into the courtroom in shackles prior to the jury coming in and offered immunity by District Attorney Ashley Rich in any future trials or appeals in exchange for his testimony. After being questioned by Judge Stout as to whether or not he understood what was being asked of him Deblase was then asked to answer. DeBlase responded, "Under the advice from my attorney's in Montgomery and my attorney here, I exercise my 5th Amendment right." He was then led from the courtroom. Defense attorney Greg Hughes told the jurors they would be asked to consider a number of mitigating circumstances during this phase of the trial. Hughes said Keaton acted under extreme duress and mental distress. He said she was under the domination of John DeBlase who committed the crimes, saying Keaton's part was "minor". The defense lawyer said all of the mitigating circumstances should lead the jurors to recommend life in prison without parole. (source: WALA news) MISSISSIPPI: Court denies rehearing in death row appeal A Blue Mountain man will remain on death row in the shooting death of a newspaper delivery man. Marlon Howell, 34, faces the death penalty in the shooting death of David Pernell, 61, of New Albany in May of 2000. Last year, a judge denied a request for a new trial after holding an evidentiary hearing on Howell's post-conviction relief petition. Howell claims a witness recanted his identification, another witness was not allowed to testify in his defense, and he did not have an attorney during the lineup. In October, the Mississippi Supreme Court upheld the judge's ruling not to grant a new trial. On Thursday, justices denied a request to rehear the appeal. (source: WTVA news) LOUISIANA: Seabaugh drops death penalty bill in lieu of study A bill Rep. Alan Seabaugh, R-Shreveport, put forth to strip the Louisiana Public Defender Board of the oversight of death penalty cases has been pulled in lieu of a study on the state's indigent defense board. E. Pete Adams, the Louisiana District Attorneys Association executive director, said House Concurrent Resolution 196 is replacing House Bill 605 which faced strong opposition the 1st time it went before the house judiciary committee. "The purpose of this is to study the issues that we have raised to you and to have that study done by somebody that is objective. It is not to make any changes. It's to study and to make recommendations to you if those recommendations are merited," Adams said to the judiciary committee Thursday. Seabaugh will handle the concurrent resolution, which passed the committee with numerous amendments, on the House floor. The representative has accused the public defender board of being anti-death penalty crusaders using the state's money to drag out death penalty cases. Adams said he resolution is the result of a compromise between the supporters and some proponents of House Bill 605, which includes State Public Defender Jay Dixon. It authorizes the creation of the Indigent Defense Review Committee. The committee will study the composition of the Louisiana Public Defender Board in regards to potential conflicts of interests, the board's fiduciary responsibilities to the state, fiscal priorities in relation to its mission and constitutionally required standards. Like the bill, the study also has opposition. Derwyn Bunton, Orleans Public Defenders Office's chief district defender, said he was structurally opposed to the resolution and called it unfair. He said there's no evidence of poor service or a violation of ethics by the public defender board. Passing the resolution leaves the impression that Louisiana is hostile to a fair system, he said. "The nation is watching," Bunton said. (source: Shreveport Times) From rhalperi at smu.edu Fri May 29 14:50:24 2015 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Fri, 29 May 2015 14:50:24 -0500 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----IND., MO., NEB., S. DAK. Message-ID: May 29 INDIANA: Lawyers expected in court for Indiana man accused in deaths of 2 women, suspected in 5 others Attorneys in the case of a northwest Indiana man charged with strangling 2 women and suspected of killing 5 others are due in court. Judge Diane Boswell could set a trial date on Friday for Darren Vann. He may face the death penalty if he's convicted in the deaths of 19-year-old Afrikka Hardy and 35-year-old Anith Jones. Police have said Vann confessed to having killed seven women whose remains were found in October, but so far he's only been charged in 2 deaths. Lake County prosecutors filed the death penalty request in April. Hardy was found strangled in a Hammond motel on Oct. 17. While being questioned by police in her death, Vann led investigators to the bodies of Jones and 5 other women in abandoned homes scattered across Gary. (source: Associated Press) MISSOURI: Parma murder suspect could face death penalty Deion Martin will know in just a few weeks whether he will face the death penalty. Martin, 21, who is charged in the shooting death of Brenda Smith on May 15, made his 1st court appearance Wednesday afternoon in Division II of New Madrid County Circuit Court. Standing quietly next to his lawyer, Martin listened as Associate Judge Josh Underwood read the charges he faces. If found guilty of 1st-degree murder, Martin could be sentenced to death or life in prison, Underwood said. If found guilty of 2 counts of armed criminal action, Martin faces a sentence of 3 to 30 years in prison, and a 1st-degree robbery charge carries a sentence of 10 to 30 years or life in prison, the judge said. New Madrid Prosecuting Attorney Andrew Lawson asked the court to set Martin's next appearance in about 3 weeks. "The state will decide by then whether to seek the death penalty," Lawson said. Underwood told Martin and the lawyers to return to court at 9 a.m. June 18. Martin is accused of entering D and L One Stop in Parma, Missouri, as Smith and another employee were opening for business. According to a probable-cause statement filed in the case, Martin, armed with a .22-caliber revolver, demanded Smith open the safe. When she was unable to open it quickly enough, he shot her in the head. Martin then ordered the other employee to give him some lottery tickets before fleeing the scene, according to the statement. Law-enforcement officers identified him as a suspect when he attempted to cash in one of the lottery tickets Sunday at 2 businesses in Stoddard County. Martin was arrested Sunday in St. Louis and returned to New Madrid County. Lawson said the decision on whether to seek the death penalty in the case is based on whether it meets the statutory requirement of aggravated circumstances. If the prosecution seeks the death penalty, Lawson said he will file documents with the court notifying it of the intention and to give the defendant and his attorney notice. (source: Southeast Missourian) NEBRASKA: Inside the Unlikely Coalition That Just Got the Death Penalty Banned in Nebraska When the final aye of the roll call vote was recorded on the electronic panel above the West Chamber of the Nebraska State Capitol in Lincoln yesterday, the crowd in the galleries overlooking the floor couldn't contain their shouts of relief. Or maybe it was disbelief. The wooden benches were filled with death penalty opponents who had come hoping to see the senators of the unicameral Legislature override Gov. Pete Ricketts' veto of a bill repealing the state's death penalty law - but they had good reason to worry they no longer had the necessary votes. After enduring more than 2 hours of heated debate (ranging from tearful stories of personal evolution to bellowed passages from the Bible), the override received exactly the 30 votes required. The death penalty was officially abolished in Nebraska, and activists whooped and clapped, prompting gavel-pounding and calls for order. Repeal of the death penalty has been championed by liberals in the Legislature since 1973. Sen. Ernie Chambers of Omaha, who sponsored this year's effort, has tried to repeal the death penalty 36 previous times in his four decades as a Nebraska legislator. He secured passage in 1979 but didn't have enough votes to override Gov. Charles Thone's veto. In 1992, the repeal was introduced with 25 cosponsors, but support unraveled before a floor vote. Yet, ironically, what made yesterday's successful override possible was not Chambers himself but rather a new class of 18 first-year senators, who arrived all at once because of term limits originally passed in an effort to ouster Chambers. "I wish that I could say that it was my brilliance that brought us to this point," he said in opening debate on the bill, "but this would not be true, and we all know it. Had not the conservative faction decided it was time for a change, there's no way that what is happening today would be happening today." This new group of conservatives were won over to Chambers' viewpoint by a variety of factors - the cost of pursuing death penalty cases in a state that has executed just 3 death row inmates since 1959; very public scandals surrounding recent failures in the state penal system; suspicions about handing the ultimate authority over to any governmental agency; and a significant push by the Archdiocese of Omaha, with backing from the Vatican, to outlaw the death penalty. Still, Ricketts, also newly elected in the fall, never expected such swift movement - and fought hard to block it. Just this month, when some state senators pointed out that Nebraska didn't have the necessary drugs to carry out a lethal injection, the governor went so far as to acquire new drugs without legislative approval from a private company in India. When a major riot occurred at the state penitentiary facility in Tecumseh 2 weeks ago, where 2 inmates were killed, Ricketts organized a tour for senators to survey the damage and argued that the death penalty was necessary to suppress such uprisings. Nevertheless, a little more than a week ago, the repeal of the death penalty (LB268) passed by a comfortable 32-15 majority. But then, a tragedy struck that seemed destined to derail the effort. Just hours after the bill went to the governor's desk, Omaha police officer Kerrie Orozco, who had been delaying the start of her maternity leave until her premature baby could be discharged from the hospital, was shot dead on her final shift before she was scheduled to bring her daughter home. The shooting was near the Omaha districts represented by Chambers and Tanya Cook. News of the shooting brought issues of race to the surface (both Cook and Chambers are African American), especially after the governor called on constituents "to reach out to and talk to senators." Phone messages and emails started flooding into the Capitol - including death threats. A social-media campaign was launched against senators who "chose Chambers" over their constituents. Ricketts said that he didn't want to politicize Orozco's death but held off on issuing his veto until his return from her funeral in Omaha on Tuesday, which drew thousands of mourners to the procession route. Under such pressure, Sen. Jerry Johnson of Wahoo withdrew his support of the repeal. Going into yesterday's session, both Sens. John Murante of Gretna and Robert Hilkemann of Omaha acknowledged that they were reconsidering their support for the repeal as well. If both flipped, the governor's veto would be upheld. So as debate on the veto override proceeded on the floor, the chamber grew palpably tense when Murante announced, "I pledged to do my best to vote the way the majority of my constituents want, and it has become obvious to me that the majority support Governor Ricketts' veto." Everything would come down to Hilkemann's vote. As senators continued to rise to speak for another hour, the lobbying of Hilkemann by both sides grew so intense that he left the floor. (2 citizens who were standing in the hallway reported seeing representatives from the governor's office shouting at him before the final vote.) After Hilkemann finally decided to continue his support for the repeal, sealing the 30-19 victory, death penalty activists rushed to the chamber door to embrace him and shake his hand. He smiled broadly but insisted that he didn't deserve any special recognition. "We were all number 30," he said. Within a matter of hours, the editorial board of the New York Times was ballyhooing the vote as a bipartisan acknowledgment, even "in the deep-red heart of America," that "capital punishment is an abhorrent and indefensible practice." But even as opponents of the death penalty are celebrating around the country, Sen. Beau McCoy of Omaha has announced the creation of Nebraskans for Justice, a new group dedicated to putting the death penalty on the ballot measure. If he can get signatures from 10 % of registered voters by the end of August, implementation of the law will be halted pending the outcome of the popular vote. So while the events of yesterday were stunning, especially to those of us who live in Nebraska, the future of the death penalty in the state - and the fate of the 10 men left on our death row - is far from certain. (source Mother Jones) *************** Nebraska just banned the death penalty, but opponents say the fight isn't over. What happens next? On Wednesday, Nebraska became the 1st state in 2 years to abolish the death penalty. Lawmakers narrowly voted to override a veto from the governor, deciding by a single vote to make Nebraska the 19th state in the country without capital punishment. For opponents of capital punishment, the bill's passage offered a moment of relief after a long, emotional debate. But people who wanted the death penalty to remain the law of the land in Nebraska say the argument is far from over. "Those of us that fought very hard to keep the death penalty in place in Nebraska are disappointed, but we know this is just the beginning of another long discussion and a continued long discussion about this issue in our state," state Sen. Beau McCoy said in an interview after the override vote Wednesday. McCoy says he and other opponents of the bill are hoping to get the issue onto the ballot next year. Meanwhile, there is the question of what happens to the inmates currently on death row, as another high-ranking Nebraska official has vowed to fight a part of the bill that deals with those men. What happens to death row inmates when there is no more death row? First, it is important to note that the death penalty repeal bill did not automatically go into effect on Wednesday. Bills in Nebraska go into effect 3 months after the legislature adjourns. The last day on the session's calendar is June 5 - the end of next week - so if the legislature sticks to that schedule, the bill would go into effect in early September. But if the law does go into effect (more on that below), the state still has 10 inmates on death row. There were 11 inmates when the legislature passed that bill last week, but the state Department of Corrections said that an inmate died Sunday. The new bill states that these inmates will instead be given life sentences. The law says that in any case in which "the death penalty has been imposed but not carried out" before the repeal goes into effect, deaths sentence are converted to life in prison. However, the state appears ready to fight this particular part of the new law. Doug Peterson, the state's attorney general and an outspoken critic of repealing the death penalty, said Thursday that he will challenge attempts to alter these sentences. Peterson's office said in a statement that it believes this section of the law is unconstitutional, arguing that only the state's Board of Pardons can change court-imposed sentences. "Thus, the Attorney General intends to seek a court decision, at the appropriate time, to definitively resolve the issue of the State's authority to carry out the death sentences previously ordered by Nebraska's courts for the 10 inmates now on death row," his office said. What have other states done to death row inmates after abolishing the death penalty? Nebraska is the 7th state in the country to abolish the death penalty in the plast decade. Different states have handled this issue in various ways recently. In 2013, Maryland abandoned capital punishment, but that did not apply to the 5 prisoners on the state's death row at the time (1 of whom later died of natural causes). Late last year, as then-Gov. Martin O'Malley prepared to leave office, he said he would commute the sentences of the 4 remaining inmates, eventually giving them sentences of life in prison without parole. Similarly, when Connecticut (in 2012) and New Mexico (in 2009) outlawed the death penalty, they did not apply that to the people already on death row. And a Connecticut jury sentenced a man to death there last year for a killing committed before the death penalty was banned. Meanwhile, when Illinois abolished the death penalty in 2011, then-Gov. Pat Quinn also announced he was commuting the sentences of the state's death-row inmates and sentencing them to life imprisonment without parole. New Jersey's then governor, Jon Corzine, did the same thing in 2007, signing a bill repealing the death penalty and then commuting the state's 8 death-row inmates. In New York, the issue was resolved by the courts. The New York Court of Appeals effectively suspended the death penalty in 2004, and the same court threw out the sentence of the last inmate on death row in 2007. How supporters of capital punishment in Nebraska could get this issue onto a ballot In Nebraska, while the attorney general said he will fight one portion of the law, other opponents are looking at how to undo the entire thing. Shortly after the vote on Wednesday, McCoy said he was forming of a group called Nebraskans for Justice, which is aimed at putting the death penalty issue before voters next year. "I have heard from an enormous number of Nebraskans ... that are reaching out to help, offering to send money in order to help with this effort, who want to put this to a vote of the people, so Nebraskans as a whole have an opportunity to weigh in on this issue," said McCoy, a Republican who represents part of Douglas County, the state's largest county. McCoy said his group would spend the coming weeks organizing and figuring out how, precisely, to go about this task. That will involve meeting with community groups and civic leaders as well as other Nebraska residents. Nebraska has some very recent experience with pushing high-profile issues onto the ballot. Last year, supporters of a statewide minimum wage increase were able to get that topic before voters in the general election, and the measure passed. To get a referendum on the ballot in Nebraska, supporters need to have a certain number of signatures depending on what, precisely, they are trying to do. A referendum suspending a law from taking effect requires the signatures of 10 % of registered voters, according to the office of John Gale, the Nebraska secretary of state. However, a referendum aimed at repealing the law, rather than suspending it, would take 5 % of these voters. People who want to repeal the new bill also have a limited window to act, because they need to submit signatures within 90 days of the close of the legislative session (before the law goes into effect, basically). If they get enough signatures, the referendum can appear on the ballot during the general election in November 2016. Referendums can only be used to repeal laws passed by the legislature during the most recent session. If proponents of capital punishment want to amend the state's constitution, that would require 10 % of registered voters, while an entirely new law would require 7 % of these voters. These options would allow more time, because signatures have to be submitted only in July 2016. (source: Washington Post) ***************** Nebraska AG: Death Penalty Repeal is Unconstitutional Nebraska Attorney General Doug Peterson added a new twist to the state legislatures decision to abolish the death penalty. Peterson said Thursday that it's his opinion that part of the law is unconstitutional. On Wednesday, the legislature overrode Gov. Pete Ricketts' veto on repealing the death penalty by a 30-19 vote. 30 votes were needed to override his veto. Now, the attorney general is questioning a part of the bill where it says, "It is the intent of the Legislature that in any criminal proceeding in which the death penalty has been imposed but not carried out prior to the effective date of this act, such penalty shall be changed to life in prison." In a statement Peterson said, "We believe this stated intent is unconstitutional." He said the state constitution reserves to the Board of Pardons the exclusive power to change final sentences imposed by the courts. He will seek a court decision to definitively resolve the issue of the state's authority to carry out the death sentences previously ordered by Nebraska???s courts for the 10 men currently on death row. (source: WOWT news) ******************************** Capital punishment backers consider options for putting death penalty issue before Nebraska voters Supporters of capital punishment moved immediately after Wednesday's vote to begin exploring how to put the issue of the death penalty before Nebraska voters. State Sen. Beau McCoy of Omaha announced the formation of a group called "Nebraskans for Justice" that will look at gathering signatures for a voter referendum on the repeal law, or a ballot issue to enact a new law permitting capital punishment. "My phone and email have been jammed the last couple of hours with people who want to help," McCoy said after the vote. Nebraskans, he said, have already offered to work and donate money to such an effort. "They want to weigh in on this issue, and I think they're going to get that opportunity," McCoy said. The repeal of Nebraska's death penalty won't go into effect for 90 days, and supporters of capital punishment have at least 2 or 3 options. One is a referendum petition. Under the state constitution, if a group can collect signatures of 10 % of the state's registered voters within 90 days after the end of a legislative session, implementation of the new law is put on hold. Voters would then decide the fate of the repeal law in a referendum during the next general election in 2016. About 115,000 signatures would be required to put the repeal law on hold. That would compare with the 134,899 signatures gathered over about 6 weeks last summer during a well-financed, successful effort to raise the minimum wage in Nebraska. A 2nd option would be to gather signatures to force a referendum in 2016 without suspending the law. That would require fewer signatures: 5 % of registered voters. Either referendum option would require the signatures to be collected within 90 days. Another option, one that would give such a group more time to organize and gather signatures, would be to propose a new state law or constitutional amendment concerning capital punishment. To get a law change placed on the 2016 general election ballot would require gathering the signatures of 7 % of registered voters. A proposed constitutional amendment would require more signatures, 10 % of registered voters. Either way, those signatures would not be due until July 2016. McCoy said his group will consider its options in the next couple of weeks. Omaha Sen. Ernie Chambers, the Legislature's leading proponent of repealing the death penalty, chided McCoy for considering such an effort now. "Anger, disappointment can lead you to say and do things in a way that is impetuous, unrealistic and unwise," Chambers said. "So that's what he's doing now, and it won't go anywhere." (source: Omaha World-Herald) ********* NYS cultivated wave against death penalty The debate was emotional and included citations that ranged from the Bible to constituent email. And by the time it was over, Nebraska had become the 1st conservative state to abolish the death penalty in 40 years. The repeal on Wednesday underscores the work of a diverse coalition, including Republican lawmakers who believe capital punishment is inefficient, wrong or both. And the win in Nebraska for death penalty opponents comes just before the U.S. Supreme Court is expected to rule on the use of a lethal injection drug that led to botched executions, and as several states scramble to get the chemicals. Nebraska -- the 1st with a majority GOP legislature to ban the death penalty since North Dakota in 1973 -- may have tipped the scale. It joined New York and 17 other states that have banned the death penalty since the U.S. Supreme Court revived the practice in 1976. Since then, Americans have debated capital punishment, grappling with its flaws while trying to fix it. New York determined 10 years ago that the death penalty could not be fixed and that it was time to let it go. New York's action marked a turning point in America's move from the death penalty, just as Illinois had marked a turning point 5 years earlier and Nebraska marked a turning point this week. The campaign to eliminate capital punishment came into sharp view in 2000, when Illinois became the 1st state to impose a moratorium on executions to fix the system. America wasn't ready to give up on the death penalty then, but concerns about wrongful convictions were growing. Illinois' moratorium helped put those concerns into policy, and a number of states set up studies or reformed their systems. However, New York's decision to abandon the death penalty changed the conversation -- from how to fix capital punishment, as Illinois had asked, to whether it should be fixed at all. In New York, the courts had sent the death penalty back to the State Legislature to fix a flaw in the process. After 5 public hearings, featuring more than 170 witnesses, the Assembly decided not to change the defect and let the death penalty die. Several states went through a similar process after New York State. New Jersey decided to suspend executions and conduct a study, and it repealed the death penalty in 2007. Illinois' moratorium lasted 10 years before lawmakers repealed capital punishment in 2011. Maryland studied the death penalty twice, passed the nation's most restrictive death penalty reforms in 2009, and 4 years later repealed it. The last execution in Nebraska was in 1997. Lawmakers there held on to the death penalty for another 18 years, changing execution methods and trying to get executions back on track. But the more they looked at the system, they found a risk of executing innocent people, a lengthy process that harmed victims' families, and high costs for no return. Nebraska isn't the 1st red state to reconsider the death penalty. In the last few years, Republicans have sponsored repeal legislation in GOP-controlled chambers in Kansas, Kentucky, Montana, South Dakota and Wyoming. In 2010, Kansas' Senate came within 1 vote of repeal. This year, Montana's House of Representatives also came within 1 vote. The momentum sparked by New York's Democratic Assembly 10 years ago cultivated a wave against the death penalty. Nebraska's decision marks the a new wave of repeal because the process has now become bipartisan. (source: Op-Ed; Shari Silberstein, Newsday) ************************* UN rights office welcomes Nebraska as latest US state to abolish death penalty Welcoming Nebraska as the 19th state in the United States to abolish the death penalty, the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) today urged the Federal Government to engage with those states retaining the policy towards achieving a nationwide moratorium as a 1st step to abolition. "We welcome the abolition of the death penalty in the state of Nebraska on Wednesday," said OHCHR spokesperson Ravina Shamdasani, who added that Nebraska has not executed any inmates since 1997. States, such as Colorado, Delaware, Montana and Kansas, whose legislative bodies are currently debating the abolition of the death penalty, are encouraged to follow Nebraska's lead, Ms. Shamdasani said. OHCHR also called on the US Federal Government, at the recommendation of the Human Rights Committee in March 2014, to establish a federal level moratorium on the death penalty, while engaging "retentionist states with a view to achieving a nationwide moratorium," as a 1st step towards abolition. The number of people executed each year, and the size of the population on death row in the US have progressively declined in the past 10 years. In 2014, the death penalty was carried out only by 7 states, and the number of executions was 35, the lowest since 1994. (source: UN News Centre) SOUTH DAKOTA: AG Jackley Reacts To NE Death Penalty Repeal With just 1 vote, the death penalty in Nebraska is gone. The state's debate over capital punishment quickly caught the attention of South Dakota Attorney General Marty Jackley. "You know, there had been a lot of discussions about what could happen in Nebraska, and I think it just recently became a reality. I think people had felt that it may pass the legislature, but that a Governor's veto was likely," Jackley said. That veto came this week, but just a day later, the legislature voted again to overturn that decision. Nebraska becomes the 18th state to repeal the death penalty, and as Jackley can attest, the discussions behind ending capital punishment are always emotionally charged. "It's a hard discussion. These are tough issues that the legislators have overwhelmingly looked at it and decided that our very narrow scheme in South Dakota has been appropriate. Our most highest court, the South Dakota Supreme Court, has held it to be constitutional," Jackley said. Jackley has been part of talks the past 2 legislative sessions for looking into a death penalty repeal, but each time those talks never reached the level they did in Nebraska. He also says South Dakota isn't dealing with some of the capital punishment problems states like Nebraska have battled. "We haven't had a situation where we haven't had the substances available or that there had been issues that perhaps Oklahoma or other states have experienced. I really attribute that to the preparations put in place by the DOC," Jackley said. Jackley believes the way sentences are carried out and how rare they are will keep South Dakota from following in Nebraska's footsteps. "There are just those unfortunate situations where in order to save an innocent life and to protect the public or corrections officers or law enforcement, we really have no other choice," Jackley said. Jackley does say the decision in Nebraska will keep the discussions about the death penalty in South Dakota going in Pierre, but he still believes there isn't enough momentum to make a change. (source: keloland.com) From rhalperi at smu.edu Fri May 29 14:51:07 2015 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Fri, 29 May 2015 14:51:07 -0500 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----COLO., NEV., CALIF., USA Message-ID: May 29 COLORADO: Nebraska death penalty vote gives hope to capital punishment opponents in Colorado----ACLU will try to sway state's GOP lawmakers Buoyed by conservative Nebraska's decision to do away with the death penalty, capital punishment opponents say they will try to sway GOP lawmakers in Colorado to follow suit. "It's not going to be easy," said Denise Maes, public policy director of the ACLU of Colorado. "I think we know that, given our attempts to repeal it in the past." Maes said the ACLU is part of the Better Priorities Initiative, a coalition of organizations committed to repealing the death penalty in Colorado. She said coalition members believe that the large amounts of money spent on death penalty cases would be better spent elsewhere. She acknowledges that many people still support the death penalty, but said public opinion is changing. "It's no longer in strong support," she said, adding that some victim's families don't support it. Death Row There are 3 people on death row in Colorado. Nathan Dunlap has been there the longest. He was sentenced to death in May of 1996, after killing 4 people at a Chuck E. Cheese restaurant in Aurora, in 1993. Dunlap exhausted his appeals and an execution date was set, but Governor John Hickenlooper, described by one supporter as "essentially a Quaker," granted a temporary reprieve. The other 2 inmates on death row, Robert Ray and Sir Mario Owens, were convicted and sentenced for the ambush slayings of Javad Marshall Fields and his fiance, Vivian Wolfe. Fields' mother, Rep. Rhonda Fields, D-Aurora, supports capital punishment. She called an earlier attempt to repeal the death penalty "a slap in the face." Maes said Republicans in Nebraska made some very good arguments for change. She said they realized that they were spending a lot of money on death penalty cases when no one was getting executed. "At the end of the day, it's a big government program that spends a lot of money and does very little for people," she said. When asked if the coalition would seek to put the issue to a vote of the people, Maes said they would likely focus on the legislature. "Elections are expensive," she said. "Sometimes it can come down to just a bumper sticker exercise and a few commercials here and there, and I worry that there's not enough thorough discussion, debate and good education." When asked how soon Colorado might do away with the death penalty, Maes said she didn't know. "I think if we didn't have the Holmes (theater shooting) case it would be so much easier," she said. "If he gets life and not the death penalty, I think it's a little easier, because we're going to realize that we spent north of $2.5 million on Holmes, before the trial started." Coalition members didn't focus on Republicans during the last attempt to repeal capital punishment, in 2013, because Democrats were in control of both houses. "We were lazy and didn't need to," she said. "We thought we had it with the Democrats." The repeal effort stalled in the House Judiciary Committee after the Governor voiced concerns. Maes said, what happened in Nebraska has changed their thinking. She said it's possible that lawmakers could come up with another proposal when they convene in 2016. "If Nebraska can do it, Colorado can do it," she said. (source: thedenverchannel.com) ************* Colorado should follow Nebraska and abolish death penalty If Nebraska can do it, why not Colorado? Abolish the death penalty, that is. Nebraska has a unicameral, officially nonpartisan legislature, but there is no doubt it is controlled by Republicans. And those red-state lawmakers last week voted by a lopsided 32 to 15 to abolish capital punishment. More surprisingly, they voted Wednesday to override Gov. Pete Ricketts' veto, with only two senators switching their position. Among the striking aspects of this chain of events is the pragmatism exhibited by senators, some of whom actually support the death penalty but recognize that it has become almost impossible to implement on a consistent (and therefore fair) basis. Nebraska hasn't put a murderer to death since 1997. Colorado hasn't put a murderer to death since 1997, too. And before that in Colorado, you have to go back to 1967 to find an execution. Other lawmakers in Nebraska worried about the possibility of false convictions, given recent exonerations elsewhere in the nation. And at least one conservative senator voted for repeal in order to "follow through with my life convictions, which is life from conception to natural death." Colorado's legislature is divided between a Democratic-controlled House and a Republican Senate, and any attempt to repeal the death penalty is likely to get little traction in the upper chamber. But Republicans there might at least consider the arguments from Nebraska. Do they really believe, for example, the death penalty will ever be put to regular use here? Do they relish the resource-consuming spectacles of endless motions and delays in trials when the death sentence is in play (see Holmes, James), or the prospect of decades of foot-dragging appeals? False convictions in death-penalty trials are not an issue in Colorado, but where exactly is the justice in executing one particularly heinous murderer every few decades while many other equally heinous murderers are sentenced to life without parole? 2 years ago Gov. John Hickenlooper derailed a move in the legislature to repeal the death penalty, while also issuing a temporary reprieve to death-row inmate Nathan Dunlap and declaring that he personally opposed capital punishment. Unlike Nebraska's Ricketts, in other words, Hickenlooper presumably would sign a repeal that reached his desk. But it's got to get there first. (soruce: Denver Post Editorial Board) NEVADA: Death penalty possible for woman and brother accused in hatchet attack Prosecutors could seek the death penalty against an Idaho woman and her brother, who face murder charges in the death of her husband. Prosecutor Frank Coumou said the facts of the brutal attack on Enrique Hernandez point to a case "we would consider seeking death" for Maria Hernandez, 32, and her brother, Hector Gutierrez, 22. Las Vegas Justice of the Peace Ann Zimmerman ordered the siblings held without bail Thursday. The Idaho woman and her brother were arrested Monday in Las Vegas on charges of murder and conspiracy to commit murder after her husband was found nearly decapitated. Maria Hernandez told police she wanted her husband dead after he found out she was having an affair, according to police. Police said she had planned the slaying for about a month and held her husband down while Gutierrez attacked him with a hatchet. She initially called police near the intersection of Buffalo Drive and Eldora Avenue, just south of Sahara Avenue, about 2:30 a.m., a police report said. She and her husband were having car trouble, she said, when someone hacked him. The woman told police that she and her husband, with whom she has 4 children, were in town for a family member's quinceanera. They drove in from Idaho on Saturday for the birthday party later that night. Gutierrez was in town from California. (source: Las Vegas Review-Journal) CALIFORNIA: Convicted South Gate murderer's death sentence overturned The California Supreme Court on Thursday overturned the death sentence of a man who wrote then-Los Angeles County District Attorney Gil Garcetti a letter in which he called 2 murder victims "cowards" who "deserved what they got." In a 67-page ruling, the state's highest court upheld Tommy Adrian Trujeque's 1st-degree murder conviction for the June 21, 1986, stabbing of his cousin's boyfriend, Max Facundo, in South Gate, but reversed his 2nd-degree murder conviction for the Jan. 23, 1987, stabbing of Raul Luis Apodaca at an East Los Angeles upholstery shop. In an opinion written by Associate Justice Ming W. Chin, the panel unanimously found that Trujeque was "improperly charged and subsequently convicted of Apodaca's murder" after the case against him was dismissed twice according to the government and 3 times according to the defense. The panel also set aside the special circumstance findings that Trujeque committed multiple murders and had a prior 2nd-degree murder conviction. The Supreme Court justices ruled that Trujeque's prior murder conviction from 1971 for the killing of Allen Rothenberg - in which the defendant was 16 at the time of the crime - was obtained in adult court "in violation of the double jeopardy clause" after he admitted an involuntary manslaughter charge in a juvenile court. Trujeque was charged with the killings of Facundo and Apodaca after he spoke with investigators while in custody in San Diego County more than 10 years after the killings. In a 1998 letter that was sent to Garcetti, the defendant "admitted he murdered both Apodaca and Facundo while 'fully aware of all my mental faculties'" and urged the prosecution to seek the death penalty against him. The justices noted that Trujeque's letter also stated that "both of those cowards deserved what they got: death and an early expiration in life, to say the least!" and that if he "had the opportunity to do it over I would cut off their heads and send 'em both to their family!" (source: my newsla.com) USA: The (hopefully) wobbly state of the death penalty Let's take a count, shall we?. With the state Legislature's razor-thin rejection of Gov. Pete Ricketts' veto Wednesday, Nebraska became the 19th state to formally abolish the death penalty -- and the 7th in the last decade. Others have come close. A single vote in a Delaware legislative committee derailed an abolition effort there earlier this month. Supporters say they will continue to push the measure, which has the backing of that state's governor, Jack Markell, a former supporter of the death penalty who recently described it as an "instrument of imperfect justice." Legislators in Montana, Kansas, Arkansas and elsewhere have gained traction on death penalty repeal bills as well. But the nation is shifting away from capital punishment in other ways, too. Governors in four states -- Colorado, Oregon, Pennsylvania and Washington -- have declared a moratorium on executions, citing doubts about the process. 6 states with the death penalty on the books haven't carried out an execution in more than a decade. Problems with lethal injections -- from legal challenges to an inability to procure the drugs -- have halted executions in at least 15 more states, and the U.S. Supreme Court is considering the constitutionality of a protocol using midazolam. In fact, since January 2014, 5 states -- Texas, Missouri, Florida, Oklahoma and Georgia -- have conducted all but 2 of the nation's executions. Over at Time, journalist David Von Drehle, who has covered the death penalty for nearly 30 years, writes this week that he thinks the atrocious system is on its way out. And part of the shift, as I mentioned last week, is notable because more conservative Republicans are backing repeal based on its expense and ineffectiveness. It can't happen soon enough. Beyond the immorality of executions, the system is irredeemably flawed. The Death Penalty Information Center reported that through the end of 2013, 15 counties accounted for 30% of executions since the practice resumed in 1976. Yet those 15 counties "represent less than 1% of the total number of counties in the country, and less than 1% of the total number of counties in states with the death penalty." So beyond disparities in application of the death penalty based on race and class (the wealthy can afford better legal representation than the poor), there are disparities in geography. Each state sets its own policy on capital punishment, but even within states there are wide differences in death sentences by county. Some of that can be attributed to differences in population, and in homicide rates, but not all. For example, the Death Penalty Information Center's report found that Los Angeles, Orange and Riverside counties account for more than 1/2 the people on the state's death row, but only 39% of the state???s population. And they account for only 40% of the state's homicides (2000-13), according to state Department of Justice statistics. The decision on whether to seek the death penalty often comes down to individual prosecutors, which puts an inordinate amount of power in the hands of 1 person, further exacerbating the arbitrariness of the system. And the race of the victim plays a big role. According to the most recent death row report by the NAACP's Legal Defense Fund, in cases that have led to all 1,394 executions from 1976 to this past January, 76% of the victims were white and 35% of those executed were black. Yet federal homicide statistics show that more than 1/2 the nation's homicide victims are black. As the Equal Justice Initiative points out: "More than 1/2 of the 3,095 people on death row nationwide are people of color; 42% are African American. Prominent researchers have demonstrated that a defendant is more likely to get the death penalty if the victim is white than if the victim is black. The key decision makers in death penalty cases across the country are almost exclusively white. Despite decades of evidence showing that the administration of the death penalty is permeated with racial bias, courts and legislatures' refusal to address race in any comprehensive way reveals a fundamental flaw in America's justice system." So it's a government program that wastes tax dollars, often results in wrongful convictions, doesn't achieve the intended goals (deterrence and justice), is so arbitrarily invoked that it violates the U.S. Constitution and ultimately degrades human life. No wonder more conservatives are coming around to supporting its repeal, even as an analysis of recent polling shows the oft-cited support among Americans in general is not as strong as it might seem, especially when those surveyed are asked if they prefer the death penalty over life without parole. Maybe Von Drehle is right and the end is nigh. If so, then the U.S. would remove itself from the uncomfortable companionship of other capital punishment countries like Iran and China, and align itself with Europe and most of the rest of the industrialized world. Ultimately, it's hard to try to persuade the world to follow our moral lead on human rights issues when we fail so badly on this one. (source: Opinion; Scott Martelle, Los Angeles Times) **************** In Iowa, Rand Paul sticks with death penalty skepticism Rand Paul expressed deep skepticism of the death penalty Thursday as he repeated his position that states should be able to decide whether to keep it. The Kentucky senator, appearing at an afternoon book signing here, responded to a question about the neighboring state of Nebraska's ban on capital punishment this week. "My first thoughts aren't that forgiving for someone who would hurt a member of my family, but I also understand there have been times when we haven't gotten the right person," he told reporters. "And somebody who is distrustful of big government, like I am, is also distrustful of so much power being given to government to kill somebody, when there might be a mistake. A lot of eyewitness testimony has been shown over time not to be very good." Paul complained that many witnesses in murder trials are not credible. "We also have the problem of when you've got 3 thugs and they're all testifying against each other, and 2 of them say, 'Let's say he did it,' and the other 2 say, 'Let's say he did it,'" he said. 'So your testimony is coming from people who are not necessarily the best witnesses, as far as veracity." The Nebraska legislature voted Wednesday to override the governor's veto of their death penalty ban, making them the 1st red state to do so in decades but the 7th state since 2007. Paul, who has said in the past that death penalty is a state issue, used his ideological support for federalism to avoid staking out a firm position. "It's a tough issue," he said. "Most crimes are adjudicated at the state level and should be, so there really are almost no crimes at the federal level really under the Constitution that would require the death penalty - I think treason being one. It isn't a big issue, I think as far as a change in federal policy, and I would leave it for the most part to the states." Paul did not take follow-up questions. The issue has been in the news recently in the wake of the Boston Marathon bomber being sentenced - under federal statutes, by federal prosecutors - to death. Paul did not mention the recent episodes of botched executions, another of the main reasons cited by death penalty critics. Paul has made criminal justice reform, including the repeal of mandatory minimums, central to his presidential campaign. He spoke to a crowd of 80 here about an Iowa woman who was sentenced to more than 10 years in prison over her use of methamphetamine. The senator's stump speech mainly focused on his fight to let the Patriot Act sunset on Sunday at midnight. Speaking at a minor league baseball stadium on the banks of the Mississippi River, Paul told the crowd that his voice is still raspy from speaking for nearly 11 hours on the Senate floor last week about his opposition to the law. He noted that his opposition has forced the Senate to cut short its Memorial Day recess, reconvening Sunday evening in an 11th hour effort to prevent parts of the program from expiring. "I'm expecting a very cool reception from the other senators, but these are important debates," he said, adding: "I don't know if I can win or not." Paul also argued that he's the most electable candidate. He said polls have shown he could beat Hillary Clinton in Colorado, Iowa, Pennsylvania and New Hampshire. "Quinnipiac did a national poll this week ... and only 2 Republicans, and I was one of them, beat Hillary Clinton in a nationwide poll," he said. "So people need to ask themselves, and Republicans need to ask themselves, who can win in the fall?" In fact, the Quinnipiac University poll he referred to showed Clinton leading Paul by 4 points, 46 % to 42 %, in a hypothetical matchup. ********************** How America's Death Penalty Ends----Nebraska marks an important new milestone in the abolition of capital punishment. The decision Wednesday by the state of Nebraska to abolish the death penalty suggests that what seemed unimaginable as recently as a decade ago - namely that the United States would join most of the rest of the world in abolishing capital punishment - now seems well within the horizon of possibility. The surprise move by the Nebraska legislature - overriding a gubernatorial veto with a bipartisan and sweeping 30-to-19 vote - galvanized and focused public's attention on America's death penalty for the 2nd time in just a month. On May 17, Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was sentenced to death. That headline though, as dramatic as it was, tells us little about the future of capital punishment in the United States; Tsarnaev's case reminds us that even in liberal Massachusetts jurors can be persuaded that death is an appropriate punishment for an unusually gruesome crime and a particularly unsympathetic defendant whose guilt was never in doubt. Yet it should not distract us from a clear headed appraisal of the present condition and likely future of America's death penalty. Nebraska's decision, though, represents a true milestone on the road to abolition of the death penalty - a sweeping reversal of the 1990s tough-on-crime era that saw governors almost bragging about the number of death warrants they signed. The factors that led to abolition in staunchly conservative Nebraska are the very same factors now finding receptive audiences across the country: Put simply, conversation about capital punishment today is less about those we seek to punish and more about the damage the death penalty does to some our nation's most cherished values, to our beliefs in due process and equal treatment and to our commitment to insuring that no innocent person pays with his life for a crime he did not commit. These concerns have, since 2007, led elected officials in New Jersey, New Mexico, Illinois, Connecticut, Maryland and now Nebraska to end the death penalty in those states. In each of them political leaders focused less on abstract, moral arguments about who does or does not deserve to die and more on the realities of a death penalty system that seems in many ways to be irreparably broken. Thus, in December 2007 when he signed a bill making New Jersey the first state in a generation to abolish capital punishment, then Governor Jon Corzine said, "There are many reasons to ban the death penalty in New Jersey. None is more important," Corzine continued, "than the fact that it is difficult, if not impossible, to develop a foolproof system that precludes the possibility of executing the innocent." 18 months later,New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson signed a bill ending that state's death penalty. Richardson - who once supported capital punishment - noted that at that time 130 death-row prisoners had been exonerated across the nation, four of them in New Mexico. He observed, "Regardless of my personal opinion about the death penalty, I do not have confidence in the criminal justice system as it currently operates to be the final arbiter when it comes to who lives and who dies for their crime." 4 years after Richardson's statement, Governor Pat Quinn of Illinois echoed these same concerns when he signed his state's abolition of the death penalty. "Since our experience has shown that there is no way to design a perfect death penalty system, free from the numerous flaws that can lead to wrongful convictions or discriminatory treatment, I have concluded that the proper course of action is to abolish it." When Connecticut's Governor Daniel Malloy ended his state's death penalty he noted that he came to oppose capital punishment while working as a prosecutor. "I learned firsthand that our system of justice is very imperfect," he said. "I came to believe that doing away with the death penalty was the only way to ensure it would not be unfairly imposed." Similar sentiments were heard in Nebraska. "Lawmakers and Nebraska residents," Stacy Anderson, executive director of Nebraskans for Alternatives to the Death Penalty noted, "recognize the realities of an error-prone system that risks executing innocent people and harms murder victim family members. Conservatives like me want to see policies that are fiscally responsible, limit the size and scope of government, and value life. The death penalty fails on all counts." (source: Austin Sarat, associate dean of the faculty and William Nelson Cromwell professor of jurisprudence and political science at Amherst College, is author of Gruesome Spectacles: Botched executions and America's Death Penalty----politico.com) ***************** Why Conservatives are Now 2nd-Guessing the Death Penalty For decades, conservatives have generally supported the death penalty as a way of maintaining law and order. The nation itself has gone back and forth on the issue, seriously curtailing it in several court cases and affirming it in Gregg vs. Georgia in 1976. Since that time it has been the craze in a few states (with Texas and Florida as the most obvious examples) and not practiced at all by others (18 to be exact). Social conservatives -- still one of the largest political blocs on the right -- point to the Bible as a basis for the death penalty. Between an "eye for an eye" in the Old Testament law, or the government's right to "bear a sword" in the New, the Bible definitely deals with the topic. For most Christian religions the New Testament is considered the basis of Christian theology, since the "new law" fulfilled the old. In the New Testament, the scripture says the death penalty is allowed but not required. Increasingly, social conservatives have become comfortable with that reality. In a conservative dominated Nebraska Legislature, there was an overwhelming vote against the death penalty. So strong was the vote that it even survived a veto attempt by the governor with a solid override. A coalition of strange bedfellows -- individuals who would never support each other on most issues came together to vote for the end of the death penalty. It was an impressive political feat. So what has led to such strange voting behavior in Nebraska and the rise of groups such as Conservatives Concerned about the Death Penalty? For years, people of all political persuasions have been concerned about the incredible number of Americans that have found themselves incarcerated. Former U.S. Senator Jim Webb, has stated that the U.S. has "5 % of the world's population..." and "25 % of the world's known prison population." This statement has been verified by PolitiFact and others. It is increasingly obvious that governments are in the conviction business rather than in the justice business. This has certainly made a case for caution. Over the last few decades there has been a dramatic increase in the use of DNA in convicting individuals of crimes. Often these convictions were proven false and overturned. For many of those, the overturning of those cases came too late. It is bad enough when governments warehouse people who are not guilty, but it is unconscionable for anyone to die for a crime they did not do. Sloppy crime scene investigations, disorganized labs, and innocent human error alone make a powerful case of stopping short of the death penalty. Life without parole makes so much more sense. Many who are part of the modern conservative movement are actually, "conservaterians." This group is often described as individuals who "feel like libertarians around conservatives and like conservatives around libertarians." Many are libertarians who simply are looking to develop some political clout by working in the conservative movement. Others, like myself, are conservatives who have simply become more libertarian over time. Regardless of how they fell into the conservatarian numbers, they all have a healthy suspicion of government. For years, as a foot soldier in the conservative movement, I long advocated support for the death penalty. Like millions of other Americans, I became suspicious of a government that has an inconsistent track record when it comes to crime, punishment and liberty itself. What conservatives of all types have become uncomfortable with is the fact that the government has become abusive and intrusive altogether. In recent years the numbers of conservatives that blindly support the U.S. as the world police force has narrowed to a swath called neoconservatives, and that group is shrinking in numbers. Richard Viguerie, the godfather of the modern conservative movement, may of put the conservative position against the death penalty best, stating: "The fact is, I don't understand why more conservatives don't oppose the death penalty." He continued saying that the death penalty "is, after all, a system set up under laws established by politicians (too many of whom lack principles); enforced by prosecutors (many of whom want to become politicians--perhaps a character flaw? -- and who prefer wins over justice); and adjudicated by judges (too many of whom administer personal preference rather than the law)." He goes on to say that "conservatives have every reason to believe the death penalty system is no different from any politicized, costly, inefficient, bureaucratic, government-run operation, which we conservatives know are rife with injustice." The conservative movement against the death penalty is not reaction or illogical. It actually makes perfect sense for a people that fundamentally claim to distrust government. (source: Kevin Price, Publisher and Editor in Chief, US Daily Review----Huffington Post) ****************** Death penalty debate stirred by Boston sentence The death sentence of convicted Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, combined with 4 allegedly botched executions in the U.S. last year and an anticipated Supreme Court ruling on the death penalty this summer, has fueled debate among evangelicals regarding the legitimacy of capital punishment. Nebraska became the 19th state to ban the death penalty, when lawmakers overrode Gov. Pete Ricketts' veto of a capital punishment ban May 27. Whether taking a convicted murderer's life is just, whether the death penalty is applied fairly across all races and economic classes and whether the common execution method of lethal injection is humane are among the issues under consideration. Some states have experienced difficulty obtaining lethal injection drugs because European manufacturers have refused to sell them based on moral objections to the death penalty. A federal jury's May 15 decision to sentence Tsarnaev to death for killing 3 people and injuring hundreds more in a 2013 terrorist attack at the Boston Marathon provoked a variety of responses among Southern Baptists. "I certainly know many people who believe that in certain circumstances the death penalty, as a legal function of the state and as a deterrent to crime, is justified," Neal Davidson, pastor of the Boston-area Hope Chapel in Sterling, Mass., told Baptist Press. "But I don't believe there's been any momentum in our state to try to reinstate the death penalty. It's really quite interesting: you had a federal trial with the death penalty on the table taking place in a state that does not have the death penalty." Massachusetts is among the states that have abolished the death penalty for cases tried in state courts, according to deathpenaltyinfo.org. Individuals convicted of federal crimes in those states may still be sentenced to capital punishment. On one side of the debate, Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary's Daniel Heimbach told BP "it would violate the biblical ethic if our government did not apply the death penalty" in Tsarnaev's case. On the other side, New Orleans pastor David Crosby said he would suspend capital punishment if he could and noted that death row inmates he ministered to said the term "capital punishment" derives from the fact that people with no capital receive the punishment more often than people of means who commit similar crimes. Other evangelicals endorse the death penalty in a highly qualified manner or are undecided about it. Davidson told BP he is "not categorically opposed [to] or in favor" of capital punishment. He believes there is biblical warrant for employing it as a means of just punishment and a deterrent to crime. But he worries about the possibility of human error in death penalty cases and wants to "err on the side of grace." A 2000 Southern Baptist Convention resolution supported "the fair and equitable use of capital punishment by civil magistrates as a legitimate form of punishment for those guilty of murder or treasonous acts that result in death." Other Christian groups that have affirmed capital punishment include the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod and the National Association of Evangelicals. The Assemblies of God has posted on its website a defense of capital punishment that acknowledges disagreement among members of Assemblies of God churches. The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, the National Council of Churches, the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A) and the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops all have opposed the death penalty. A 2014 Gallup poll found that 61 % of Americans believe the death penalty is morally acceptable. Support has dropped below 60 % only once in the past 13 years, according to a ReligionLink report. Most other developed nations have abolished the death penalty. Whether lethal injection is humane has been one focus of debate during the past year, with four allegedly botched lethal injections in the U.S. in 2014, according to NPR. In Oklahoma, convicted murderer Clayton Lockett appeared to twist on the gurney after death chamber staff failed to place his intravenous line properly, Reuters reported. In Arizona, convicted double murderer Joseph Wood took nearly two hours to die and had to be administered 15 doses of the lethal drug, according to USA Today. The Supreme Court is expected to rule by the end of the current term on a case challenging Oklahoma's method of lethal injection as a breach of the Constitution's prohibition of cruel and unusual punishment. Biblical arguments Heimbach, senior professor of Christian ethics at Southeastern, offered 2 reasons for "believing the Bible requires government to execute persons proven guilty of premeditated murder," though he noted there are additional reasons. "The 1st is because in Genesis 9:5 the Creator says that anyone guilty of murder forfeits his own life by doing so," Heimbach said in written comments. "And, since the sanctity of life ethic comes from God, and derives from the Creator-creature relationship, this is a very strong argument. The 2nd comes from the last part of Ezekiel 13:19 where God says sparing the lives of murderers is a moral lie contrary to the sanctity of life ethic He requires." Heimbach cautioned that governments should "never rush to judgment," "never place retribution in the hands of private citizens" and "never demand killing anyone based on feeling self-righteous anger, hate or fear." As with all humans, the debt murderers owe "can be truly satisfied only by the death penalty Jesus paid," he said. The Boston Marathon bomber's trial illustrates how love and justice should both be considered during sentencing in a murder case, Heimbach said. "Biblical love never lessens what biblical justice requires, and it is love for those whose lives were lost that demands the bomber forfeit his. Taking the bomber's life cannot possibly pay for what he stole and should not be taken this way. But what it can do, and should do, is tell the world and God that the people the bomber murdered were deeply and truly loved, and that what he did was irretrievably wrong," Heimbach said. For Crosby, pastor of First Baptist Church in New Orleans, ministering to death row inmates in Texas helped solidify a developing conviction that the U.S. should abolish capital punishment. As a pastor in Texas, he led a weekly Bible study for death row inmates for six years at the Mountain View Unit in Gatesville. Among the inmates he baptized and discipled was Karla Faye Tucker, a convicted double murderer whose highly publicized conversion to faith in Christ occurred just before she met Crosby. Tucker's 1998 execution by lethal injection marked the first time a woman in the U.S. had been executed since 1984. "I remember the moment that I knew she was dead, but I did not witness the execution," said Crosby, who discipled Tucker 4 years and moved to New Orleans shortly before her execution. Crosby told First Baptist the following Sunday, "I am a citizen of this republic. This is participatory government -- government of the people, by the people and for the people. And here's one of the people who doesn't want to kill these other people anymore." The death penalty, Crosby told BP, too often is unjustly administered and does not serve as a deterrent to crime. "It's pretty evident that given the same charges [and] the same conviction, poor people are more likely to be executed than wealthy people," Crosby said. "Black people are more likely to be executed than white people. That's just true statistically. It's undeniable." The death penalty may be just in individual cases, Crosby said, but the racial and economic disparities of the system should provoke objections among believers. During his doctoral studies at Baylor University, Crosby researched the death penalty as a deterrent to crime and found lower murder rates in jurisdictions without capital punishment. He also told BP it costs considerably less by most accounts to imprison a person for life than it does to fund extended court proceedings and the execution itself. Though Scripture allows capital punishment, it is unclear how often it was administered in the Old Testament, and we no longer employ it, as Israelites were permitted to do, for offenses like adultery and rebellion against parents, Crosby said. Additionally, God's decision to spare Cain's life demonstrates that murder does not require the death penalty, he said. Crosby cited the unjust executions of Jesus and Stephen in the New Testament as illustrations that systems of government can fail in the process of administering capital punishment. The Gospel on death row Regardless of their stances on the death penalty, Southern Baptists agree on the necessity of sharing the Gospel with death row inmates -- an emphasis highlighted by the 2000 resolution. New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary's program in the Louisiana State Penitentiary in Angola and Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary's extension program in the Texas Department of Criminal Justice's Darrington Unit carry out such a ministry. Ben Phillips, director of Southwestern's Darrington extension, told BP 2 recent graduates with bachelor's degrees in biblical studies were on death row before having their sentences reduced to life in prison. Though Phillips believes the death penalty is a just punishment for willfully taking an innocent, defenseless life, he says Christians should love mercy and take the Gospel to prisoners sentenced to death. One Southwestern graduate who used to be on death row hopes to return to minister to inmates there, Phillips said. "Rather than celebrate the application of the death penalty in general or any particular case," Phillips said, "we need to love mercy and not only in a general sense hope that 'those people' will come to Christ, but actively work to share the Gospel with them in a way that speaks to them." (source: David Roach is chief national correspondent for Baptist Press, the Southern Baptist Convention's news service----The Baptist Press) From rhalperi at smu.edu Fri May 29 14:51:52 2015 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Fri, 29 May 2015 14:51:52 -0500 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide Message-ID: May 29 CHINA----execution China executes teacher for sexually abusing 26 girls China's top court said it has executed a primary school teacher found guilty of raping or sexually abusing 26 girls. Li Jishun had committed the crimes between 2011 and 2012 while teaching at a village school in Gansu province. He preyed on pupils aged 4 to 11 who were "young and timid", according to a statement by the Supreme People's Court reported by local media. It said there have been more than 7,000 child sex abuse cases in recent years and that the trend is on the rise. 'Grave threat' Li had raped 21 of his victims and sexually abused the other 5 in classrooms, dormitories, and the forest surrounding the village near Wushan town. The statement said that some of his victims had been raped or abused more than once. It made no mention of how he was caught. But it said that the Gansu court had found him "a grave threat to society" and noted that he had committed the crimes within just 1 year. "The Supreme People's Court thus believes that it was appropriate for Li Jishun to be executed," it said. Local media ran the story with caricatures of the man depicting him as a wolf gobbling up children. His sentencing was met with widespread approval on China's microblogging platform Weibo, with many expressing shock at the youth of his victims. "4 years old? I can't believe it," said one. "A death sentence is too good for this man," wrote another commenter. In a rare disclosure of abuse statistics, the Supreme People's Court told local media that the courts heard 7,145 cases of child sexual abuse between 2012 and 2014. The figures showed that the number of cases went up by about 40% during those years. (source: BBC news) IRAN----executions 3 Men Executed in Front of Children - 4 Executed in Prison in Iran 3 men were hanged in public in Mashhad (northeastern Iran) Wednesday, reported the Iranian state media. According to the Iranian state broadcasting, the men were charged with armed robbery, kidnapping, keeping arms. 2 of the men were 27 year and the 3rd was 38 years old. None of them were identified by name. Pictures published in the Iranian media show several minors and children watching the executions. The official Iranian news agency IRNA reported about the execution of 1 man charged with murder. The execution took place on Thursday May 28 in the prison of Gachsaran (Western Iran). 2 men were hanged in the prison of Kerman (Southeastern Iran), according to unofficial reports. The men who have not been identified by name were charged with murder. (source: Iran Human Rights) ********************** Iran Executed 59 people in Mere 6 Days, Monitoring Group Alleges An Iranian monitoring group has alleged that the government, in a matter of mere 6 days, has secretly executed 59 'activists' in the largely Shia-Muslim populated country. According to France-based National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), a political umbrella coalition of 5 Iranian opposition political organisations, Iran carried out "a wave of secret execution inside the country's prisons". The NCRI report noted that between 19 May and 21 May, the Iranian regime executed 37 people in prisons or on the streets of various cities. Similarly, at least 22 peope were executed between 23 May and 25 May. Criticising the increase in number of executions, the group which is headed by Maryam Rajavi, a popular Iranian politician living in exile in France, noted in the report: "The executions are aimed at raising the atmosphere of terror in the society in order to prevent any public expression of dissent in the country." On the recent spate of executions in Iran, Soona Samsami, NCRI's US Representative, told IBTimes India: "The political climate of repression and censorship in Iran, coupled with lack of due process in the judiciary, create severe difficulties in finding the truth behind Iran's executions." "However, one thing is certain: the regime continues to use the death penalty, not as a deterrent to drug abuse or to stem ordinary crimes, but as a means of inflicting terror in a young and increasing restless and enraged population," Samsami said. Samsami also hit out at Iranian President Hassan Rouhani's failure to curb human rights abuses in the country. "Hassan Rouhani's approval of these barbaric hangings notwithstanding, there is no room for reform in a constitution with a non-representative 'Supreme Leader,' and a judiciary that executed 30,000 political prisoners in a matter of months in 1988 alone. Ironically, Mostafa Pourmohammadi, one of the three people who sat on the "death commission" that sent these political prisoners, mostly MEK members, to the gallows, is Rouhani's Justice Minister," she added The Huffington Post earlier this month had reported that an estimated 347 executions were carried out in Iran since the beginning of the year. In 2014, the total number of executions was 735, which according to Oslo-based organisation Iran Human Rights was a 10 % increase from the previous year. "There is an internal conflict going on now between the hard-line judiciary and Rouhani's moderate administration," Iranian human rights campaigner Taghi Rahmani told BBC. "And it's the activists who are paying the price." The highly criticised execution reports have come at a time when Iran is inching towards reaching an agreement on the final nuclear deal. The United States, Iran, Britain, France, Germany, Russia and China on 2 April reached a tentative agreement for a nuclear deal. There were, however, several issues that were yet to be resolved and the countries had opted for a 30 June deadline to reach a comprehensive agreement. Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, however, noted on Thursday that arriving at a final deal by 30 June will be difficult, if the other side stuck to what he called excessive demand, Reuters reported. (source: IB Times) ALGERIA: Algerian court condemns 12 to death for 2008 bombing A court in Algeria has handed down death sentences to 12 people and condemned 2 others to life imprisonment over their involvement in a bomb explosion that claimed the lives of a Frenchman and his driver back in 2008. On Wednesday, the Algiers Criminal Court found the accused "forming an armed terrorist group and premeditated voluntary homicide." The defendants given the death penalty are all members of the Katibat el-Arkam network, a splinter group of al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM). They are at large and Algerian judicial officials tried them in absentia. The 2 present in the court, identified as Khaled Asalah and Brahim Brahim, admitted being AQIM members and taking part in several terrorist attacks. Engineer Pierre Nowacki of the French enterprise BTP Razel and his Algerian driver were killed on June 9, 2008, when a bomb explosion ripped through their vehicle as it was travelling on a road in the town of Beni Amrane, located some 80 kilometers (49 miles) east of the capital, Algiers. 7 people sustained injuries minutes later when a second blast struck the town. The French national had been supervising repair work on a railway tunnel in the area. (source: Albawaba news) SAUDI ARABIA----execution Saudi beheads Pakistani national for drug trafficking Saudi authorities have beheaded a Pakistani national convicted of drug trafficking, bringing to 90 the number of such executions amid international outcry over the "very disturbing" trend. The Saudi Interior Ministry said in a statement carried by the official Saudi Press Agency that the man, identified as Ihsan Amin, was decapitated in the capital, Riyadh, on Thursday after being found guilty of heroin smuggling. Meanwhile, Amnesty International has described Saudi Arabia's use of death penalty as unprecedented, and said the toll is "one of the highest recorded by the organization during the same period for more than 3 decades." The London-based watchdog said on Thursday that almost half of the executions carried out so far this year were for drug-related offences, and about 1/2 of those put to death have been foreigners. "These do not fall into the category of 'most serious crimes', and the use of the death penalty for such offences violates international law," it said. "With the year yet to pass its midpoint, the (Persian) Gulf kingdom has raced towards this shocking toll at an unprecedented rate," said Deputy Director of Amnesty International's Middle East and North Africa Program Said Boumedouha. "This alarming surge in executions surpasses even the country's own previous dreadful records," he noted. On Wednesday, the United Nations special rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions expressed concern about a surge in the number of executions carried out in Saudi Arabia. "It is certainly very disturbing that there is such a fast pace of executions at the moment," Christof Heyns said. In Saudi Arabia, rape, murder, apostasy, armed robbery and drug trafficking all carry the death penalty. Beheadings are carried out in public using a sword. Muslim scholars and clerics have on occasions criticized Saudi authorities for indicting and then executing suspects without giving them a chance to defend themselves. (source: Albawaba news) PAKISTAN----execution PIA fokker hijackers executed after 17 years Pakistan on Thursday morning executed seven death-row prisoners, including three hostage takers trying to hijack Karachi bound PIA Fokker plane allegedly to India in 1998, with more than 30 passengers on board, after it took off from Turbat city in Baluchistan province. The execution of 2 hijackers, Shahsawar Baluch and Sabir Baluch, took place in Hyderabad jail while the third one, Shabbir Baluch, was hanged in Karachi prison. They were given death punishment in 1998 and their appeals were turned down by the higher courts as well. The president had also rejected their mercy petitions. The anti- terrorism court's judge, Abdul Ghafoor Memon, had issued death warrant for them last week. The hijacker had forced the pilot to take the plane to India but the pilot, Captain Uzair, had landed the plane at Hyderabad airport, a main city in southern Sindh province. He had deceived the hijackers by convincing them that the plane ran short of fuel and that he had landed at the Indian state of Gujarat. Hyberabad's then top administration and police officers, while impersonating as Indian officials, had held talks with the hijackers. Late at night, the Pakistan security agencies had overpowered the hijackers and had arrested them. The hijackers had demanded that Baluchistan province should not be used for nuclear tests, following India's testing of nuclear weapons. Pakistan, however, had tested its nuclear devices in Chaghi, Baluchistan, 4 days after the hijacking incident. 4 more convicts were also executed in different areas of the country for murders. They were executed in Sahiwal and Sargodha in Punjab, Haripur in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province and Karachi. A moratorium on the death penalty had been in force in Pakistan since 2008, but executions were restarted in December after Taliban militants had gunned down about 150 people, most of them children, at the Army Public School in Peshawar. The moratorium was initially lifted only for those convicted of terrorism offences, but in March was extended to cover all capital offences. Since then, over 125 people have been executed all over the country. There are nearly 8000 death-row prisoners in jails across Pakistan. The United Nations, the European Union, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have called on Pakistan to re-impose its moratorium on the death penalty. (source: Times of India) EGYPT: Council of Europe head appeals Morsi death sentence The head of the Council of Europe has written to Egypt's Grand Mufti asking him not to approve hundreds of death sentences hanging over jailed dissidents - including former president, Mohamed Morsi. Thorbjorn Jagland wrote to Professor Shawki Abdel-Karim Allam on Thursday in the hope that capital punishment will not be applied to Morsi and over 100 Muslim Brotherhood activists. Egyptian law requires death penalties to be referred to the Grand Mufti, the highest religious official in the country. "The Council of Europe is firmly opposed to the death penalty as a cruel and inhumane punishment which denies human dignity and integrity and can never be undone," Jagland wrote in the letter. Last year, hundreds of Egyptians were sentenced to death but rulings on only a few dozen were actually upheld, the rest converted into jail sentences of 25 years. Morsi and 12 codefendants were sentenced to 20 years in prison last month for allegedly mobilizing supporters to "intimidate, detain and torture" dozens of anti-Morsi protesters during clashes outside eastern Cairo's Ittihadiya presidential palace in December 2012. The former president currently faces multiple criminal trials on charges that include espionage and ???insulting the judiciary,??? charges he says are politically motivated. (source: World Bulletin) ************** Oxford postgraduate sentenced to death by Egyptian government Students throughout the university have expressed their outrage at the death sentence granted to Oxford student Sondos Asem in Egypt. The 28 year old researcher and graduate student Sondos Asem is studying at the Oxford University Blavatnik School of Government and is a member of the Freedom and Justice party. Asem was sentenced to death in absentia on Saturday 16th May in Egypt after being charged with espionage and conspiring with the Palestinian movement Hamas, in relation to her position as the International Media Co-Ordinator for the former Egyptian President Morsi. Mohamed Morsi, alongside his former aides and scholars such as Emad Shahin, have also been sentenced to the death penalty although Asem is the only female charged. In occurrence with Egyptian law, this preliminary sentence will be sent to the Grand Multi for approval. Students from across the university have since expressed their solidarity with Asem and defended her against the accusations of the government. On 22nd May, current MPP and DPhil students at The Blavatnik School of Government voiced their concerns on the departmental website. The 78 students from 51 countries affirmed their solidarity for their friend. The students posted: "We are appalled to hear that Sondos is being prosecuted for simply doing her job as a Foreign Media Co-ordinator in the office of a democratically elected president. "Sondos is as passionate and committed to the principles of public service as any of us. Whether it is lending an ear to friends, debating philosophy, praying together, or playing football with classmates, Sondos is an invaluable part of our community. Like all of us, she came here to learn how to improve people's lives through good government ...We note that the judgment against her has yet to be reviewed. However, we are deeply saddened that these actions mean Sondos will be unable to return to Egypt or visit her family until she has been cleared of the charges." They continued: "we condemn this ruling and urge people and governments to speak up for the rule of law and against this injustice". Sondos' college Women's Football Team also proposed a motion to the Collrgr JCR that the college (where Asem is a member of the MCR and plays for the team) condemn the death sentence. This motion, which passed unopposed, stated that the 'ruling was unjust and politically motivated' and contrary to the "rule of law" fundamental "in a democratic society". The JCR also resolved to "follow Blavatnik's example in fully condemning the ruling", to "urge the college to provide support and assistance to Sondos" and to demonstrate their "solidarity" with a "friend, peer and teammate". One Wadham College student added: "What has happened to Asem is deeply troubling. As a college and as university it is our responsibility to stand behind Asem and fight back against what can only be described as a gross injustice". Speaking to the OxStu, Asem said: "The support I have received so far from my fellow students is what makes me stronger. I am impressed by the level of political awareness, human rights advocacy, and empathy on the part of my fellow students in Oxford and my college. This has proved to me that people can share the same values despite coming from different countries and cultures. "This death sentence is not just about me, it is one example of the injustice that thousands of other women and men, are suffering due to repression in Egypt". Asem was a high profile and vocal presence throughout Egypt and had a range of roles including acting as the Senior Editor of Ikhwan Web, the Muslim Brotherhood english-language online website. In a 2011 interview, she voiced her concerns surrounding the misconceptions relating to the Muslim Brotherhood stating: "It's a big misconception that the Muslim Brotherhood marginalises women" as "50 % of the Brotherhood are women". Asem also affirmed that as an organisation: "We believe that a solution to women's problems in Egyptian society is to solve the real causes, which are illiteracy, poverty and lack of education." The final sentence will be pronounced on June 2nd. Due to security concerns for Asem and college members, we cannot detail which college she is currently attending (source: The Oxford Student) NIGERIA: Outgoing Delta premier pardons death row inmates Some 9 years after his arrest and controversial conviction, a Delta State prisoner on death row, has been granted freedom ahead of Democracy Day. Outgoing Governor, Emmanuel Uduaghan, announced he had granted pardon to Moses Akatugba, and three others facing the death penalty in the state. The governor disclosed this after Valedictory State Executive Council Meeting in preparation for Friday's inauguration of Senator Ifeanyi Okowa as the State Governor. He said the pardon was granted based on a report from the State Prerogative of Mercy Council and reviewed by the State Attorney General. "I have granted pardon to Moses Akatugba, I have signed his warrant of release, he was the young man who was sentenced to death when he was 16 years old and his case has been trending on the social media and Amnesty International has also intervened" Uduaghan said. Akatugba, then a student, was just 16 years old when he was arrested under suspicion of armed robbery in Nigeria. The arrest grabbed international headlines. It is reported soldiers shot him in the hand and beat him on the head before taking him to the police station where he was assaulted repeatedly before he was forced to sign pre-written confessions. Last year, Akatugba was sentenced to death, after 8 years awaiting trial in prison. It is said the sentence was based only on his forced confession and the testimony of the robbery victim, which was full of contradictions. The governor also announced the pardon of 3 unnamed inmates facing death penalty in the state to prison terms. "I have also commuted the death sentence of 3 others to various prison terms" he added. He meanwhile disclosed that the ban on youth activities in Oghara had been lifted. He thus charged the youth to maintain the peace and liaise with the traditional institution to work out modalities on how to carry out their activities. (source: News24Nigeria) INDONESIA: Executions fail to dent Jakarta's drug war----1 month since the executions of 2 Australians and 6 others, it seems they didn't have the deterrent effect Indonesia's president had hoped for. The agency on the frontline of Indonesia's "drugs emergency" senses the death penalty will eventually prove an effective deterrent, despite even prison officials being busted since the executions of 8 offenders 1 month ago. Australians Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran were among the men killed by firing squad at midnight on April 29. Since then, a prison guard on the same penal island where the executions took place, Nusakambangan, was caught with drugs. A prisoner told investigators he paid the man to smuggle 364 grams of methamphetamine out of the jail. And last week, a guard in West Java was caught with 16 kilograms of methamphetamine and several hundred ecstasy pills he claims were not his but drugs he had seized from prisoners. Although there is no evidence the death penalty deters crime, President Joko Widodo believes executing death row drug convicts will be "shock therapy" for would-be offenders. So far this year, Indonesia has executed 14 people. Asked if the recent arrests showed the policy was flawed, National Narcotics Board (BNN) spokesman Slamet Pribadi argued it would take time to work. "For now, maybe not," he told AAP. "But it will in the future." Mr Slamet promised the BNN would begin to show headway in Mr Joko's war on drugs within 3 to 6 months. "Our intelligence data has shown talk among drug mafias saying beware of the BNN," he claimed. "What does that mean actually? I don't know. "My interpretation is that in general, this prevention must have worked." Indonesia's attorney general's office has finished an evaluation on last month's executions and will soon start planning more. Australia's ambassador to Indonesia, Paul Grigson, remains recalled, with a date for his return still under consideration. Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and other groups have submitted a blueprint to Australia's federal government to renew the way it campaigns for global abolition. Parliamentarians against the death penalty, a group co-chaired by Philip Ruddock and Chris Hayes, will discuss its plans later this month. (source: sbs.com.au) From rhalperi at smu.edu Sat May 30 13:38:37 2015 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Sat, 30 May 2015 13:38:37 -0500 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----N.C., GA., FLA., ALA., OHIO, IND. Message-ID: May 30 NORTH CAROLINA: Death penalty sought in killing of Alamance Crossing employee The man accused of killing a Jamestown woman on her way home from a Burlington retailer last year will face the death penalty at trial. Anthony Clay Campbell, 54, whose most recent address is listed as 5408 Francisco Drive, Greensboro, is charged with 1st-degree murder in the death of Joyce "Jo" Price Eaton. Eaton was found June 12 in a ditch on AT&T Drive in McLeansville, near Interstate 40/85. She had been shot, stabbed and dragged 15 feet off the road, according to her autopsy report. Eaton was last seen the night of June 11 leaving her job at Verizon Wireless in the Alamance Crossing shopping center. The Guilford County District Attorney's Office is seeking the death penalty for Campbell. Prosecutors made the decision to seek the death penalty based on the cruelty of Eaton's killing, chief prosecutor Howard Neumann said this week. "It was especially heinous, atrocious or cruel. That is the aggravating circumstance we contend exists," Neumann said. State laws limit prosecutors from seeking capital punishment unless evidence in the homicide supports 1 or more of 11 aggravating factors. Those include a defendant's prior record of violent felonies, a killing during the commission of another violent felony, monetary gain from a killing or, as in this case, brutality of the act. In April, Guilford County Superior Court Judge Susan Bray heard the state's argument for seeking capital punishment in Campbell's case and ruled that prosecutors could proceed, Neumann said. Campbell was appointed a 2nd attorney, required by law in capital cases. He is represented by Mark Hayes and Robert McClellan, both of Greensboro. No trial date is set, and no future hearings had been scheduled as of this week. Campbell was arrested June 17. He is being held in the Guilford County jail without bail. The Guilford County Sheriff's Office has said a motive in Eaton's death was money, and contends the 2 argued about $1,800. That's the amount of rent Eaton paid each month for her house. According to search warrants, detectives found a receipt in Campbell's house in Mocksville for an $1,800 cash deposit into a SunTrust account June 2. Eaton's monthly rent payment was deposited into a SunTrust account, the document says. Investigators believe Campbell went to the store where Eaton worked the night of her killing and waited for her to leave, circling the store. Autopsy reports showed Eaton suffered extensive injuries in the attack. She was shot once in the back at close range, according to the autopsy report from the N.C. Office of the Chief Medical Examiner. A slash across her neck hit her jugular vein. She had additional cuts to her eyebrow, earlobe and head, and her right thumbnail was broken off. Eaton also had cuts on her wrists and a broken tooth. The Orange County Sheriff's Office found her abandoned car June 12 in Hillsborough. Cellphone records showed Campbell was the last person Eaton spoke to June 11. Records also showed that Campbell's cellphone was near Eaton's workplace around the time she left work June 11, as well as near where her body was discovered and where her car was found in Hillsborough, according to court documents. (source: The Times News) GEORGIA: Prosecutors seek death penalty in child murder case Prosecutors again filed written notice Friday to seek the death penalty against Gregory Evans, for the 2011 murder of a 19-month-old child. Under a new indictment filed with a grand jury with a proper diverse makeup, prosecutors again are seeking the death penalty. Evans is charged with viciously beating 19-month-old Janaysia Stevenson to death in March 2011. Investigators said the child died from a lacerated kidneys, liver, and intestines suffered in a prolonged beating. Evans will be arraigned formally again on September 10th. (source: WALB news) FLORIDA----new death sentence Edward Covington gets death penalty for 2008 Mother's Day slayings----Victim's parents say his violent past hidden Edward Covington will pay with his life for viciously taking 3. "As for count 1, Mr. Covington, the murder of Lisa Freiberg, the court will impose a sentence of death," Judge William Fuente said. Barbara Freiberg blew out a short breath, an exhale she's been waiting more than seven years to release. "To hear the death sentence was a huge relief for me because that's what he did to my kids. He gave them a death sentence," said Barbara Freiberg, a mother and grandmother. Covington is headed to death row after pleading guilty to murdering his girlfriend, Lisa Freiberg, her daughter, Savannah, 7, and son, Zachary, 2, in 2008. "Whew! Exhale. I miss him," Barbara Freiberg said. The trial's testimony was so dreadful and graphic, the grandmother would have to leave the courtroom to avoid hearing it. "To this day, I don't know and I don't want to know ever," she said. It's the details before the murders she wishes she had known: How Covington had a violent past, mutilating his ex-wife's pets when she left him. "We didn't know he was an ex-guard. We didn't know he mutilated cats. I checked him out on the internet. I first checked under Hillsborough County to see if he has an arrest record. Nothing at all under his name," said Barbara Freiberg, who says she also searched for a criminal record in Pasco County. But there were no red flags. They say Covington lied about everything, including mental illness and drug abuse. Even his family was mum about kicking him out days before the slayings. "We didn't even know he was on a probation situation. We couldn't find that out. Nothing. Zip," said father Keith Freiberg. Their victim's advocate, Julie Weintraub, said crucial information like this should be easy to find. "When you have a violent history, violence should not be hidden from the public," she said. Perhaps if these parents had known, we wouldn't be sitting here. "I can remember little Savannah. I'd be sitting, say in the kitchen, having some coffee and maybe some cereal or something. The little one would come up and just like a little bird, would want a little sample, you know, of my cereal or something like that. Things like that you can't take away," said Keith Freiberg. (source: abcactionnews.com) ******************* Nassau County man commits suicide while on death row for killing his parents The suffering for Gregory Larkin's family began after they learned someone had beaten his parents to death in their Fernandina Beach home in April 2009. Their decomposed bodies were found a week later in what veteran lawman Tommy Seagraves, then the Nassau County sheriff, called the most brutal killings he'd ever seen. Larkin's family suffered again when police charged him t2 weeks later with killing his 73-year-old mother with a baseball bat and 75-year-old father with a statue. The motive, prosecutors said, was an alcohol-fueled rage over his parents selling a struggling business managed by Larkin, then 35. The family's anguish continued as they watched Larkin represent himself in the 2012 trial without putting up a defense. His stand-by public defender called Larkin delusional and said Circuit Judge Robert Foster's ruling to allow him to represent himself - after 2 of 3 psychiatrists said he was competent to do so - was "state-assisted suicide." Foster agreed with the jury's unanimous decision to sentence Larkin to death. The final blow for the family came this week. Larkin, 41, apparently committed suicide Wednesday night in his death row cell at Florida State Prison, authorities told the Times-Union. Family members told a woman who helped in Larkin's case that an autopsy found he died of apparent asphyxiation, about 2 years after being sent to the prison in Bradford County. State prison officials declined to discuss the cause or manner of death or other details, such as whether Larkin was on suicide watch and how guards were monitoring him. The Florida Department of Law Enforcement is investigating as a routine matter in such deaths in state prison. An FDLE spokeswoman declined to comment. Larkin is the 4th death row inmate to commit suicide in Florida since 2000, according to the Department of Corrections. The other 3 deaths were at Union Correctional Institution. DIFFERING FEELINGS Larkin's prosecutor and a woman who helped in his defense and appeal agreed the entire ordeal has crushed the family, but for different reasons. "I think it's unfortunate that his family continues to go from one tragedy to another at the hands of Gregory Larkin," said former Assistant State Attorney Wes White. But Sara Flynn, a mitigation specialist who worked on Larkin's case before and after his trial, said the state's decision to seek the death penalty was a mistake. She said at least some family members were opposed to the idea. "Greg's death has come as a great shock to everyone who cared for him," Flynn said. "If he did commit suicide, would he have done so if he had never been prosecuted capitally?" The family declined to comment. "They are not prepared to speak to you now as they are reeling with the horrible reality of the manner in which Greg died," Flynn said. BRUTALLY BEATEN Prosecutors said Larkin sneaked up on Myra Larkin from behind while she was watching a movie in the living room of her home and beat her to death with a baseball bat. He then attacked Richard Larkin working on a computer in the garage. His father fought back, but died after his son dropped a concrete garden statue on his head. Prosecutors said Larkin was mad at his parents' decision to sell a struggling dive-and-kayak business they owned in Costa Rica for about 15 years. They hired their son as the manager. Deputies discovered the bodies nearly a week later when someone asked them to check on the couple's well-being. There were no signs of forced entry and the killer had left the doors locked. A police manhunt for Larkin led to a hotel near Jacksonville International Airport, where he was registered. Police also found his parents' missing 1997 Mercury Mountaineer in the hotel's parking lot. Larkin, who told investigators he'd been in Mexico when his parents were killed, was initially charged with auto theft. Sheriff Seagraves said Larkin had a passport stamped in Mexico 6 days before his parents were found and returned the day their bodies were discovered. Larkin claimed he was robbed in Mexico and the keys to his parents' vehicle were stolen. Murder charges were added 2 weeks later after DNA from Larkin's parents was matched to traces of blood found on some of the clothes he'd left behind. Neighbors in the Arbours of Amelia subdivision where the Larkins lived described them as a friendly couple who had been trying to sell their house and return to Costa Rica. "To get that far in life, in your 70s and get murdered, that's not fair," Andy Moeckel, 61, told the Times-Union at the time. THE TRIAL Larkin exhibited bizarre behavior before and during his trial, his appellate lawyers later argued. That includes saying witnesses would tell jurors he didn't commit the crime while they were actually saying the opposite and that there was a conspiracy to wait until Foster retired before putting him on trial. Larkin, who hired and fired private attorneys and his public defender, didn't make any arguments on his own behalf. A 12-person jury convicted him in January 2012 and unanimously recommended death. Assistant Public Defender Brian Morrissey, appointed as stand-by counsel, sought to have Larkin's mental health evaluated after he was convicted, but before he was sentenced by Foster. Morrissey said then he believed Larkin was delusional. "Mr. Larkin never asked for help and wouldn't take any help that was offered," Morrissey said after the trial. "Very unfortunate." Morrissey has since retired from the Public Defender's Office and couldn't be reached to comment. The prosecutor's sympathy after Larkin's conviction was focused more on what Larkin did to his surviving family. "To watch their brother, their relative, show no remorse has got to be one of the worst things in the world," White said. Foster sentenced Larkin to death in June 2012. Larkin's oldest brother, the only family member at the sentencing, looked confused when his shackled brother briefly muttered something at him as deputies led him out of the courtroom. "Justice truly has been served and will be served in its entirety when he is put to death for the crimes he has committed," White said at the time. FAILED APPEAL Larkin's appellate lawyers argued his conviction and death sentence should be overturned because of doubts that he was competent enough to represent himself. But the Florida Supreme Court unanimously rejected the argument because 2 doctors found him competent, and Foster disagreed with Morrissey's contention that Larkin had demonstrated delusional behavior during his criminal trial. Larkin's appellate lawyers were working on a new plea when he died. No funeral arrangements have been announced. (source: Florida Times-Union) ******************* Hearing on intelligence of potential death-penalty killer concludes Dennis Thurnado Glover will find out if he's going to death row or getting life in prison in August, 20 months after he was convicted of the murder of Sandra Jean Allen. Glover, 51, has been in limbo because of uncertainty over whether he has the mental capacity to be put on death row. A multiple-day hearing on his intelligence concluded Friday and Glover is now scheduled to be sentenced Aug. 14. Circuit Judge Mallory Cooper will consider the issue of Glover's intelligence and the facts of the murder and then issue her sentence. Under Florida law, the only options available to Cooper are life without parole or death. The hearing concluded with psychiatrist Larry Neidigh testifying that Glover was likely intellectually disabled, which was previously called retarded. "The information I reviewed strongly suggests that he's intellectually disabled," Neidigh said. "But I can't be definitive 1 way or the other." In 2014 the U.S. Supreme Court ruled it was unconstitutional to put intellectually disabled people on death row and also ruled that Florida's method of determining intellectual disability via an IQ test was unconstitutional. Under the law Glover can still be put in prison for the rest of his life if he is found to be intellectually disabled. He just can't be executed. Neidigh said Glover had one IQ test that graded him as intellectually disabled and 2 others that put him right at the margin of error between intellectually disabled and below-average intelligence. A 4th test had him grade out at below average. All 4 tests were taken before Glover was arrested for Allen's murder. Glover refused to meet with Neidigh or take another IQ test. Neidigh said he based his opinion on the previous IQ test and Glover's school and mental-health records, which suggest he struggles with adaptive functioning. Earlier this month prosecutors called clinical psychologist Greg Prichard, who said Glover is not intellectually disabled. Neidigh said he'd examined Prichard's report and didn't understand how he could say with authority that Glover definitely wasn't intellectually disabled. Glover also refused to meet with Prichard, and the clinical psychologist based his opinion on the fact that school officials didn't believe Glover was disabled and by examining letters that Glover has written to Cooper and family members. Glover also attempted to fire his attorney, Assistant Public Defender Michael Bateh, but Cooper refused to dismiss the lawyer. Glover has attempted to dismiss his lawyer multiple times, but Cooper has ruled there's no reason to remove Bateh and also said she wasn't sure Glover is competent to represent himself. When the hearing began Friday, Glover refused to sit next to Bateh - an empty chair was between them for most of the hearing - but did allow Bateh to speak to him near the end. Glover said he found the 51-year-old Allen, who lived 2 doors down from him, dead in her home and went to get help from some of his neighbors. He told police he saw 2 men fleeing and then found her door cracked open with Allen's body inside. She had been beaten, strangled and stabbed in the neck. The jury that convicted Glover recommended he be put to death by a 10-2 vote. Glover allowed his shoes to be photographed and tested for DNA. He was arrested a month after the May 2012 murder when police found Allen's blood on his shoes and his DNA on her face, neck and left hand. (source: Florida Times-Union) ALABAMA: Sentencing delayed in the Lisa Graham murder-for-hire-case The sentencing has been delayed for the Russell County woman convicted in the murder-for-hire death of her daughter. Judge Walker ordered a compete mental evaluation and IQ test by a psychiatrist and medical doctor before he makes his decision. Lisa Graham is on several medications for a number of conditions including schizophrenia. On March 5, 12 jurors polled, 10 recommended the death penalty after a week of testimonies. Graham was convicted of hiring a family friend to shoot and kill her own daughter Stephanie "Shae" Graham, because she was ruining her life. Her daughter was 20-years-old at the time of her death in July 2007. It only took the jury about an hour to recommend the death penalty. Graham's mother asked the judge to spare her daughter's life for the sake of her 17-year-old son saying, he would lose his mother if she's put to death. Sheriff Heath Taylor was the primary investigator on the case in 2007, and is standing up for Shae. "We feel sorry for the family at the same time, but Shae deserves justice," Taylor said. Kenny Walton, the man hired to kill Shae confessed to the murder and is serving life in prison. The gun used was given to him by Lisa Graham. This case is the second for Graham. The first case in 2012 ended in a mistrial after the judge became ill during the case. Judge Jacob Walker is presiding over this case and is not bound by the jury's recommendation. Judge Jacob Walker is presiding over this case and is not bound by the jury's recommendation. Graham's attorneys could appeal the judge's decision. The appeal would be heard by the Alabama Supreme Court. Lisa Graham's son also took the stand on Thursday and asked the judge not to sentence his mother to the death penalty. Instead, he would rather her be sentenced to life in prison, so that he can still have her around. The 1st sentencing hearing was scheduled for May 1 but was also rescheduled. No date had been set on the next sentencing hearing. (source: WTVM news) OHIO: Prosecutor opposes death penalty bill Adolf Hitler. Timothy McVeigh. Osama bin Laden. Those are some of the killers proposed legislation in the Ohio Senate would likely keep from being executed, according to Warren County Prosecutor David Fornshell. "In my opinion, almost everyone who commits capital offenses likely has some level of mental illness, otherwise they would be incapable of committing these horrific acts," Fornshell, a Republican, said on his Facebook page. State Sen. Sandra Williams, D-Cleveland, told The Enquirer she sponsored the proposed bill because it is an attempt "to protect the most vulnerable people" in society. She said Fornshell's statement illustrates much of what is wrong with the criminal justice system. "They try to put everybody in the same bag," she said. "I disagree. I would not say that everybody who commits a heinous crime is mentally ill. Every case has to be judged on an individual basis." The U.S. Supreme Court currently prohibits the execution of people with mental disabilities. The proposed bill, also sponsored by state senator Bill Seitz, R-Green Township, would expand that to include forbidding the execution of those with illnesses such as schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. It also would allow someone on death row to be resentenced to life in prison if they could prove they suffer from a serious mental illness, according to the bill. But a disorder brought on by criminal conduct or substance abuse would not make a defendant ineligible for the death penalty. Fornshell called the legislation "seriously misguided." He said it "adds yet another hoop for prosecutors to jump through" for acts "society simply cannot tolerate." Three people were sentenced to death in Ohio last year. One of those was Austin Myers, now 20, who killed a childhood friend and dumped his body in Preble County. Prosecuted by Fornshell, he is the youngest inmate on Ohio's death row. Fornshell also is seeking the death penalty in a murder case set for trial this summer. But he doesn't think the death penalty is used excessively in Ohio. "If people looked at the charges and circumstances surrounding all the cases that don't get the death penalty, more people than not would be shocked and upset," he recently told The Enquirer. The bill, which has 12 co-sponsors, is in the Ohio Senate's Criminal Justice Committee. (source: ohio.com) INDIANA: Police: Cooper left suicide note The fatal shooting Tuesday of Paula Cooper, the Gary native who once was the youngest person in America sentenced to death, was a suicide, according to the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department. "Based upon the evidence at the scene and the fact that there was a note left to indicate the intent of Ms. Cooper, we believe this to be a suicide, and it's being investigated as a suicide," said Lt. Richard Riddle, IMPD spokesman. Riddle said the contents of Cooper's suicide note are being withheld under the police investigatory records exception to Indiana's Access to Public Records Act. However, police said the note generally covered Cooper's struggle to survive over the past 2 years outside the prison walls that were her home since she was convicted of murder in 1986 at age 16. Cooper, 45, was found dead Tuesday morning lying on her right side next to a tree in the 9500 block of Angola Court on the northwest side of Indianapolis, according to police. Police reports indicate she shot herself with a Bryco .380 caliber handgun they found in her lap. Her car was parked nearby in a handicapped spot outside a technical school. Cooper's death came 30 years and 12 days after she and three friends murdered Ruth Pelke, a 78-year-old Gary Bible school teacher, in Pelke's Glen Park home. Records show Cooper, then 15, stabbed Pelke 33 times with a butcher knife before stealing $10 and Pelke's car. Cooper later described the incident as a "robbery gone bad." Cooper pleaded guilty to murder in April 1986 and was sentenced to die in the electric chair. At the time, she was the youngest death row inmate in the United States. Following international outrage and pleas for clemency, including from Pope John Paul II, the Indiana Supreme Court in 1989 commuted Cooper's death sentence to 60 years in prison. Indiana law later was changed to limit use of the death penalty to offenders who are at least 18 years old at the time of their crimes. Cooper was released from prison June 17, 2013, with time off for good behavior and her educational achievements while incarcerated. Shortly before winning her freedom, Cooper told The Times she was eager for life on the outside. "I mean, I don't care if I have to sweep floors, wash dishes or flip hamburgers, I'm going to take what I can get, you know, just to get on my feet and show people that I deserve a chance," she said. (source: NWI Times) ****************** Prosecutors push for June 22 Vann trial Darren Deon Vann's capital murder case is back on the trial docket beginning June 22. Lake Superior Court Judge Diane Ross Boswell on Friday granted a request by prosecutors to restore the trial date, which had been canceled on April 17 when the request for a death sentence was filed. After reviewing the state's motion, Boswell said she listened to a tape recording of the hearing. "It seemed logically the only thing to do was to vacate the June 22 jury trial in light of the death penalty filing," Boswell said. Prosecutors, however, said in the motion that they never asked to delay the trial for Vann, 44, who has pleaded not guilty to charges of murder, murder in perpetration of robbery, and robbery resulting in serious bodily injury in the killings of Afrika Hardy, 19, of Chicago, and Anith Jones, 35, of Merrillville. Boswell has ordered that the 2 murder cases be tried together. Under criminal rules of court procedure, Vann must be tried within 180 days of his arrest date, minus any delays attributed to the defense team, or he will be released on his own recognizance. He was initially arrested Oct. 20 in Hardy's case after her body was found in a bathtub at Motel 6 in Hammond on Oct. 17. She and Jones had been strangled. Thus far, Vann's defense team of Teresa Hollandsworth, Matthew Fech and appellate counsel Mark Bates have not asked to delay the trial. At Friday's hearing at the Lake County Government Center in Crown Point, Fech renewed his request for Boswell to order the state to turn over its DNA evidence, which is due by June 5. In the meantime, Boswell scheduled a meeting in her chambers with attorneys involved in the case Monday afternoon to begin developing a questionnaire for prospective jurors. Lake County's most recent death penalty case was in 2013 for Kevin Isom. In preparation for that trial, attorneys spent months developing the questionnaire, which was mailed out to prospective jurors. < After Vann's arrest, he led police to other alleged victims whose bodies were found in abandoned houses in Gary, court records state. They include Sonya Billingsley, 53, of Gary; Tanya Gatlin, 27, of Highland, Teaira Batey, 28, of Gary; Tracy Martin, 41, of Gary, and Kristine Williams, 36, of Gary. (source: Chicago Tribune) From rhalperi at smu.edu Sat May 30 13:39:29 2015 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Sat, 30 May 2015 13:39:29 -0500 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----MO., OKLA., NeB., COLO., IDAHO, CALIF., USA Message-ID: May 30 MISSOURI: Missouri man accused of killing 10-year-old girl gets new judge A new judge has been named to hear the trial of a man suspected of kidnapping and killing a 10-year-old Springfield girl. Craig Wood is charged with kidnapping, rape and 1st-degree murder in the February 2014 death of Hailey Owens. Prosecutors say he grabbed her off the street as she walked home, sexually assaulted her and shot her in the head. Her body was found in Wood's home. The 47-year-old defendant is scheduled to stand trial in Springfield in front of a Platte County jury. The Springfield News-Leader reports that retiring judge Dan Conklin recused himself from the case this week, and the case has been assigned to Judge David Jones. Prosecutors say they'll seek the death penalty if Wood is convicted. A trial date hasn't been set yet. (source: Associated Press) ******************* Nebraska abolishes death penalty This editorial originally appeared in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch on May 25. Last Wednesday, the same day the Missouri Supreme Court set a July 14 execution date for convicted murderer David Zink, Nebraska's single-house Legislature voted to abolish capital punishment. Go figure. The 2 states share a border, though admittedly a short one. They share Midwestern values, though admittedly Missouri's have turned pretty Deep South in recent years. They share conservative-dominated politics. Republicans have veto-proof majorities in both houses of the Missouri Legislature. Nebraska's Legislature officially is nonpartisan, but those who keep track say the 49-member "uni-cam" has 35 Republicans, 13 Democrats and 1 independent. And yet the unicam voted 30-13, with 17 Republican "ayes," to abolish the death penalty. It is largely a theoretical issue because the state hasn't executed anyone since 1997. There are 11 inmates on its death row. Missouri has executed 56 men since 1997, including 10 in 2014 alone. That tied Missouri with Texas, which has 20 million more people, for the year's most. 2 more execution dates have been set: June 9 for Richard Strong, 48, convicted of the stabbing deaths in St. Ann in 2000 of Eva Washington and her 2-year-old daughter, Zandrea Thomas. Zink's date comes up 5 weeks later. He was convicted of the 2001 abduction and strangulation of Amanda Morton, 19, of Strafford. Clearly Nebraska's conservatives are a more enlightened breed than Missouri's. Their case for opposing the death penalty is steeped in classical conservative theory about limiting the role of government. In floor debate, Sen. Colby Coash, R-Lincoln, said, "If any other system in our government was as ineffective and inefficient as is our death penalty, we conservatives would have gotten rid of it a long, long time ago." "The death penalty fails to live up to a lot of conservative ideals," Marc Hyden, a coordinator with Conservatives Concerned About the Death Penalty, told the Wall Street Journal. "It's not pro-life, it's not limited-government, and it doesn't deter crime." There's also the question of cost. A death penalty case carries about $1 million more in long-term costs than a non-capital case. None of this persuades Nebraska's Republican Gov. Pete Ricketts, who has vowed to veto the bill, even though there appears to be more than enough votes to override him. 2 weeks ago, Mr. Ricketts announced that the state had stocked up on the execution drugs it needed for the three-drug lethal-injection protocol that the state has never employed. In 1997, when Nebraska last executed anyone, it still used the electric chair. Many states, including Missouri, have abandoned the three-drug process because no U.S. or European manufacturer will sell the drugs for use in capital punishment. Mr. Ricketts got his supply from India. He may have to eat the $51,000 cost if the unicam overrides his veto, or if federal courts block the use of Indian-made drugs, as has happened in other states. There is simply no argument, from any place on the political spectrum, that capital punishment serves any purpose but satisfying an urge for revenge. That is not nothing, but neither is it justice. Missouri one day will realize that. The sooner the better. (source: News-Leader Editorial Board Daniel Norselli President and Publisher Linda Ramey-Greiwe Director of Sales Paul Berry Executive Editor Cheryl Whitsitt Managing Editor Sony Hocklander Engagement Editor) OKLAHOMA: Oklahoma voters to decide death penalty Oklahoma voters will have an opportunity to weigh in on at least two issues during the 2016 next general election ??? whether the death penalty and if the right of citizens to farm and ranch should be enshrined in the state constitution. Dozens of proposals were introduced in the Legislature this year to send a variety of issues to a public vote: issues including firearm regulations, restrictions on public office-holding and bond indebtedness. However, only 2 made it all the way through the process and onto the ballot. The 1st proposal, which passed overwhelmingly through the House and Senate on a bipartisan vote, seeks a public vote on amending the constitution to specifically state that the death penalty is not cruel and unusual and that the Legislature has the authority to designate various execution methods. State Sen. Anthony Sykes, R-Moore, has said the goal of sending the proposal to a public vote is to have the people's will to enforce the death penalty protected in the state constitution. But death penalty opponents say they fear its approval could prevent lawmakers in the future from ever abolishing the death penalty, like Nebraska's Republican-controlled Legislature did last week. "The death penalty is state-sponsored murder and it's disgusting," said Rev. Adam Leathers, a spokesman for the Oklahoma Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty, "and we're telling the rest of the world that not only are we OK with it, but we're making it a fundamental value and putting it in our constitution. "This will truly make us look ignorant, brutish and all manner of negative attributes." (source: Associated Press) NEBRASKA: Nebraska governor moves ahead with 10 executions, despite repeal of death penalty Nebraska Republican Gov. Pete Ricketts says lawmakers' repeal of the death penalty won't stop his administration from proceeding with executions of 10 people already sentenced to death. Ricketts said Friday that he doesn't plan to cancel a shipment of lethal injection drugs that the state bought earlier this month. The GOP-controlled Legislature this week approved a law repealing the death penalty over the governor's veto. The law doesn't go into effect for 3 months. The office of Attorney General Doug Peterson said Thursday that it plans to challenge part of the law that effectively changed the sentences of Nebraska's 10 current death row prisoners to life in prison. Attorneys plan to argue that the law violates the state constitution, which gives the Board of Pardons exclusive power to change final sentences. The attorney general's office cited a portion of the law that says: "It is the intent of the Legislature that in any criminal proceeding in which the death penalty has been imposed but not carried out prior to the effective date of this act, such penalty shall be changed to life imprisonment." "We believe this stated intent is unconstitutional," the office said in the statement. Sen. Ernie Chambers, the new law's sponsor, said his measure makes clear that the Legislature isn't changing the sentences. Chambers said the law merely removes the death penalty as a punishment, meaning the state has no legal way to carry out executions. So-called intent language doesn't carry the force of law, he said. Chambers said it's up to the Department of Correctional Services to decide whether the men remain on death row. The attorney general's announcement came one day after state Sen. Beau McCoy of Omaha announced the formation of a new group, Nebraskans for Justice, which will look into a citizen-led ballot initiative to reinstate capital punishment. Nebraska's referendum process allows citizens to suspend a law if they can collect signatures from 10 % of the state's registered voters - roughly 115,000 people - in the 90 days before the law goes into effect. Death penalty supporters also have the option to gather signatures from 5 % of Nebraska's registered voters, which would place the issue on the ballot but wouldn't keep the law from going into effect. In either case, voters would decide the death penalty's fate during the next statewide election in 2016. McCoy said he would prefer a 3rd option that would give organizers more time: a petition drive for a constitutional amendment to restore the ultimate punishment. Citizens can propose a law for the ballot if they gather signatures from 7 % of registered voters, and a constitutional amendment if they collect signatures from 10 % of registered voters. Petitions would have to be submitted to Nebraska's Secretary of State by July 2016. "I would like to see this enshrined in the constitution so that it can't be removed by a future Legislature without a vote of the people," McCoy said Thursday. "That's certainly a process we're likely to explore. But we're going to look at all of the options." Chambers said Wednesday that McCoy was within his rights, but said he doubts it will succeed. "He won't get to first base with it," Chambers said. A spokesman for Ricketts declined to say whether the Republican governor would endorse a ballot campaign. Putting the death penalty on the ballot would likely require an organized and well-financed campaign to gather enough signatures. Last year, the group Nebraskans for Better Wages campaign spent nearly $1.5 million on its ballot drive and subsequent campaign to raise the minimum wage. Sen. Jeremy Nordquist of Omaha, a death penalty opponent who led the minimum wage effort, questioned whether the issue of capital punishment would attract enough donors for a sustained ballot drive. "I think there are a lot of other causes that people would put their money behind first," Nordquist said. ******************* Nebraska's Governor Vows To Proceed With Executions Despite Death Penalty Repeal Nebraska Republican Gov. Pete Ricketts says lawmakers' repeal of the death penalty won't stop his administration from proceeding with executions of 10 people already sentenced to death. Ricketts said Friday that he doesn't plan to cancel a shipment of lethal injection drugs that the state bought earlier this month. The GOP-controlled Legislature this week approved a law repealing the death penalty over the governor's veto. The law doesn't go into effect for 3 months. Attorney General Doug Peterson has raised questions about whether it unconstitutionally changes the sentences of current death row inmates to life in prison. Sen. Ernie Chambers of Omaha, the law's lead sponsor, has said it's constitutional. Chambers says the Legislature can't change a prisoner's sentence, but his law eliminates the state's authority to carry out executions. (source for both: Associated Press) ************************ OHCHR PRESS BRIEFING NOTE - USA / Death penalty Press Release: United Nations Human Rights Commissioner OHCHR PRESS BRIEFING NOTE - USA / Death penalty Spokesperson for the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights: Ravina Shamdasani We welcome the abolition of the death penalty in the state of Nebraska on Wednesday, making it the 19th state in the US to have done so. Nebraska has not executed any inmates since 1997. The number of people executed each year, and the size of the population on death row in the US have progressively declined in the past 10 years. In 2014, the death penalty was carried out only by 7 states, and the number of executions was 35, the lowest since 1994. We hope that Nebraska's example will be considered by the other states (Colorado, Delaware, Montana and Kansas) whose legislative bodies are currently debating the abolition of the death penalty. We also echo the recommendation of the Human Rights Committee in March 2014, which called on the US Federal Government to "consider establishing a moratorium on the death penalty at the federal level and engage with retentionist states with a view to achieving a nationwide moratorium", as a 1st step towards abolition. (source: Scoop news) COLORADO: DA reflects on death penalty cases----Thanks other agencies for their support District Attorney Brittny Lewton reflected on the recent death penalty cases her office handled during the Logan County Republicans' monthly luncheon Thursday at Plainsman Grill. Lewton, who will seek re-election in 2016, had sought the death penalty for Brendan Johnson and Cassandra Rieb, who were charged with murders of Johnson's grandparents, Charles and Shirley Severance, last year. However, both cases concluded two weeks ago when the two teens pled guilty and were sentenced to life in prison without parole and 80 years in prison respectively. "That was something very positive for our county, in that we ended up spending a total of about $4,000, was all it cost," she said, noting that the money was used to pay for a forensic anthropologist who could examine one of the victim's skeletal structures. "Other than that we really did everything else ourselves, between the Sterling Police Department, the Logan County Sheriff's Office, my office and CBI (Colorado Bureau of Investigations)." One of her first thoughts with the cases was whether they were the kind of cases the community would expect the death penalty for. Lewton and Doug Copley, an investigator with the DA's office, met right away with the Attorney General's Office and had a very lengthy conversation. Lewton also met with the Logan County Commissioners, because death penalty cases can go on for years and be very expensive, as is the case for the James Holmes case, a four month trial going on in Denver right now, that has cost about $1 million, not including taxpayer money spent for the court, the public defenders, courtroom security, etc. "I want to be sure before I embarked on that path that everybody was with me," Lewton said. "But truthfully, I didn't really start out really wanting to have to... it wasn't as though I filed the notices right away, because my hope was that Brendan in particular would take responsibility up front and say, 'I've committed this offense against my grandparents and I deserve to go to prison for the rest of my life.'" She pointed out death penalty cases have started to become more of a strategic battle between the attorneys, "which I really think is unfortunate and to some extent unethical." "It's really not appropriate for the lawyers to sit around and barter with each other over people's lives and that was my beginning position as well," Lewton said. "But, be that as it may, the public defenders office decided that they, I think, and by their statements, wanted to push the case through. I don't think they believed that my office could handle the case and could do it quickly, so they immediately set for preliminary hearing and set things in motion before we were even finished investigating." When it became clear that they weren't going to take life without parole, she had no choice but to seek the death penalty, which led the defendants to take plea deals. "If we had a fast lane and I could say, 'line them up, stick the injection into their arm right now,' I'd do it and I would have done it," Lewton said, pointing out that Colorado has a slower moving death penalty system, so she knew it would be a lengthy process if she continued to pursue that sentence. She noted there are years of appeals with death penalty cases, "so it's an untold amount of money and an untold amount of time that it's left out there. This way, not only did we get what we wanted out of it, but he can't, he has no appeal." Rieb's case is a little bit different, but Lewton said an 80-year stipulated sentence is unheard in most cases. Rieb will serve 65 to 70 % of that sentence. "Again, it's community safety, so that is ensured, because the acts that were committed by the two of them are unexplainable," Lewton commented, adding that "it's one thing to have somebody who's on meth and we can tell you why they're committing a crime or what they might do next, but when 2 younger folks who didn't appear to be under any real substances, just commit a heinous crime like that, no reasoning, those are the ones that scare us." Ultimately, she is glad the 2 cases are taken care of and "I'm glad we were able to show people outside of this county that our district and our county is perfectly capable of handling a case like this, just as well as a metro office or better. " Lewton acknowledged that taxpayers will have to pay for Johnson and Rieb's living expenses, whatever they are, but that would be true regardless of whether or not they received the death penalty, because there are years of appeals and those sentenced to death in Colorado, such as Nathan Dunlap, aren't being executed. "Although that expense exists, the best outcome is he cannot ever hurt anybody again, in this community or anywhere but in prison," she said. Lewton talked about other cases her office is dealing with, noting that Logan County continues to maintain the highest level of felony filings, as it has for the past 6 year years. She said SPD and LCSO are a large part of that. "They are out there really trying to do the best they can to get as much of the crime as we can figured out." She mentioned the drug situation, calling it "bad," noting meth is still a problem. Even though people aren't cooking it, they're using it and meth use causes a chain reaction of child abuse, sex assault, theft and other cases. "I think all of the agencies try very hard to figure out ways to get ahead of it; it's just a little bit difficult," Lewton said, adding that the battle is against what's happening with the state, "our state has completely flipped side to everyone should be on probation, no matter what." "We can't seem to get the courts and the system to understand that some of these people just have to go to prison," she commented, noting that getting prison time on a drug case is "virtually impossible." Lewton also thanked Copley, who is retiring in 30 days, for his service, noting he has been instrumental in helping both the previous DA, Bob Watson, and herself get things done right, "as well as just bringing with him knowledge that he can share with the rest of the district." Of the 7 counties in her district, Lewton said what's special about Logan County is "the working relationship in this county between myself and coroner, the sheriff, the police department is excellent and I think because of that and only because of that, is why we are honestly a force to be reckoned with, when it comes to any case." (source: Journal-Advocate) IDAHO: Ban Idaho's Death Penalty For more than 30 years, Jaimi Charboneau sat in an Idaho prison -- some of it on death row. Now he's out after a judge concluded the evidence used to convict him was corrupted. In 1989 -- 4 years after a Jerome County jury convicted Charboneau of murdering his ex-wife Marilyn Arbaugh - the victim's daughter Tira Arbaugh, who is now deceased, wrote a letter accusing prosecutors of telling her to lie and conceal evidence. She admitted not telling the truth at Charboneau's trial. It took another 21 years before Tira Arbaugh's letter emerged. Charboneau's lawyer Brian Tanner argues it was concealed by state prison officials. And while Arbaugh's family calls the letter a fraud, it was sufficiently authentic for Fifth District Judge Robert J. Elgee to throw out Charboneau's conviction and release him on a $20,000 bond. "The state's hands ... at least as far as the Idaho Department of Correction is concerned are very dirty. If ... Tira Arbaugh's letter is true, the dirt in this case goes way beyond the state's fingers and elbows and goes all the way to their eyeballs," Elgee said. This is far short of an exoneration. Prosecutors intend to seek a new trial, but appeals could put that off for years. But it wouldn't be the 1st time flawed or even altered evidence was used to wrongly convict someone of murder and send him to Idaho's death row. 20 years after his 1981 conviction for the murder of Kimberly Ann Palmer in Post Falls, Donald M. Paradis walked free. The federal courts had discovered medical evidence used against him had been altered. But it took the NAACP Legal Defense fund, attorneys Edwin Matthews of New York and William Mauk of Boise, national media attention and the political courage of then-Gov. Phil Batt to stop the state's machinery of death just long enough to allow this new evidence to emerge. In the end, Paradis collected a $900,000 settlement for prosecutorial misconduct. In 1982, Charles Irwin Fain's fate was sealed by the testimony of jailhouse snitches, faulty interpretation of hair sample evidence and the loss of a rape kit that could have refuted it. In spite of passing a lie detector test, a Canyon County jury convicted Fain of raping and murdering 9-year-old Daralyn Johnson, and he received a death sentence. Almost 20 years later, defense attorneys Spencer C. McIntyre of Seattle and Frederick Hoopes of Idaho Falls used DNA evidence on the same hair samples to prove Fain was nowhere near the scene of the crime. Fain was released on Aug. 23, 2001. 1 time you could dismiss as a fluke. Twice is hard to ignore. 3 times is a pattern. No region of the state is immune. In Idaho, innocent people get convicted and sentenced to die. It happens because capital punishment relies on human nature. It would be naive to think the only mistakes made are the ones we've learned about. Paradis, Fain and Charboneau benefited from a strong 2nd defense that was able to use new evidence to overcome a presumption of guilt. What if we learn of other mistakes too late? What if we never find out? Wednesday, Nebraska became the 1st conservative state to end capital punishment. Idaho has every reason to become the 2nd. (source: Marty Trillhaase, Lewiston Tribune. CALIFORNIA: Subway shooting suspect could face death penalty Alleged Subway shooter Steven Drew Allee made his 1st appearance in San Joaquin County Superior Court on Friday since being charged with the murder of a sandwich shop employee in northeast Stockton. Dressed in a red jail-issued jumpsuit, Allee sat with his hands and feet shackled as Judge Franklin Stephenson advised him of his rights and the charges he is facing. Allee, 32, is charged with murder in the shooting death of 43-year-old Subway employee Jerry Lucero and 2 counts of robbery stemming from cases in Lodi, Chief Deputy District Attorney Ron Freitas said. "He's also been charged with 2 special circumstances in the murder, and that qualifies him for the death penalty," Freitas said. "We'll make the decision as to whether we'll actually seek the death penalty following the preliminary investigation." Allee did not enter a plea and requested a public defender. A representative of the public defender's office requested further arraignment, which was scheduled for 10 a.m. June 8 in Department 21. Allee was arrested Wednesday afternoon, a day after Lucero was gunned down during an attempted robbery at a Subway restaurant on East Hammer Lane. Investigators believe Allee was also responsible for 2 robberies in Lodi, 1 at a K-Mart and another at a Subway store, Freitas said. (source: Stockton Record) USA: UN Fights for Moratorium on Death Penalty in the US The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Department called today for a moratorium on the use of the death penalty in the United States, as a 1st step towards abolition. >From Geneva, the spokeswoman of that body, Ravina Shamdasani, stated that the Office headed by Ra'ad Zeid Al Hussein echoes the recommendation made in March 2014 by the Human Rights Council to Washington, to promote the postponement of the ultimate punishment nationwide. In a press release, the spokeswoman welcomed the recent abolition of the death penalty in Nebraska, the nineteenth state of the Union to do so, and urged others to 'follow its example'. We hope that States debating in their legislative bodies the elimination follow the initiative, she noted referring to Colorado, Delaware, Montana and Kansas. Of the 50 states, 32 keep prisoners' execution as legal, although many of them did not apply it in recent years. Shamdasani noted that the number of executions and people on the death corridor decrease annually in US territory, an scenario that could be favorable for the moratorium. Only 7 states applied the death penalty last year, with 35 inmates killed, the fewest since 1994, she said. The death penalty in the United States in 2014 triggered the attention of UN experts in human rights, following the extreme suffering inflicted on prisoners sentenced to the death penalty, starting from irregularities in the use of lethal injection and the electric chair. *********************** Awaiting execution, Marvin Gabrion says he deserved mistrial for punching attorney Marvin Gabrion has asked a federal judge to vacate his death sentence in the 1997 killing of Rachel Timmerman. Among the reasons: the trial judge failed to declare a mistrial when Gabrion punched 1 of his attorneys. Gabrion's voluminous filing - 604 pages - asks U.S. District Judge Robert Holmes Bell to grant him a new trial, vacate a jury's guilty verdict for murder, or vacate, set aside or correct his sentence. It also asks that Bell recuse himself and set an evidentiary hearing over what it considers disputed issues. Bell presided over Gabrion's trial. The government showed that Gabrion kidnapped and killed Timmerman, 19, 2 days before he was to stand trial in Newaygo County Circuit Court for raping her. Her body was found in a remote lake. She was bound, gagged and weighed down by a concrete block. The body of her 11-month-old daughter, Shannon Verhage, has never been found. The government believes he killed her as well as 3 others. The federal government, which allows use of the death penalty, prosecuted Gabrion because the killing occurred on federal land. State law in Michigan does not allow executions. His attorneys say in motion filed Friday, May 29, that he should not be executed because he has suffered severe mental illness for decades. They also say he was provided ineffective assistance of counsel at trial. Gabrion, 61, recently asked that he be allowed to file his Section 2255 motion under seal. The judge said that only sensitive information about third-parties could be redacted. Gabrion has filed numerous appeals over the years. A federal appeals panel once overturned his death penalty but the entire Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati re-instated the sentence. Among questions Gabrion's 3 attorney cite as grounds for a new trial or sentence: -- Did the grand jury allege an aggravating circumstance to make Gabrion eligible for the death penalty? -- Was there insufficient proof to show Timmerman's killing happened on federal land? -- Whether the judge erred by refusing to relieve one of Gabrion's attorneys and declare a mistrial after he punched the lawyer during the penalty phase of proceedings. -- Whether the judge erred in refusing a defense request for another competency evaluation "after a neurologist testified that Mr. Gabrion was brain damaged and after Mr. Gabrion's mental state deteriorated during the trial to the point that he punched his attorney in front of the jury during the penalty phase." -- Whether the court wrongly denied Gabrion's attempt to confront a Newaygo County prosecutor about a report that alleged "prosecutorial misconduct and evidence of a vendetta against Mr. Gabrion." -- Whether the judge should have instructed the jury about Gabrion's courtroom behavior or allow argument about it. -- Whether witnesses should have been allowed to testify during the penalty phase of trial about other bad acts by Gabrion. -- Whether evidence should have been allowed that 3 men with connections to Gabrion had disappeared. -- Whether the victim's mother should have been allowed to testify that she wanted Gabrion executed. -- Whether Gabrion's rights were denied because the jury foreman told The Grand Rapids Press after the sentencing that "I knew he was off the wall before the trial." (source: mlive.com) ******************* The Death Penalty Is Just and Merciful ---- Alternatives to it are not less cruel. It is possible to view Nebraska's recent vote to abolish the death penalty - a vote that brought together liberals, budget balancers, and social conservatives - as a heartening sign that partisan divisions can be overcome, that moral progress can arrive even in places that vote Republican, and that the brutal facade of structural racism may one day crack and topple. This view has much to recommend it: It appeals to our desire to overcome tiresome divisions, confirms the superiority of the present over the past, and does honor to the principled people who have argued, often very eloquently, that we must unknot the hangman's noose. It also suffers from certain defects. Its story of moral progress asks us to overlook the countless cruelties of our criminal-justice system as we congratulate ourselves on the elimination of a relatively rare punishment (Nebraska's last execution was in 1997). It suggests that the only purpose of criminal justice is deterrence - a view long championed by Beccaria, Bentham, and other apostles of cruel efficiency. It asks us to ignore that life imprisonment, the only alternative to capital punishment, is hardly more humane. Indeed, comparing our differing reactions to capital punishment and life imprisonment is one of the more direct ways to see what lies behind most death-penalty opposition. As Pope Francis has observed, "Life imprisonment is a hidden death penalty." His suggestion that we abolish both is rather questionable (taken seriously, it requires parole for Pol Pot, halfway houses for Hitler), but his basic insight is sound. Is it really more barbaric to grant a terrible murderer a dignified death than to force him to live a life of confinement, perhaps to undergo humiliating force-feeding, and then to die in the hands of the state even if not by the state's hand? While some writers have made detailed arguments distinguishing death from other punishments, most people who oppose the death penalty do so based on loose intuitions, about barbarity and humaneness, that should apply with equal - perhaps greater - force to life imprisonment. That we are ready to accept the latter but not the former reflects that much of the opposition to the death penalty comes not from moral indignation but from aesthetic revulsion. We have undergone not an increase in conscience but an intensification of our squeamishness. We seek bloodless means, however cruel they may be. Most people who oppose the death penalty do so based on loose intuitions, about barbarity and humaneness, that should apply with equal - perhaps greater - force to life imprisonment. How did we get here? As Stephanos Bibas writes in his book The Machinery of Criminal Justice, such Enlightenment thinkers as Cesare Beccaria argued that the purpose of punishment was "to deter crime rather than exact deserved retribution." As Jeremy Bentham said, criminal justice should function as a "mechanism to inflict enough pain to outweigh the pleasure of crime." Whenever opponents of capital punishment say that it has no deterrent effect, they speak with the voice of Bentham. Punishment is no longer about just retribution, about reintegration into the community, about moral education: It is simply a matter of brute deterrence. The views of these thinkers have gained currency because their approach promises to eliminate the inequalities that can result from an ethic of mercy (which is bound to be applied unequally) and the apparent establishment-clause problems that come with ideas of retribution and moral instruction - it was not uncommon for colonial-era judges to deliver religious exhortations to those they were sentencing. Yet this view fails to recognize the moral and human dimensions of punishment - the reference to a higher power, the principle that retribution should be proportionate to the crime, the possibility of reconciliation - that makes criminal justice a matter of punishing men rather than herding animals. It may lead to outcomes that are less "problematic," but it has gone hand in hand with the rise of a system that is at once sterile, hygienic, and cruel. It is regrettable that the claim, made most prominently in John Paul II's Evangelium Vitae, that deterrence is the only legitimate justification for capital punishment has encouraged an attenuation also of Christian reasoning on punishment. Indicative of this loss is the remark by the Catholic writer and Jesuit priest James Martin that "it is wrong, in all cases, to take a human life." John Paul II's words are better read in the broad sweep of Christian tradition, in the manner recommended by Avery Dulles in his article "Catholicism and Capital Punishment": The Catholic magisterium does not, and never has, advocated unqualified abolition of the death penalty. I know of no official statement from popes or bishops, whether in the past or in the present, that denies the right of the State to execute offenders at least in certain extreme cases. The United States bishops, in their majority statement on capital punishment, conceded that "Catholic teaching has accepted the principle that the State has the right to take the life of a person guilty of an extremely serious crime." Joseph Cardinal Bernardin, in his famous speech on the "Consistent Ethic of Life" at Fordham in 1983, stated his concurrence with the "classical position" that the State has the right to inflict capital punishment. Recently Alex Tuckness and John M. Parrish have written against "the decline of mercy in public life." If we are to reverse that decline, if we are to erect a criminal-justice system that is less cold and cruel, we could do worse than to defend and extend the death penalty. This is a conclusion that I reach as a Catholic, as someone who has marched against the application of the death penalty in individual cases, and as a native Nebraskan inclined to take pride in his state but unable to do so in this case. The alternatives to the death penalty are not less cruel, and perhaps more so; the arguments against it are either narrow or absurd; the reasons for it, which have always gone well beyond deterrence, remain as real in our time as they were in Hammurabi's. Simply as a sign that punishment is not just about the carrots and sticks of deterrence but that it is an inevitably moral project concerned with right and wrong, justice and injustice, the death penalty has much to teach us still. In countless individual cases, mercy will be called for, but both justice and mercy are obscured when we call the death penalty unjust. (source: Matthew Schmitz is deputy editor of First Things----National Review) ******************* FBI notifies crime labs of errors used in DNA match calculations since 1999 The FBI has notified crime labs across the country that it has discovered errors in data used by forensic scientists in thousands of cases to calculate the chances that DNA found at a crime scene matches a particular person, several people familiar with the issue said. The bureau has said it believes the errors, which extend to 1999, are unlikely to result in dramatic changes that would affect cases. It has submitted the research findings to support that conclusion for publication in the July issue of the Journal of Forensic Sciences, the officials said. But crime labs and lawyers said they want to know more about the problem before conceding it would not make much difference in any given case. ???The public puts so much faith in DNA testing that it makes it especially important to make those the best estimates possible," said Wright State University statistics professor Daniel R. Krane, an expert whose work has been cited by defense attorneys. "There is no excuse for a systematic error to many thousands of calculations in such a context." Krane, who identified errors 10 years ago in the DNA profiles the FBI analyzed to generate the population statistics data, called the consequences of the disclosure appalling, saying the data has been used in tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of cases worldwide in the past 15 years. He said when he flagged the problems a decade ago, the FBI downplayed his findings. The issue centers on the FBI's "Pop stats," which are built into the software programs used by 9 in 10 U.S. labs and many overseas, Krane said. While juries might well reach the same decision if errors mean that an individual has a 1-in-a-billion chance of matching a crime scene sample instead of 1 in 10 billion, for example, that may not be so if errors were to halve, say, assertions that person had a 1-in-180 chance of matching, as Krane said came up in a case that he testified in last week. Such low ratios are increasingly common as state and local labs analyze smaller and smaller traces of DNA found on objects such as guns or countertops - known as "low-copy" and "touch DNA" - and often are sifting through DNA mixtures, or profiles contributed by multiple people. Stephen Mercer, chief of the forensic division of Maryland's Office of the Public Defender, said his office on Wednesday notified its attorneys about the issue and suggested they consider asking prosecutors about such problems in cases involving DNA evidence. "The prediction that the errors are likely to have a nominal impact has to be assessed by the defense in the individual circumstances of each particular case," Mercer said. In a bulletin sent to crime labs, the FBI said the problem stemmed from "clerical mistakes in transcriptions of the genotypes and to limitations of the old technology and software." The disclosure comes as some private researchers and lawyers in recent years questioned whether errors in the FBI's national database of 13 million DNA profiles may have led judges and juries to give undue weight to DNA matches, long considered the "gold standard" in forensic science. They have called on the government to open the database for private research. Crime lab analysts in the United States generally develop a DNA profile by analyzing 13 or more specific locations on chromosomes, called loci, for specific markers that appear at different frequencies in a given population. Match probabilities are derived by calculating the likelihood of a person sharing the same markers at each point. The FBI is preparing to transition to using more than 20 loci, which theoretically should significantly improve the accuracy of results and allay concerns about the population statistics it used to generate those frequencies, officials said. With new commercial test kits available using more loci, the FBI commissioned a study that re-tested DNA samples used for its original work and uncovered the errors. "We are of the view that these discrepancies are unlikely to materially affect any assessment of evidential value," the FBI stated in its May 11 bulletin to crime labs, according to a person who has a copy. "However, given that statistics based on these data have been included in thousands of lab reports and in testimonies, we believe the discrepancies require acknowledgment." In a public statement late Friday, the FBI said it found errors in 33 of 1,100 profiles used, or 3 %. The FBI added that the DNA community has cautioned that match probabilities should be viewed as varying by a factor of 10, saying, "Though these discrepancies are within the internationally accepted range, the FBI is committed to correcting the inaccurate values in a transparent manner." The FBI has prepared a letter to the editor to be published by the Journal of Forensic Sciences, which originally published the bureau's study 16 years ago. David Coffman, chairman of the accreditation arm of the American Society of Crime Lab Directors, said it would be premature to comment on the significance of the errors until the FBI releases more data. "They said it would be very minor," said Coffman, who is director of forensic services for the Florida Department of Law Enforcement in Tallahassee. "We are waiting to see the journal article to see which [data] would be affected, so we could evaluate it." In a statement, the National District Attorneys Association applauded the "transparent and responsible manner in which the FBI has disclosed this internal finding," adding that "notification to all interested parties is an excellent 1st step in addressing this issue." (source: Spencer S. Hsu is an investigative reporter, 2-time Pulitzer finalist and national Emmy award nominee; Washington Post) From rhalperi at smu.edu Sat May 30 13:40:32 2015 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Sat, 30 May 2015 13:40:32 -0500 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide Message-ID: May 30 INDONESIA: Riau Court Sentences Marijuana Trafficker to Death An Indonesian court has sentenced a truck driver to death for transporting 8 tons of marijuana, as part of the government's crusade against what the president claims is a "national drug emergency." The court in Riau province, in Sumatra, ruled on Thursday that the defendant, M. Jamil, was guilty of attempting to smuggle the drugs overland from Aceh province, on the northern tip of Sumatra, to Jakarta and Bandung in Java last year. Jamil was arrested in Riau's Siak district with his truck loaded with sacks of marijuana. He said the contraband had been ordered by a man identified as Ibrahim, who was later also arrested and sentenced to death. Jamil's arrest last October was not his 1st brush with the law. He was caught smuggling marijuana several years ago but managed to evade the death sentence. After serving time in prison, he was released and immediately returned to transporting the drug. The court also sentenced 2 of Jamil's accomplices to life in prison, and another man identified as Muhalil to 20 years in prison. Jamil told the court that he would not appeal against the death sentence. The ruling comes a month after Indonesia executed 8 men, 7 of them foreign nationals, for drug-trafficking offenses. Indonesia has so far this year put to death 14 people, 12 of them foreigners, for drug offenses, drawing widespread international condemnation. President Joko Widodo, in defending the use of the death penalty, claims that Indonesia is in the grip of a "drug emergency," and that the death sentence serves as a deterrent against would-be drug offenders. Experts, though, have repeatedly debunked the figures Joko cites for drug-related deaths. (source: The Jakarta Globe) ****************** Int'l drug offenders now dropping appeals----Japanese man 2nd foreigner this month to drop appeal after execution of 14 foreign nationals in fear it will be increased to death penalty A Japanese man sentenced to life imprisonment in Indonesia for possessing crystal methamphetamine has dropped an appeal against his sentence for fear it will be increased to the death penalty. The man is the 2nd foreigner this month to forego such an appeal in the wake of 14 foreign nationals being put to death in Indonesia so far this year. Lawyer Syusvida Lastri told the Jakarta Post on Friday that defendant Masaru Kawada had withdrawn the appeal as he was afraid his sentence could be increased. "We asked Kawada again whether or not he would file for an appeal, and he decided to accept the verdict and withdraw the appeal," said Syusvida. She said the 73-year-old had come to his decision in consideration of the government's policy on drug offenders. Since President Joko Widodo declared a "drug emergency," he has insisted he will reject clemency pleas from 60 drug convicts scheduled to be executed. So far this year, 14 have been put to death, including Australians Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran. According to court documents, Kawada was asked by a man identified as Edward Mark to travel to Macau last November. He paid for Kawada's tickets and accommodation and gave him US$500 for travel expenses. While in Macau, Kawada met a Chinese woman, identified as Sherly, who asked him to take a bag to a friend in Padang, West Sumatra. Kawada has said that he didn't know there were drugs in the bag, and only realized it upon his arrival at Minangkabau International Airport where customs officials searched him and found 2.35 kilograms of crystal methamphetamine. Earlier in May, a Russian women serving 16 years in prison accepted a verdict against her and refused to appeal in fear of a harsher penalty. Magnaeva Aleksandra, 25, was charged with smuggling 2.1 kilograms of crystal methamphetamine from Hong Kong to Bali on Dec. 7, 2015. Kompas.com. quoted Aleksandra's lawyer, Heru Purwanto, as saying that she was scared that if she made such an appeal she "would get a harsher penalty." "A lot of news about foreigners who had been executed made her scared," he added. Earlier this week, Indonesia's Administrative Court said it would hear a last-ditch appeal by a Frenchman on death row, after it was delayed due to the absence of the presiding judge. The hearing has been rescheduled for June 3 and a verdict is expected soon after. Serge Atlaoui had been due to face the firing squad with eight other prisoners in April but won a last-minute reprieve. The father-of-4 was arrested in 2005 in an ecstasy laboratory near Jakarta, which he claims he thought was an acrylics factory where he was installing machinery. French President Francois Hollande has warned Indonesia of diplomatic consequence if it follows through with the death sentence. Attorney General's Office Spokesperson Tony Spontana told Anadolu Agency Friday that Atlaoui's current legal challenge would be his last. If the court refuses, then the office can decide whether he will be executed alone or together with other prisoners, he added. (source: videonews.us) SAUDI ARABIA: At 90 Executions This Year, Saudi Arabia Sets a Grisly Record On May 28, Saudi Arabia carried out its 90th execution so far this year, equalling the number of people executed in the Kingdom during the whole of 2014. The death toll is one of the highest we have recorded during the same period for more than three decades and marks an unprecedented spike in executions for a country already ranked among the most prolific executioners in the world. "With the year yet to pass its midpoint, the Gulf Kingdom has raced towards this shocking toll at an unprecedented rate. This alarming surge in executions surpasses even the country's own previous dreadful records," said Said Boumedouha, Deputy Middle East and North Africa programme director at Amnesty International. Today's execution, carried out in Riyadh, was of a Pakistani man convicted on drug-related charges. Almost 1/2 of the executions carried out so far this year were for drug-related offenses. These do not fall into the category of "most serious crimes," and the use of the death penalty for such offences violates international law. The authorities themselves do not categorize drug-related offenses as crimes subject to divinely ordained punishment under Sharia law. Instead, they consider the use of the death penalty for such offenses a discretionary punishment. Saudi Arabia's most common method of execution is beheading, often conducted in public squares. Occasionally prisoners in some southern provinces are executed by firing squad. Many defendants in Saudi Arabia, including those sentenced to death, are convicted after flawed court proceedings that routinely fall far short of international standards for a fair trial. They are often convicted solely on the basis of "confessions" obtained under duress, denied legal representation in trials that are sometimes held in secret and are not kept informed of the progress of the legal proceedings in their case. For some crimes punishable by death, the Supreme Court has recently confirmed that judges do not need to prove guilt but can sentence someone to death at their own discretion based on suspicion alone. ???The Saudi Arabian authorities' unwavering commitment to this brutal form of punishment is utterly gruesome considering the deep flaws in its justice system," Said Boumedouha said. ???The use of the death penalty is cruel and inhumane in any circumstance, but it is even more outrageous when meted out as a punishment against someone convicted in a trial that itself makes a mockery of justice." Worryingly, a significant number of Shi'a protesters have been sentenced to death in the past 2 years. These are often in relation to protests in the Kingdom's Eastern Province in the aftermath of the 2011 mass popular uprisings that toppled a number of long-standing authoritarian rulers in the region. Among those sentenced to death is Saudi Arabia's most prominent Shi'a cleric Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr, who was sentenced to death in October 2014 after a deeply flawed trial. His nephew, Ali-al-Nimr, a juvenile offender, was sentenced to death in May 2014 solely based on "confessions" that he claimed were extracted under torture. The imposition of death sentences against individuals who were below 18 years of age when the crime was committed is prohibited under international law. 6 other Shi'a protesters were sentenced to death in the past year and scores of others await trial on charges for which the prosecution has called for the death penalty. Many of them have complained of ill-treatment in detention and of unfair trials. The claim by the Saudi Arabian authorities that the death penalty is a deterrent to crime is unfounded. "There is no convincing evidence that the death penalty is a particular deterrent to crime, or that it is more effective than other forms of punishment. Instead of expediting executions the Saudi Arabian authorities should immediately establish a moratorium on executions with a view to abolishing the death penalty," Said Boumedhoua said. Background In Amnesty International's latest global report on the death penalty, published in April 2015, Saudi Arabia ranks among the top three executioners in the world, surpassed only by China and Iran. As of December 31, 2014, 140 countries have abolished the death penalty in law or practice. Amnesty International opposes the death penalty in all cases without exception, regardless of the nature or circumstances of the crime; the guilt or innocence of the individual; or the method of execution. IRAN----executions At Least 8 Prisoners Hanged in Ghezelhesar Prison in Karaj At least, 8 prisoners with drug related charges were hanged in Ghezelhesar prison in Karaj. According to the report of Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA), 8 prisoners with the names of Nader Hajizadeh, Mohammad Barani, Jahangir Shah Zehi, Mehran Balouch Zehi, Mehrshad Solimani, Reza Daeizadeh, Ehsan Saghafi and Abbas Ameri were executed in Ghezelhesar prison of Karaj, on Monday May 25th. These 8 prisoners were transferred from hall number 3 to solitary confinements a day before. Some other prisoners from other halls had been transferred for execution as well, but HRANA's sources do not have information about the identity or the number of these prisoners, by the time this news being reported. Besides, the identity of some prisoners who were executed last week in Ghezelhesar prison, has recognized by HRANA's sources as Ahamad Teymoori, Moslem Rafiei, Morteza Mirzaei poor, Afshin Karimian, Abbas Haidari and Masoud Zibayi. (source: HRANA news agency) ***************** Over 60 executed in 10 days ---- 3 young men were hanged in public in the city of Mashhad in northwestern Iran on 28 May At least 4 more prisoners have been hanged during the last 10 days in cities across Iran - raising the total number of victims to 63 inmates. The information received from sources inside Iran indicates that 2 prisoners were hanged last Sunday in Shahab Prison in the city of Kerman. A man identified as Norouz Basiri was sent to the gallows in the main prison in the city of Tabriz. Another 35-year-old man was hanged on Thursday in the city of Gachsaran in southern Iran. The Iranian regime has not provided any information on the executions that were carried out in Kerman and Tabriz, however on Friday the state-run IRNA news agency published a short report on hangings in the city of Gachsaran. On the recent spate of executions in Iran, Soona Samsami, NCRI's US Representative, told IBTimes India on Thursday: "The political climate of repression and censorship in Iran, coupled with lack of due process in the judiciary, create severe difficulties in finding the truth behind Iran's executions." "However, one thing is certain: the regime continues to use the death penalty, not as a deterrent to drug abuse or to stem ordinary crimes, but as a means of inflicting terror in a young and increasing restless and enraged population," Samsami said. Samsami also hit out at Hassan Rouhani's failure to curb human rights abuses in the country. "Hassan Rouhani's approval of these barbaric hangings notwithstanding, there is no room for reform in a constitution with a non-representative 'Supreme Leader', and a judiciary that executed 30,000 political prisoners in a matter of months in 1988 alone. Ironically, Mostafa Pourmohammadi, 1 of the 3 people who sat on the 'death commission' that sent these political prisoners, mostly MEK members, to the gallows, is Rouhani's Justice Minister," she added. (source: NCR-Iran) NIGERIA: Pardoned torture victim 'overwhelmed' by campaign to spare his life A Nigerian torture victim wrongfully sentenced to death for a crime committed when he was 16 years old has been pardoned following intensive campaigning from Amnesty International supporters across the world. Moses Akatugba, who was on death row following his conviction for stealing 3 mobile phones 10 years ago and was repeatedly tortured into signing a confession, said he felt "overwhelmed" after the outgoing Governor of Nigeria's Delta State announced last night he had granted him a full pardon. "The pardon of Moses Akatugba, who should not have been sentenced to death in the first place because he was a minor at the time of the offence, is a victory for justice and a reminder that people power and human rights campaigning really can make a difference," said Netsanet Belay, Amnesty International's Africa Director. "Amnesty International members and activists are my heroes. I want to assure them that this great effort they have shown to me will not be in vain. I promise to be a human rights activist - to fight for others."----Moses Akatugba "Without the thousands of letters sent in support of Moses by his supporters across the globe, he may never have been granted his freedom." Moses is one of the core cases of Amnesty International Stop Torture Global Campaign and was highlighted in the 2014 Write for Rights campaign. In total, more than 800,000 actions were taken worldwide asking the Delta State Governor Emmanuel Uduaghan to commute the death sentence. In a statement following Governor Uduaghan's announcement, Moses said: "I am overwhelmed. I thank Amnesty International and their activists for the great support that made me a conqueror in this situation. "Amnesty International members and activists are my heroes. I want to assure them that this great effort they have shown to me will not be in vain, by the special grace of God I will live up to their expectation. I promise to be a human rights activist - to fight for others." Moses also thanked the human rights defender Justine Ijeomah, who leads the Nigerian NGO Human Rights Social Development and Environmental Foundation (HURSDEF), and Governor Uduaghan for "keeping to his word". In October 2014, Governor Uduaghan responded to pressure from Amnesty International supporters and said that he was looking into the case. He granted a pardon to Moses yesterday on his penultimate day in office. Arrested and tortured as a boy Moses Akatugba was 16 years old when he was arrested in 2005 for armed robbery. He says police officers beat him repeatedly with machetes and batons. He told Amnesty International that they tied him and hung him up for several hours, and then used pliers to pull out his toenails and fingernails. He was then forced to sign 2 pre-written "confessions". "Moses was just a boy when he was arrested and subjected to torture. And under international human rights law, he should not have been sentenced to death as he was a child at the time of the crime," said Netsanet Belay. "Nigerian Governors should commute the death sentences of all death row prisoners in their respective states, including many who are at imminent risk of execution after similarly flawed criminal investigations." Before leaving office today, Governor Uduaghan also commuted the death sentences of 3 other prisoners. As Nigeria's new president, Muhammadu Buhari, takes office, Amnesty International is calling on him to immediately establish an official moratorium on executions with a view to abolishing the death penalty. Approximately 1,500 people are currently languishing on death row in Nigeria, including juvenile offenders. In 2013, Nigeria resumed executions when 4 people were hanged despite a "voluntary" moratorium. (source: Amnesty International) TAIWAN: Death penalty debate revived----Deterrent? Asked to comment on calls for the death penalty to be retained in the wake of a girl's slaying, Ma said that the issue has always been contentious The national debate on the abolition of death penalty received renewed attention on the heels of the death of an 8-year-old girl after her throat was slashed open by an attacker at her elemanetary school on Friday. The gruesome nature of the crime sparked public outrage and prompted questions about the efficacy of the nation's justice system at deterring crime. Angry netizens flooded the Facebook page of Social Democratic Party legislative candidate Miao Po-ya, a well-known human rights campaigner who headed the legal affairs division at the Taiwan Alliance to End the Death Penalty. Commenting on Friday's attack, Miao said that the death penalty fails to address the underlying reasons behind acts of murder committed against strangers. "Extreme cases of criminal behavior indicate that society has become pathologically ill, but public opinion often neglects the true remedy [for the phenomenon] after gulping down the holy water of the death penalty," Miao said. She said that extreme cases of violence were often perpetrated by individuals who saw no hope in a society with rampant social injustice and a widening disparity of wealth. "If we kill only [convicted murderers], but fail to block the paths through which monsters are cultivated, then tragedies are still bound to happen without end," Miao said. Netizens accused Miao of lacking empathy with the relatives of the slain girl and of coming to the defense of the suspected murderer. Taipei City Councilor Wang Wei-chung of the Democratic Progressive Party posted on Facebook that he opposed the death penalty, saying that it contravenes two UN covenants on human rights that Taiwan signed into law in 2009. His page was swarmed by angry commenters, with many saying that they would refuse to vote for him again. Separately yesterday, President Ma Ying-jeou said he was deeply shocked by the incident and has been grieving for the girl. Ma said he had spoken to Premier Mao Chi-kuo by telephone to instruct the Executive Yuan to notify campus authorities nationwide of a need to heighten awareness and take precautions. It is of equal importance to probe any motives behind the assault, Ma said. He also made the point to National Policy Agency Director-General Chen Kuo-en by telephone early yesterday morning, Ma added. "The existence of people like the [alleged] killer pose a significant threat to urban public order," Ma said. "The government must take it seriously and prevent recurrences." It is important to take precautionary measures to prevent assaults and to improve society's ability to deal with such crises when they occur, particularly with a notification system that can ensure that assistance to victims is prompt, Ma said. Asked to comment on calls for the death penalty to be retained in the wake of the slaying, Ma said that the issue has always been contentious. Some think that the death penalty does not deter crime, while others believe that abolishing the death penalty could spur crime, Ma said. The 2 sides have confronted each other for a long time and it might take some more time to see how public opinion evolves, he added. (source: Taipei Times) ************************ Scholar calls for capital punishment for child-killers People who kill children should be given capital punishment to deter others, a former Central Police University professor said Saturday. Yeh Yu-lan said the world has no tolerance for child- killers and those who harm children should be given the harshest punishment. Yeh's remarks came in the wake of the shocking case of a 2nd-grader who died Saturday after sustaining a 10-cm wound to her throat from a random attacker who intruded onto her school campus in the Beitou district of Taipei the previous day. The suspect, Kung Chung-an, 29, claimed that he did it because he was under a lot of pressure and was having hallucinations. Yeh described Kung as a "soul alienated from society," saying that if he had had good exchanges with his family and friends, he would not have committed the crime. She said that the suspect is a loser who is unable to solve the anger within him. The outspoken scholar also said the media's extensive reporting of the crime could easily result in a copycat effect. On calls for the death penalty for Kung, the Taiwan Alliance to End the Death Penalty said that it would not comment on an isolated case. (source: Focus Taiwan) AUSTRALIA: Cabinet papers released: Abolition of death penalty 'greatest achievement', former premier Brian Burke says Former West Australian premier Brian Burke names the abolition of the death penalty as the greatest achievement of his government, as cabinet records from 30 years ago are released. Records of the Burke government's cabinet decisions from 1984 have been released by WA's State Records Office under the 30-year rule. They show his cabinet's deliberations in its second year in office. "I count the abolition of capital punishment as the greatest achievement of the government of which I was part. And that stands out to me as something of which I'm proudest," Mr Burke said, speaking on their release. He said there had been a push within the previous Liberal government to apply the death penalty following a series of horrific murders in the state. "It didn't happen, and it didn't happen because the Liberal member who spoke to me threatened to leave the cabinet if the [Liberal] cabinet went ahead with imposing the death penalty," he said. "So it was a real prospect and the abolition of the death penalty, making sure that we could never again put a citizen of this state to death, was my proudest achievement." Mr Burke stormed into office in a record win in 1983 with what he described as a strong cabinet, and a clear sense of purpose. "It was a very young cabinet, very able, and a very enthusiastic group of people wanting to do their best," he said. Political analyst Dr Harry Phillips said the Burke government was reformist in its aims, but by 1984 had already run into political headwinds as it attempted to balance the books, and push ahead with its legislative agenda in the face of a Liberal-controlled Upper House. "So the reality of government after the great excitement of 1983 had begun to firm," he said. (source: Australian Broadcasting Corporation) From rhalperi at smu.edu Sat May 30 13:44:18 2015 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Sat, 30 May 2015 13:44:18 -0500 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide Message-ID: IRAN: IMMINENT EXECUTION OF 24 YEAR OLD IRANIAN MAN Ehsan Shah Ghasemi, a 24 year-old Iranian man, is at imminent risk of execution. Ehsan Shah Ghasemi was sentenced to death for the murder of Ali Khalili. He stabbed Ali Khalili in the neck in July 2011, causing injuries that allegedly resulted in his death almost three years later in April 2014. Amnesty International believes Ehsan Shah Ghasemi did not receive a fair trial as there is no known conclusive evidence of a substantial causal link between the knife assault on Ali Khalili in 2011 and his death in 2014. Click here to view the full Urgent Action in Word or PDF format, including case information, addresses and sample messages. Ehsan Shah Ghasemi was initially arrested in July 2011 for stabbing Ali Khalili during a street fight that broke out when Ali Khalili stopped Ehsan Shah Ghasemi and his friends for playing loud ?illegal? music in their car. Ehsan Shah Ghasemi was held in a Security Police station for two weeks where he claims he was subjected to torture and other ill-treatment. He was subsequently transferred to Kahrizak Detention Centre in southern Tehran where he spent three months in solitary confinement, apparently with shackles on his hands and feet. A criminal court in Tehran sentenced him sometime between March and April 2012 to 3 years? imprisonment and ordered him to pay ?financial compensation? (diyah) of 35 million rials [equivalent to 1,214 US dollars]. He was also sentenced to 70 lashes for consumption of alcohol. Later in 2012, Ali Khalili and his father pardoned Ehsan Shah Ghasemi and the case was closed. Ehsan Shah Ghasemi was, however, re-arrested when Ali Khalili passed away in March 2014, as a result of health complications allegedly related to the original assault and the medical treatment administered after the initial injury. He was sentenced to death in October 2014 under the principle of ?retribution-in-kind? (qesas). This was after two trial sessions before Branch 113 of the Criminal Court of Tehran Province, where he was denied the right to a lawyer of his own choosing and only met his court-recommended lawyer for the first time at his trial. The sentence was upheld by Iran?s Supreme Court in May 2015 and is now with the head of judiciary to be approved on an expedited basis. ADDITIONAL INFORMATION Ehsan Shah Ghasemi?s death sentence was sent to the Centre for the Implementation of Sentences immediately after it was upheld by Iran?s Supreme Court in May 2015. His family has requested the authorities to delay the implementation of the sentence so as to have more time to secure a pardon from the family of the deceased. The authorities have, however, denied the request, referring to a high-level instruction to fast track the implementation of the sentence. Click here to view the full Urgent Action in Word or PDF format. Name: Ehsan Shah Ghasemi (m) Issues: Imminent execution, Death penalty, Unfair trial UA: 120/15 Issue Date: 29 May 2015 Country: Iran 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 120/15" 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 sending appeals after the below 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, Persian, Arabic or your own language: * Calling on the Iranian authorities to not execute Ehsan Shah Ghasemi, commute his death sentence, and order a retrial in strict compliance with international fair trial standards and without recourse to the death penalty; * Reminding them that under international human rights law, the death penalty may be imposed only for ?the most serious crimes? which international bodies have interpreted as being limited to intentional killing, and when the guilt of the person is proved upon clear and convincing evidence leaving no room for an alternative explanation. PLEASE SEND APPEALS BEFORE 10 JULY 2015 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 Twitter: @khamenei_ir (English) or @Khamenei_fa (Persian) Email: info_leader at leader.ir Salutation: Your Excellency And copies to: President of the Islamic Republic of Iran Hassan Rouhani The Presidency Pasteur Street, Pasteur Square Tehran, Islamic Republic of Iran Email: media at rouhani.ir Twitter: @HassanRouhani (English) and @Rouhani_ir (Persian) Head of the Judiciary Ayatollah SadeghLarijani c/o Public Relations Office Number 4, 2 Azizi Street intersection Tehran, Islamic Republic of Iran 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/1KDnio8 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 Sun May 31 13:27:54 2015 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Sun, 31 May 2015 13:27:54 -0500 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, ARK., IND., KAN. Message-ID: May 31 TEXAS: Texas prison system isn't too keen on openness The Texas prison system is, by design, a closed shop. Our official contact with that inner world comes through the Texas Department of Criminal Justice's public information officers. For many years, Michelle Lyons was the department's top spokeswoman. She was the face in front of the prison walls after inmate executions arguing with European reporters about the fairness of the Texas death penalty. Hers was the voice that talked to us about prison escapes, bad behavior by prison officials and also the good times, such as they are, within the state prison system. In 2012, Lyons was demoted from director of public information. She was shunted to a Siberia-like TDCJ outpost where she was told to handle research requests from Texas students. She was no longer allowed to talk to reporters. Her pay was cut. Eventually, to avoid firing, she resigned. As one of the youngest members of the TDCJ senior staff (and the rare woman), she sued the department, alleging employment discrimination. I bring this up for a couple of reasons. Usually, as with Vegas, what happens in the prison system stays in the prison system. Not this time. Another reason: I recently told the story of how the Texas Department of Public Safety's public information department isn't always forthcoming. Lyons says she got crosswise with TDCJ administrators because they decided she was too open with the news media, and, by extension, the general public. They wanted to clamp down on public information, too, she says. Lyons says there are similarities between DPS' and TDCJ's public information strategies. She saw it all As the prison system's spokeswoman, Lyons was eyewitness to almost 300 executions. She was a staunch defender of the prison system's programs and people. A Texas Monthly profile last year called her "a disarmingly friendly, upbeat spokesperson for the biggest prison system in the nation." Friendly and upbeat. Those aren't words usually associated with a prison system. But her positive attitude was harder to hold on to once the walls came tumbling down on her. The charge against her: She kept incorrect payroll time sheets of her work hours. She was told when she was hired that she was to mark 8 hours for each day of the workweek on her time sheet. As a spokeswoman, she worked odd hours, nights and weekends, often from home. That 8-hour notation was supposed to cover her 40-hour week. That's standard. That's how I've marked time sheets my entire career. Her bosses used this flimsiness to take her out. "Suddenly, I was told I had been keeping time wrong for the decade I worked there," she says. "If I wasn't physically in the office for 8 hours, I had to take vacation or sick time. "As an example, I had to go back to a day when I was only in the office for 7 hours and 45 minutes and take 15 minutes of vacation." That's a violation of labor laws. Her uncomfortable situation turned into a crisis after a correctional officer who published a now-defunct prison news blog wrote her and asked what was happening. She answered that there were labor law violations and copied her answer to others, including a state senator. Within hours, her email account was frozen and she was charged with violating orders. She had talked to a reporter when she wasn't supposed to, they said. Months earlier, they had told her the blogger was not a reporter. Suddenly, though, the fellow TDCJ employee was considered one. She had violated policy. After quitting, she filed for unemployment and won her claim when she proved TDCJ had created a hostile work environment. Court case She sued in federal court, but a judge tossed the case. Then an appeals judge reinstated it. He ruled that there was important evidence that could convince a jury she was in the right. Her predecessor had testified that he taught her how to fill out her timecard the way she did. She wasn't breaking the rules. Late last year, the state agreed to a financial settlement to end the case. When news of her settlement was reported on Scott Henson's Grits for Breakfast criminal justice blog in February, Lyons denounced her successor, prisons spokesman Jason Clark. Clark, she maintains, kept track of his hours the same way she did. But when he answered questions in the investigation, he didn't support her version. She lost. He won. "My replacement, Jason Clark, should be investigated for perjury," she told the blog, a statement she stands behind. "He lied under oath about his own timekeeping practices and then was rewarded with a promotion. I'm sure it will never happen, but I think any journalist should be wary of the information he dispenses to them." I write to Clark. His underling, Robert Hurst, replies: "Here is TDCJ's statement. While TDCJ remains confident of the decisions it made with respect to the employment of Michelle Lyons, the prospect of ongoing litigation and associated costs were determining factors in settling the case." When I ask if Clark is available, Hurst answers, "Jason was dealing with other issues today." (source: Dave Lieber, Dallas Morning News) ARKANSAS: Decay claims jury selection flawed, seeks new trial Attorneys for condemned double-murderer Gregory Decay are taking 1 more crack at getting his convictions overturned by the Arkansas Supreme Court, arguing jury selection in the death penalty case was flawed. Decay, 29, gunned down Kevin Barkley Jones and Kendall Rachell Rice in their Fayetteville apartment April 3, 2007. Both were 24. Decay was convicted and given 2 death sentences in April 2008. Decay must exhaust all state court remedies before beginning the federal appeals process. Death penalty convictions in Arkansas automatically are appealed to the Arkansas Supreme Court for mandatory review. The court upheld the capital convictions in November 2009. A subsequent appeal that claimed ineffective counsel was rejected. The high court has agreed to at least listen to the latest argument. Decay's attorneys at the Federal Public Defender's Office in Little Rock this week filed motions that ask the court to recall its mandate in the case, vacate the convictions and remand the case to settle the record or, if the record in the case cannot be reconstructed, a new trial. They contend the record was not sufficient for the court to fully review the case. They argue the high court did not receive a full record of the proceedings on appeal, specifically information about juror questionnaires and the striking of some potential jurors before trial. The motion, by Assistant Federal Public Defender Scott Braden, contends critical parts of the jury selection were done off the record, outside the courtroom and out of Decay's presence. "30 jurors were excluded before trial began with no record of these exclusions or strikes. At least 1 of the jurors stricken by the prosecution prior to trial was African American," according to the motion, "Mr. Decay, a black man charged with killing 2 white victims, was tried, convicted and sentenced to death by an all-white jury." The other African American in the jury pool was never called during jury selection process. The motion says extensive questionnaires sent to potential jurors before trial were destroyed, preventing them from being made part of the appeal record, and there was no record from the lower court about how they were used in the jury selection process. "What this court did not know, because the trial court abused its discretion in not making the necessary record, was how this 'lengthy questionnaire' was created," according to the motion. "On April 17, 2008, thirty jurors were peremptorily stricken before trial based solely on this questionnaire and at least 1 African American juror was excluded in this process. Conducting or allowing this off-the-record proceeding was an abuse of the trial court's discretion in jury selection." The abuse of discretion directly prevented the Supreme Court's mandatory review, causing a breakdown in the appellate procedure and deprived Decay of his fundamental constitutional rights, according to the motion. Lawyers from the Arkansas Attorney General's Office have filed a response saying there are no grounds to recall the mandate because Decay did not ask for the jury selection process to be made a part of the appeal record and his trial attorneys agreed to the jury selection format. "There is no affidavit indicating that these materials were not available in defense counsel's files for inclusion on direct review via a motion to settle the record or to supplement the record," according to the response. "Accordingly, the appellant does not demonstrate that the record was incomplete or that the trial court improperly destroyed the juror's questionnaires." The response, by Assistant Attorney General Karen Wallace, also contends Decay has not demonstrated how the court's review of the material would have changed the result of his appeal. Decay walked into the apartment on Sycamore Street and shot Jones in the face with a .40-caliber pistol from less than 2 feet away. Then he turned and shot Rice in the face. During an interview with police, Decay said he killed Jones and Rice because he believed they had broken into his apartment and stolen marijuana and a gun. Jesse Westeen, 28, was convicted of being an accomplice. He pleaded guilty to driving Decay to the apartment. He was sentenced to 50 years. Decay was the 1st person to be given a death sentence in Washington County since 1981. A convict from Washington County hasn't been executed since 1920. Several others were sentenced to death in the interim, but their sentences were either commuted to life in prison when the U.S. Supreme Court declared the death penalty unconstitutional in 1972 or their sentences were overturned on appeal. The death penalty was reinstated in 1976. Benton County last had a murderer executed in August 1996 when Frankie Parker was put to death for killing his former in-laws and holding his ex-wife hostage in 1984 in Rogers. Death row Benton County has 3 men on Arkansas' death row. Zachary Holly, 30, was sentenced to death earlier this week for the murder, kidnapping and rape of 6-year-old Jersey Bridgeman. Don Davis was sentenced to die in 1992 for the execution-style killing of Jane Daniel of Rogers. Brandon Lacy was sentenced to die in 2009 for the murder of Randy Walker. Circuit Judge Robin Green ruled that Lacy is entitled to another sentencing hearing, which is on appeal. Washington County has 2 men on death row: Decay and Zachariah Marcyniuk. Both men were sentenced to death in 2008. Marcyniuk, 36, stabbed University of Arkansas student Katie Wood to death after breaking into her apartment and laying in wait for her. (source: nwaonline.com) INDIANA: Paula Cooper could not escape the burden of judgment Those who had the least reason to forgive Paula Cooper eventually did. And then the law found a way to give her a 2nd chance, too. 2 million petitioners, plus Pope John Paul II, had asked Indiana to spare her life. But Indiana seemed as committed to her death in the electric chair as she had been in killing an elderly Gary teacher in 1986. The Supreme Court soon ruled that 16 was too young to execute anyone in America; so Paula Cooper was spared. She would be the last American that young to be condemned. But Cooper could not spare herself. She put a gun to her head and killed herself this week in Indianapolis. In the end, it was Cooper who could not endure the burden of her own life. She had been freed from prison 2 years ago. The last 700 days were her only free sunrises for the past 30 years. Cooper's sister, Rhonda Labroi, told reporters 2 years ago that she had high hopes for her sister who earned a bachelor's degree, became a tutor and seemingly matured in prison. "She's a very different person," Labroi told Indianapolis reporters. "She is a lot more educated and older and wiser now. I think things will be different. (She) has paid her price. There are 2nd chances. It seems like God has given her another chance. I think if people give her a second chance, she'll do fine." Because many states - Indiana being one of them - execute killers with diminishing regularity in the 21st century, we are tempted to exaggerate our temperance. Those who remember the heinous brutality of some crimes might think the killer has escaped punishment by escaping execution. Though rates have fallen significantly in the last 20 years, suicide remains among the predominant causes of death in both local jails and state prisons. Young inmates kill themselves most frequently. Depression follows inmates to freedom. There is one obvious pattern to the suicides. Killers who murdered family members in a fit of outraged emotion show up more frequently in the suicide roles. Killers who enter prison as mentally deranged do not accrue more stability behind bars. Prison does not fix what is wrong. What brought killers to prison is less an isolated event in their lives than a reflection of who they are and how they cope. Within the last 5 years, at least 40 convicted American killers have killed themselves either in prison or shortly after having been freed. In 2014, Purdue student Cody Cousins was sentenced to 64 years after shooting and stabbing to death a classmate "because I wanted to." He killed himself with a razor at the Michigan City prison in October. In 1981, King Edward Bell shot to death his 4 young children, then killed his estranged wife and her mother. The Indianapolis man pleaded guilty but mentally ill and committed suicide in prison in 1987. John R. Wall Jr., 22, of Logansport murdered his father and 4 other relatives in 1979. He also attempted to shoot his mother. Wall was sentenced to 150 years but appealed. His conviction was overturned by the Indiana Supreme Court because police had continued to question Wall after he asked for an attorney. He committed suicide in 1992 at Logansport State Hospital. Every state, every maximum-security lockup has housed killers who take their own lives in prison or shortly after being freed. Cooper was 15 when she murdered a 78-year-old Gary Bible studies teacher. She admitted stabbing Ruth Pelke 33 times with a 12-inch butcher knife in a robbery that netted $10 and an old car. Cooper's 3 teen female accomplices all got lighter sentences and were freed from prison years ago. It was, even by comparison to other human abominations, a vicious and cruel crime. The community was outraged. Then prosecutor Jack Crawford, who now opposes the death penalty, said at her release from Rockville State Prison that if any teen had ever deserved execution under rules then in effect, it was Cooper. She pleaded guilty and never recanted. But Cooper eventually worked at becoming a different person. In a 2004 newspaper interview, she expressed remorse and hope. She had not reflected either in earlier years. "Everybody has a responsibility to do right or wrong, and if you do wrong, you should be punished," she said. "Rehabilitation comes from you. If you're not ready to be rehabilitated, you won't be." Her words linger. (source: Commentary, David Rutter; Chicago Tribune) KANSAS: In Flack capital murder case, court documents sealed outstrip documents open to public----Ottawa newspaper seeks open records, reopening earlier sealed records The tally of court documents that are sealed from public view in a quadruple murder case in Franklin County District Court outnumber the documents open to the public. As of April 8, 60 court documents had been sealed, a court spokesman was quoted as saying at that time. On Friday, a total of 49 were public, according to an online court site for the Flack case. Maxwell Kautsch, a Lawrence attorney representing the Ottawa Herald newspaper, is challenging the sealing of the court records. Kyle Trevor Flack, 29, was bound over March 12, 2014, on charges of capital murder in the slayings of Kaylie Smith Bailey, 21, and her daughter, Lana-Leigh Bailey, 18 months; the premeditated 1st-degree murders of Andrew Adam Stout, 30, and Steven White, 31; and criminal possession of a firearm by a felon. On April 8, John Steelman, court administrator for the 4th Judicial District, was quoted as saying 60 court documents had been sealed. The documents were closed to the public by District Court Judges Thomas Sachse and Eric Godderz. Sachse retired in 2014, then Godderz took over the case. As of April 8, Godderz had sealed 27 records and before that, Sachse had sealed 33 records. On Friday, it couldn't be determined how many court documents have been sealed since April 8. The 4th Judicial District encompasses the counties of Franklin, Osage, Anderson and Coffey. Saying the Franklin County District Court had failed to justify sealing court records in a quadruple murder case, the Ottawa Herald newspaper filed a motion on May 19 seeking a court order: --To block the sealing of more records. --To open records earlier sealed. --To hear future requests to seal documents in open court preceded by a notice to the Ottawa Herald so that it might be heard on the request. "Continuing the seal of the records risks breeding suspicion, distrust and cynicism," Kautsch wrote in the court filing, and he will argue it in Franklin County District Court on June 9. The Ottawa Herald "submits that the only way to truly protect the integrity of the proceedings is to return to the presumption of openness mandated by law." The Kahler case In an interview with a Capital-Journal reporter this week, Kautsch noted that during the 2011 capital murder case of James Kraig Kahler in neighboring Osage county, court records weren't sealed. Kahler, of Meriden and earlier of Columbia, Mo., was sentenced to death for the killings of his estranged wife, their daughters, 18 and 16, and his wife's grandmother, 89. The 4 victims were shot on Nov. 28, 2009. Kahler, now 52, was sentenced on Oct. 11, 2011, in the Osage County Courthouse in Lyndon. He also was sentenced to 31 to 34 months for a conviction of aggravated burglary for breaking into the grandmother's home in Burlingame. The fact the Kahler trial was conducted in a neighboring jurisdiction without sealing court records shows "you don't need to seal any records," Kautsch said. The Kahler case "is an extremely parallel situation," Kautsch said. Kautsch: Rulings support openness In Kautsch's filing in the Flack case, he pointed to Kansas Supreme Court rulings that support open court proceedings and open court records. "Beginning with Kansas City Star v. Fossey (a 1981 case), the Kansas Supreme Court has long recognized 'a strong presumption in favor of open, judicial proceedings and free access to records in a criminal case,'" Kautsch wrote. A trial judge can close a preliminary hearing, bail hearing or any other pretrial hearing and seal a record only if dissemination of information from the proceeding and its record would "create a clear and present danger to the fairness of the trial" and the prejudicial effect of such information on the fairness of the trial can't be avoided by any "reasonable alternative means," Kautsch quoted Fossey as saying. Kansas Supreme Court decisions in Fossey and other cases "and elsewhere reflect a widely recognized public right to know about judicial matters, including a common law right of access to court records," Kautsch wrote. "High-profile cases on both a national and state level have demonstrated that it is possible to impanel an unbiased jury even in the light of pretrial publicity well beyond the scope of publicity in this case," Kautsch wrote. "The Kansas Supreme Court has been extremely consistent in finding that pre-trial publicity did not prevent fair trials," Kautsch wrote. The Carr case In the Carr brothers case, the Kansas Supreme Court found that political billboards identified the alleged killer, and that was insufficient to rise to the level to necessitate a change of venue due to publicity, Kautsch said. Brothers Jonathan and Reginald Carr were charged and convicted in the killings of 4 people in December 2000 in Wichita. In July 2014, the Kansas Supreme Court overturned death penalty sentences for the Carrs based on other factors. "Fears that pretrial publicity (in the Flack case) would taint the jury pool are just unfounded," Kautsch said. The Franklin County District Court must consider alternatives to sealing court records, Kautsch said, noting the Fossey and other Kansas Supreme Court rulings. Early in the Flack case, a prosecutor filed a motion on July 1, 2013, seeking to seal all pleadings in the case. Sachse, the judge at that time, ruled that rather than issuing a blanket order to seal all filed documents, he would rule on an individual basis whether to seal a document. Flack's trial is scheduled to start on Sept. 21, 2015. (source: Topeka Capital-Journal) From rhalperi at smu.edu Sun May 31 13:29:10 2015 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Sun, 31 May 2015 13:29:10 -0500 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----NEB., ARIZ., CALIF., WASH., USA Message-ID: May 31 NEBRASKA: FDA says Nebraska can't legally import execution drug A push to execute 10 condemned men despite the repeal of Nebraska's death penalty was confronted with yet another hurdle Friday when a federal agency said the state cannot import a critical lethal injection drug. Gov. Pete Ricketts said he agrees with the attorney general that Nebraska should be able to execute its death row inmates upon receiving the drugs it recently bought from a broker in India. The state has already paid $54,400 to replace 2 lethal injection drugs that had expired. "Our plan is to proceed with the executions," the governor said Friday during a press conference that marked the end of the 2015 legislative session. In the 18 other states that have repealed capital punishment, no death row inmates have been subsequently executed, said Robert Dunham, director of the Death Penalty Information Center. In 2 states that have abolished the death penalty - New Mexico and Connecticut - the fate of those on death row remains unsettled. In Nebraska, the intentions of the governor and attorney general were thrown into doubt Friday when an official with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration said the state can't legally import 1 of the 2 drugs, an anesthetic called sodium thiopental. "At this time, we have no indication, aside from media reports, that sodium thiopental has recently been imported into the United States by state officials or correctional systems," said Jeff Ventura with the FDA. "With very limited exceptions, which do not apply here, it is unlawful to import this drug, and the FDA would refuse its admission into the United States." The 2 drugs purchased from the foreign supplier are part of the state's 3-drug lethal injection protocol. After being informed of the FDA's statement, James Foster, a spokesman for the Nebraska Department of Corrections, said the agency has been advised by the attorney general that its actions are "proper and legal." "We are following all the legal procedures that the agency is aware of," he said, adding that the drugs are being manufactured. "There is no FDA rule or case law that the agency is aware of that would categorically preclude the importation of these 2 drugs." The question of FDA oversight of foreign-manufactured lethal injection drugs stems from a 2013 court decision. In Cook v. FDA, a federal court ordered the FDA to prohibit the importation of lethal injection drugs that fail to meet the agency's standards. The part of the ruling on the FDA's role in lethal injection drugs was upheld by the District of Columbia Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals. Attorney General Doug Peterson has said the 2013 ruling does not apply to Nebraska because the state was not party to the case, which involved death row inmates in Arizona, California and Tennessee. Dale Baich, assistant federal public defender in Arizona who represented inmates in the Cook case, called the attorney general's conclusion "ridiculous." "If the drug is not FDA approved, it cannot be imported to the United States," Baich said, explaining that the court ordered the agency to regulate importation of all lethal injection drugs. The governor announced the purchase of the drugs on May 14. His office has not directly answered whether the drugs had met FDA approval. Rather, the governor's spokesman has said that the drugs would be tested for purity by an independent laboratory after their arrival. Ricketts said Friday that he had no timetable for when the lethal injection drugs will arrive from India. Based on emails obtained through a public records request, the supplier said he would ship the drugs within 60 days. Under Legislative Bill 268, the death penalty would be repealed, effective in 3 months, and replaced by life in prison. State Sen. Ernie Chambers of Omaha, the chief sponsor of the law, said that while the Legislature cannot change the death sentences of those already on death row, the repeal removed the statutory means for conducting an execution. That, he said, leaves the death row inmates with a sentence that can't be carried out. Chambers said he told his fellow senators during debate on the repeal bill that the state would not be able to obtain the drugs. On Friday, he maintained that stance and predicted that the governor and attorney general would not succeed in their effort to carry out an execution. The attorney general would first have to request a death warrant for 1 of the inmates, which would have to be approved by the Nebraska Supreme Court. Chambers said the court would carefully consider any legal questions surrounding the lethal injection drugs before setting an execution date. "The governor and the attorney general aren't dealing with politicians now, they're dealing with judges who respect the law and the constitution," Chambers said. The Attorney General's Office earlier had generally agreed that the men on death row would obtain de facto reprieves under the repeal. But Peterson now says that upon further review of court cases, he believes there remains a legal controversy over what happens to the 10. Peterson said his office has found cases in which a state legislature has been barred from accomplishing something through legislation that it is blocked by the constitution from doing. In this case, that would be changing a sentence from death to life in prison. "Our position is that the passage of the legislation should not affect the status of the 10 on death row because they've already been sentenced, and the lethal injection procedures that were in place are the ones that should be applied," Peterson said. The attorney general said his office would seek a declaratory judgment to clarify the issue from the Nebraska Supreme Court, probably in September, after LB 268 is scheduled to go into effect. "It's a legal question that needs to be clarified," Peterson said. In some other repeal states, the death row inmates had their sentences commuted to life in prison by governors or were ordered resentenced by the courts. Decisions on the fate of death row inmates in New Mexico and Connecticut are pending in the high courts of those states. (source: World-Herald) ************************* Timeline: Ernie Chambers' crusade against the death penalty ---- To pass a bill -- A bill is approved by the Legislature when a simple majority of state senators - 25 of 49 - vote yea. -- 30 votes are needed to override a governor's veto. Terms General File: the 1st stage at which a bill is considered by the full Legislature. Bills on General File may be amended, returned to committee, indefinitely postponed or advanced to Select File. Select File: the 2nd stage at which a bill is considered by the full Legislature. Bills on Select File may be amended, returned to committee, indefinitely postponed or advanced to Final Reading. Final Reading: the third and last stage at which a bill is considered by the full Legislature. The clerk reads the entire bill aloud, unless final reading is waived, and senators vote without debate on whether to submit the bill to the governor. [source: Legislative Research Office] ---- After the U.S. Supreme Court ended a moratorium on the death penalty in 1976, State Sen. Ernie Chambers embarked on a mission to abolish it in Nebraska. In every legislative session in which he's served since, the north Omahan has pushed bills to repeal the death penalty, change death sentences to life sentences or halt executions. This year, he reached his goal. Death penalty legislation introduced by Chambers, and its disposition: 1976: LB 702 is indefinitely postponed on General File. 1977: LB 64 is on General File at the end of the session and carried over to 1978. 1978: LB 64 is indefinitely postponed on General File. 1979: LB 262, which would repeal the death penalty and replace it with a mandatory 30-year prison sentence, is approved by the Legislature with 25 votes. Gov. Charles Thone vetoes it, and an override attempt fails. 1980: LB 762 is indefinitely postponed in committee. 1981: LB 202 is on General File at the end of the session and carried over to 1982. 1982: LB 202 is indefinitely postponed on General File. 1983: LB 202 is in committee at the end of the session and carried over to 1984. 1984: LB 202 is indefinitely postponed in committee. 1985: LB 70 is on General File at the end of the session and carried over to 1986. 1986: LB 70 is indefinitely postponed on General File. 1987: LB 675 is on General File at the end of the session and carried over to 1988. 1988: LB 675 is indefinitely postponed on General File. 1989: LB 596 gets a committee hearing but is carried over to 1990. 1990: LB 596 is indefinitely postponed in committee. 1991: LB 327 is on General File and carried over to 1992. 1992: LB 327 is indefinitely postponed on General File. 1993: LB 651 is in committee at the end of the session and carried over to 1994. 1994: LB 651 is indefinitely postponed in committee. 1995: LB 18 is in committee at the end of the session and carried over to 1996. 1996: LB 18 is indefinitely postponed in committee. 1997: LB 331 is in committee at the end of the session and carried over to 1998. 1998: LB 331 is indefinitely postponed in committee. 1999: LB 76, which would impose a 2-year moratorium on executions, is approved by the Legislature by a 27-21 vote. Gov. Mike Johanns vetoes it, and there is no override attempt. 2000: LB 1118 is indefinitely postponed in committee. 2001: LB 18 is in committee at the end of the session and carried over to 2002. 2002: LB 18 is indefinitely postponed in committee. 2002: In a 3rd special session, LB 19 is indefinitely postponed in committee. 2003: LB 791 is in committee at the end of the session and carried over to 2004. 2004: LB 791 is indefinitely postponed in committee. 2005: LB 760 is in committee at the end of the session and carried over to 2006. 2006: LB 760 is indefinitely postponed. 2007: LB 476 is on General File at the end of the session and carried over to 2008. 2008: LB 476 is indefinitely postponed on General File. 2009-2012: After a measure instituting term limits goes into effect, Chambers sits out of the Legislature for 4 years. 2013: LB 543 is on General File at the end of the session and carried over to 2014. 2014: LB 543 is indefinitely postponed on General File. 2015: LB 268, which repeals the death penalty, is approved by the Legislature by a vote of 32-15. Gov. Pete Ricketts vetoes the bill. The veto is overridden by a 30-19 vote. (source: omaha.com) ****************** Uniqueness of unicameral enabled death penalty repeal As a matter of politics and policy, the significance of the death penalty repeal by the Nebraska Legislature cannot be overstated. In the world of politics, the death penalty is normally an issue backed by conservatives, of whom there is no shortage in Nebraska. Conversely, liberals usually support repeal. But this time, political and social thought on both sides merged to form a broad coalition in opposition - broad enough to override a veto by Gov. Pete Ricketts. How could this coalition of different views band together to arrive at such a momentous and seemingly surprising outcome? Largely because of the uniqueness of the Nebraska Legislature, which not only allowed the outcome but also encouraged it. Nebraska is well known for having the only nonpartisan, unicameral legislature in the United States. What is less appreciated is how this unique structure affects the path of legislation. In traditional legislatures based on partisan affiliation, such as the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate, the majority party generally controls the floor calendar. This allows the party leadership to choose which bills are considered, if and when they receive a vote, and whether and how they can be amended. In our unicameral, with no majority party, no such discretion exists. Instead, every bill introduced gets a public hearing. And no speaker or committee chairman can bottle legislation up if it has majority support. The absence of parties in the unicameral also encourages legislators to form unexpected coalitions - a rare occurrence in partisan settings. And as a small, single chamber of only 49 members, the unicameral can be nimble and responsive. Its legislation need not be coordinated with that of another body. All of these features contributed to the death penalty repeal and veto override. But most remarkable is the sheer diversity of reasoning that led senators from disparate backgrounds to the same conclusion. As noted in the Nebraska Legislature's Unicameral Update, Sen. Tanya Cook, a Democrat from Omaha, supported repeal of the death penalty because it had not deterred violent crime. "It is not our role to be deliverers of vengeance," she said. Sen. Tommy Garrett of Bellevue, a conservative, called the death penalty "a moral and ethical issue," saying, "the state has no business playing God, and in fact is quite bad at it." Omaha independent Ernie Chambers, a 40-year veteran of the Legislature who introduced a bill to end the death penalty 37 times, spoke about wrongful convictions, saying that the number of convicted individuals who later are exonerated "proves that some people have been wrongly executed." And conservative Republican Colby Coash of Lincoln said, "My desire to protect innocent life leads me to worry about a fallible system that has the power to take a life." The unicameral structure is not the only factor behind the repeal and override. National trends also played a role. Concerns over the administration of the ultimate sanction - stemming from such factors as seemingly botched executions, states' difficulties in obtaining effective drugs for lethal injections, and longstanding racial and other disparities - have been growing for years. In the past, Gov. Ricketts' argument that the death penalty is a deterrent that "protects law enforcement and Nebraska families" may have carried the day. But with the homicide rate rising, the high cost of endless appeals, the chance of executing innocent people and uncertainty over how executions could be carried out, the governor failed to sway enough senators to sustain his veto. Many in the national media are asking how a conservative state like Nebraska could repeal the death penalty. An MSNBC headline stated, "Conservatives turn on Republican governor," and CNN noted "Nebraska became the 1st conservative state to outlaw the death penalty in 40 years." The answer is simple: The structure and organization of the Nebraska Legislature aligned with the shifting dynamics of a national issue. The real question is whether the same combination of legislative structure and political dynamics will produce similar lightning bolts from Lincoln on other fast-moving national issues, such as medical marijuana and gay marriage, in the coming years. Such results, if they occur, may be surprising on the national stage. But they will not surprise Nebraskans familiar with what our unique political system can do. (source: Opinion -- Paul Landow, Ph.D.; The writer is a professor in the department of political science at the University of Nebraska at Omaha. He writes as an individual and not on behalf of UNO----omaha.com) ARIZONA: In Nebraska, death takes a holiday Last week, Nebraska overrode a governor's veto and abolished the death penalty in that state, joining 18 other states and Washington, D.C., in ending the death penalty. It's time for Arizona - and any other state that still has a death row - to do the same. Nebraska's move received extra attention because the vote to overturn included support from conservative Republicans, some of whom support the death penalty. They had various reasons, but the one we should focus on is the one that offers the most sound reason for ending capital punishment: It's a very expensive government program that doesn't work. Nebraska hasn't executed anyone since 1997, when they still used electrocution. The state can no longer get all the drugs required in its lethal injection protocol, a situation faced by many states. And all the while, death row inmates are being housed in a separate wing, given access to lawyers at taxpayer expense, and generally living long lives in captivity before dying of natural causes. The costs are significant. Studies have shown that death penalty cases cost hundreds of thousands of dollars to prosecute, while non-death-penalty cases - even other murders - cost a fraction of that amount. One study was close to home, at the University of Las Vegas, Nevada. It said Clark County could save $15 million a year by not pursuing the death penalty in murder cases. That figure, by the way, is just attorney costs. It doesn't count the cost of court staff, inevitable appeals, and housing on death row. Capital punishment has long been held out as a deterrent - that is, it will either give criminals pause because they don't want to face the needle, or it can be used as a bargaining chip to force a plea deal and avoid an expensive trial. Good hypotheses, but once again pesky facts get in the way. I cite (again) a study by the Denver Criminal Law Review, which found this: "There is no evidence that the death penalty provides even a marginal deterrent benefit above a long prison sentence ... In short, the death penalty imposes a major cost without yielding any measurable benefits." The death penalty is a political issue, so this debate isn't over. One Nebraska lawmaker has vowed to get the issue on the ballot in 2016, so we'll see how that goes. In the meantime, Arizona's lawmakers should take a long look at what went down in the Midwest. They are forever saying the state needs to save money - here's a way to do it without cutting services that help the state, like higher education and a little help for those who are struggling. So let's be forward-looking and fiscally sound. You know - like Nebraska. (source: Editorial, Daily Miner) CALIFORNIA: 5th man convicted in Tsawwassen businessman's 2007 California murder sentenced to death The 5th and final person convicted in the 2007 murder of a Tsawwassen man in California has been sentenced to death. Robert Lee Dunson was the last of 5 suspects to be tried in the murder of well-known Tsawwassen businessman Bill Dobbs. Dunson was found guilty in March of 1st-degree murder in the slaying in Indio, California, where Dobbs and his common-law wife, Toni Dawson, had just purchased a vacation home. Because the murder occurred during a robbery, Dunson qualified for the death penalty. Death penalty sentences are subject to an automatic appeal. In 2012, Dunson's 4 co-accused - Jackie Lynn Dunson (Robert Dunson's sister), Fernando Antonio Benavidez, Ronald Wesley Handwerk and Rogelio Leon Zuniga - were all convicted and sentenced to life in prison with no chance for parole. Dobbs, 48, and Dawson were vacationing in the area when he was murdered. He was last seen alive leaving the Fantasy Springs Resort Casino with another man, later identified as Benavidez, at around 3:45 a.m. on Nov. 26, 2007. A passing motorist found his body on the side of an Indio road the next day. The avid golfer was a long-time member of the Beach Grove Golf Club. He had 2 grown children and a grandson. Dobbs had a family-owned janitorial company. (source: The Province) WASHINGTON: Jury nullification of death penalty sends strong message to prosecutors A jury's decision to not impose the death penalty should force King County Prosecutor Dan Satterberg to reconsider whether to seek capital punishment. A King County jury's refusal to impose the death penalty on Joseph McEnroe recently was an important moment in efforts to ban capital punishment in Washington. McEnroe was convicted of a particularly heinous crime: killing 6 members of his ex-girlfriend's family on Christmas Eve 2007, including pulling the trigger on a child still in diapers. But the jury appears to have engaged in what's known as nullification - basing a verdict on conscience, not necessarily law or evidence. Excellent reporting by The Seattle Times' Jennifer Sullivan documented how 3 jurors refused even to deliberate. "I know people were mad," said 1 of 4 dissenting jurors, who prevented the unanimous verdict required for a death sentence. "I made my decision, and my conscience is fine with it." That jury room angst illustrates a trend in Washington and nationally, as the public awakens to the fundamental problems with states being agents of death. 19 states ban the death penalty. Nebraska joined the list last week. Governors in at least 3 other states - Washington, Colorado and Oregon - have imposed moratoriums. Gov. Jay Inslee's moratorium, however, did not dissuade King County Prosecutor Dan Satterberg from seeking capital punishment for McEnroe or in 2 other pending cases - against McEnroe's girlfriend, Michelle Anderson, and alleged cop-killer Christopher Monfort. But the McEnroe jury's failure to impose the death penalty should prompt Satterberg to stop seeking capital punishment in King County. Just 26 % of King County residents support the death penalty, according to an unreleased poll conducted by the ACLU of Washington, an opponent of capital punishment, this spring. 63 % favored some form of life in prison for these crimes. That opposition - which is shared by The Seattle Times editorial board - is rooted in philosophical and practical reasons. Prosecuting death-penalty cases costs at least $1 million more than those seeking life in prison. The 3 recent and current King County death-penalty cases combined cost at least $14 million, and counting. The death penalty has no proven deterrent value, but is guaranteed to prolong the grieving of victims' families in years of appeals. Pam Mantle, whose daughter and 2 grandchildren were shot by McEnroe, told The Seattle Times she and her husband were "happy" with the verdict "because we don't ever have to deal with it again." Out of 33 death sentences imposed since Washington reinstated the death penalty in 1981, just 5 inmateshave been executed - 3 of them chose to waive appeals. 4 current members of death row have been waiting there since the 1990s. The jury verdict in the McEnroe case suggests it may be futile to reach for capital punishment in King County. We'll know more definitively with Monfort, whose case is expected to go to the jury early this week. If convicted, the jury would then hear arguments for and against a death sentence. Coincidentally, Monfort studied jury nullification as an undergraduate at the University of Washington and advocated for its use. If his jury replicates the McEnroe jury's outcome, he would be spared death and would die in prison. A second such outcome should fundamentally change Satterberg???s decision to seek the death penalty. (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: Voice of The Southern: With Watts trial, federal blood lust comes to Illinois Boston bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev. Alleged Vermont murderer Donald Fell. And, James Watts, accused of last summer's stabbing murder of 2 bank employees in Cairo. Federal prosecutors could care less if a state has rejected the death penalty. Just last week, Nebraska became the 19th state to abolish capital punishment. The staunchly conservative Legislature overrode Gov. Pete Ricketts' veto and joined the wave of states disavowing capital punishment. Illinois exited the killing-for-closure business in 2011. Meanwhile, federal prosecutors are increasingly relentless in their blood lust, regularly intervening in states that have forsaken capital punishment. While the states 1-by-1 reject the costly, error-prone approach to justice, the feds are doing it with increasing regularity. And they're doing it without regard for the will of the people. Massachusetts had to face this reality earlier this month when the 21-year-old Boston bomber was convicted by a federal jury. Several of Tsarnaev's victims asked that his life be spared. Watt's trial has been repeatedly delayed as his attorney prepares for a capital murder trial. Both Watts and the victims' families will have to wait until January 2017 for justice to play out. That's 2 1/2 years since the stabbing deaths of First National Bank Branch President Anita Grace and employee Nita Smith. Both the accused and the families of Grace and Smith deserve better. They deserve a fair-but-swift process, as defined by the Sixth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. But don't blame Watts' defense, who sought the lengthy continuance. They have good reason. They're merely reacting to a faulty system and rabid federal prosecutors. A lead defense attorney will spend 1,350 hours on the average death penalty trial, including preparation and research, says criminal justice researchers at the University of Las Vegas. That's a 746-hour increase over non-death penalty trials. And for what? Years of appeals and massive expense. It wasn't always this way. Until the 1990s, the federal death penalty was reserved for rare, egregious offenses not covered by state law. The U.S. Justice Department's use of capital punishment rapidly expanded following the World Trade Center bombing in 1994. Death penalty opponents see the proliferation as a vehicle of political expedience. And the trend has accelerated since the 2001 terrorist attacks, they contend. It's a case where federal policy flies too often directly in the face of much of the country. The death penalty, in states with capital punishment on the books, is rarely sought by state and local prosecutors outside of the South. That remains true even while opinion polls show public support for the death penalty consistently hovers above 50 %. In the wake of gruesome, highly publicized bungled executions, red and blue states alike are getting out of the killing business. It's too brutal. It's too expensive. It drags on for years, even decades, thanks to endless appeals. Yet the U.S. Justice Department's expanding blood lust regularly contradicts the state and its people. It's an ugly reality with which the people of Massachusetts must now grapple. And now, thanks to tone-deaf federal prosecutors, it just might happen here. (source: Editorial Board, The Southern Illinoisan) ****************** Analysis: Martin O'Malley Is Hillary Clinton's Strongest Rival, But He's Still Behind Her Throughout last year, then-Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley was making appearances in Iowa and New Hampshire and giving speeches around the country to tout himself as a potential Democratic presidential candidate. At the same time, a group of liberal activists were organizing a campaign called "Ready for Warren," urging Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren to get into the presidential race. These 2 developments were related. O'Malley, who was governor of Maryland from 2007 until earlier this year, has been trying to cast himself as the alternative to Hillary Clinton for Democrats who either are tired of the Clinton family or prefer a more liberal candidate. And Democratic activists have essentially ignored O'Malley raising his hand in favor of begging Warren to run, even as the senator keeps insisting she will not. O'Malley is probably the strongest candidate in the Democratic field to take on Clinton. (Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders and ex-Virginia Sen. Jim Webb are also seeking the nomination, and former Rhode Island Gov. Lincoln Chafee is expected to jump in the race as well.) But O'Malley, like the other 3 men, is ill-positioned to defeat Clinton. The most obvious reason why O'Malley will struggle is the strength of Clinton. In 2007, she was the front-runner, but many key party activists and donors were not behind her. A huge bloc instead supported Barack Obama, another group was with ex-North Carolina Sen. John Edwards. And Clinton's vote to back the Iraq War loomed as a divide between herself and Democratic activists, particularly in Iowa. There remains some tension between liberals and Clinton now. They are worried she is too centrist, unwilling to adopt views like calling for the break-up of large Wall Street banks, as Warren advocates. O'Malley has sought to court the Warren crowd by adopting liberal policy views, like calling for debt-free college and tougher regulations on banks that were weakened during Bill Clinton's administration. But it's not clear that Warren herself could defeat Clinton, and O'Malley's campaigning over the last year has not made him the champion of the left so far. Many prominent liberals have either endorsed Clinton, are still waiting for Warren to run or are backing Sanders. And powerful figures in the party, even in O'Malley's home state of Maryland, have signaled they are not excited about his candidacy. U.S. Sen. Barbara Mikulski of Maryland has endorsed Clinton, even though O'Malley's mother (also named Barbara) has worked in Mikulski's Senate office since 1987. So Clinton is an overwhelming favorite to defeat O'Malley. But if one of her rivals is somehow able to win a few primaries and make Clinton work hard in the Democratic nomination process, it is likely to be O'Malley. Why? First, Chafee, Sanders and Webb lack the political skills of O'Malley. Chafee and Sanders both won statewide office in tiny states, with Chafee having the advantage of his father, Richard, being his predecessor in the U.S. Senate. Webb has only won 1 election - to the U.S. Senate in 2006. O'Malley has managed to reach the top of politics in a large, complicated state where a Democrat has to navigate both a large black electorate and a bloc of white Democrats who occasionally vote Republican. He was elected twice to be mayor of Baltimore. O'Malley then won by comfortable margins in the 2006 and 2010 gubernatorial races. (Democratic candidates lost the governorship in the elections that preceded O'Malley (2002) and followed him (2014). O'Malley was praised for reducing crime in Baltimore as mayor, but there is now much debate over his record there. Violent crime was dropping in nearly every city in America during O'Malley's tenure (2000-2006). And the death of Freddie Gray, the unarmed black man who died in the custody of the Baltimore police in April, brought to national attention both the pockets of deep poverty in the city and its police force's reputation for using excessive force. (source: NBC news) ******************* More Conservatives Are Coming Out Against The Death Penalty Marc Hyden said a Georgia-based tea partyer came up to him in February with a bit of a confession. "I've been against the death penalty for 30 years," the man said. "I just never told anyone." It's a sentiment Hyden, a coordinator for Conservatives Concerned About The Death Penalty, said he has heard quite a bit since the organization launched about 3 years ago. CCADP is a network of political and social conservatives who question how the death penalty truly aligns with core conservative values like sanctity of life, fiscal responsibility and a limited government. "I think the question of 'do you support the death penalty' can be confusing," Hyden told The Huffington Post last week. "If you change the question from - do you support the death penalty or not,' to 'would you support replacing it with life without parole,' the numbers shift dramatically." Since its formation, CCADP has had a booth at the Conservative Political Action Conference, the annual gathering of conservative activists known for its big-name speakers and lively exhibition hall. "We were really nervous our 1st time going about the reception we would receive," Hyden's co-coordinator, Heather Beaudoin, said. "Now, we're seen as a welcome part of the establishment, which is really interesting. No one questions whether or not we belong and we've shown that there are lot of conservatives who are concerned about the death penalty." At the most recent conference, CCADP wasn't attracting as many people as, say, the National Rifle Association's shooting game or the folks giving out "Stand with Rand" T-shirts, but a few curious folks stopped by. "I worked at the NRA before [CCADP], so I was used to being the darling of the conservative crowd," Hyden said. "I thought [CCADP] would be tarred and feathered, but it was the opposite." A Pew Research survey published this month indicates support for capital punishment among Republicans has fallen 10 % in the past 2 decades. While the decline appears gradual, Gallup Poll numbers show that Republican support for the death penalty dropped 5 % from 2013 to 2014, from 81 percent to 76 %. Nowhere is the shifting attitude more apparent than in Nebraska, where the nonpartisan, single-house legislature recently voted 30-13 in support of a bill that would repeal the death penalty. The Republican coalition supporting LB 268, which would replace the death penalty with a sentence of life without possibility of parole, argues capital punishment conflicts with conservative values. But some fellow Republicans -- including Nebraska Gov. Pete Ricketts, who has vowed to veto the bill -- call the death penalty an important tool for public safety. "If it deterred crime, you'd expect states like Texas to have the lowest murder rate," Hyden said. For its part, CCADP focuses on getting the death penalty repealed on a state-by-state basis. Hyden said the group doesn't much deal with the federal death penalty -- which affects cases like that of convicted Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev. "Because of our tax status, we don't get involved with elected politics," Hyden adds when asked about the group's stance on the current crop of 2016 Republican presidential candidates. "That's not to say we don't keep an eye on [where they stand]." Hyden said the group has had meaningful talks with and been welcomed by figures with "serious conservative credentials": former Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele, former Texas Rep. Ron Paul and Fox News correspondent Col. Oliver North. "But on the opposite end of the spectrum, you have someone like [Texas Gov.] Rick Perry, who says he sleeps quite fine after signing somebody's death warrant," Hyden said. "I have to feel troubled when I hear things like that." Hyden said he's optimistic that once conservatives truly stop and consider the reality of the death penalty -- "it's a big government program that risks lives and it's extremely costly and fails at all its goals" -- a growing number will support ending it in America. "It's becoming more difficult to ignore because it's out there and folks are really having conversations on it," Beaudoin said. "The more you know about this issue, the more you're going to be concerned about the death penalty and the way it's being carried out. People are waking up and saying, 'this really isn't worth it anymore.'" (source: Kim Bellware, Huffington Post) ****************** Death penalty parameters should be widened In light of the recent conviction of the Boston Marathon bomber and his subsequent sentence of death, there has been a new call for the abolishment of the death penalty. If I had my way, if anything, the parameters of the death penalty would be widened to include such things as child molestation or murder, second or third conviction for hard drug sales and distribution and any DUI conviction wherein someone has been killed or maimed. If that sounds harsh, I don't believe it is any harsher than the pain and suffering the victims of these crimes and their families endure because of the selfish actions of the perpetrators of these same crimes. Regarding DUI offenders, I speak from personal experience as we lost a beloved son, brother, father, grandfather and nephew who was killed by an impaired driver. The driver, who initially was sentenced to only 18 months, which was little enough penalty, but under our inept justice system and in my mind an unethical judge, was released after only serving 2 months. I'm not saying all of these convicted folks should get the death penalty, but these penalties should be there to leave that prospect open to the prosecutors. Darl Mills Mount Gilead (source: Letter to the Editor, Mansfield (Ohio) News Journal) ******************* Only 1 of 6 Americans Sentenced to Death are Actually Executed A convicted criminal sentenced to death in the United States faces only a small chance of actually being executed. Statistics compiled by political science Professor Frank R. Baumgartner at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill show that only 1 in 6 inmates (1,359 out of 8,466) put on death row from 1973 to 2013 were executed. However, the low national rate belies the fact that 2 U.S. states have much higher rates of following through on capital punishment sentences. In Virginia, 110 out of 152 people put on death row were executed, or 72%. Baumgartner attributed Virginia's high rate to the fact that it limits the time 1 can appeal a death penalty sentence to 1 year. "If your appeals aren't filed within 12 months, your case will be considered to be final," he told the BBC News. The state with the 2nd highest rate is Texas, which executed nearly 1/2 of its prisoners to receive the death penalty, 508 out of 1,075, or 47%. For those sentenced to death by a federal court, their odds for eventually being executed are also very low. During that same 40-year time period, the federal government has sentenced 71 people to death, but only executed 3. Currently there are 56 inmates on death row by federal sentencing. At the other end of the spectrum is California, which has executed only about 1% of its inmates on death row. Currently, 32 states still have the death penalty, while 18 have outlawed it. The most recent state to do away with it is Nebraska, which banned it last week. As of the end of 2013, there were 3,194 U.S. inmates who had their death sentences overturned and 392 who had them commuted. That left 2,979 individuals remaining on death row. "It's a death penalty in name only," said Baumgartner. Although a majority of Americans currently support the death penalty in cases of murder - 56% in favor versus 38% opposed - support has slowly been slipping, having dropped 6 % points since 2011, according to the Pew Research Center. (source: allgov.com) From rhalperi at smu.edu Sun May 31 13:29:51 2015 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Sun, 31 May 2015 13:29:51 -0500 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide Message-ID: May 31 PAKISTAN: Only way to end terrorism: Hang the culprits? Crime rate has decreased drastically across Punjab after the federal government lifted the moratorium on capital punishments after 7 years following the Peshawar carnage in December when the Taliban gunned down 151 people of which 132 were school children, Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) Operations Muhammad Baqar Raza claimed while speaking to Pakistan Today on Friday. Sharing the official statistics with the scribe, he said that 1,319 cases of murders (including 167 blind murders) were registered in the first 3 months of 2014 while during the same period in 2015 after the lift of moratorium on capital punishment, a decrease of 22 % was seen as 1028 cases of murder (131 blind murders) were reported across the province. The data revealed that 62 cases of dacoity/robbery which resulted in murder were reported in the first 3 months of 2014 while during the same period this year 44 cases of dacoity/robbery which resulted in murders were reported which showed a decrease of 29 %. "These figures clearly show a significant decrease in the killings reported in the current year as compared to the incidents reported in 2014," Raza added. SSP Raza added that before the lift of moratorium the Punjab Police had been reporting 15 to 20 cases of murders everyday which had decreased to 8 to 10 cases of killings now. Hamid Ali Khan, National Co-coordinator of Nation Counter Terrorism Authority, shared with the Senate Committee on Interior that 137 people have been hanged so far in the country after the lifting of moratorium. "Till mid-April, the mercy petitions of 81 executed prisoners had been rejected by the Supreme Court of Pakistan," said Punjab Inspector General of Prisons Farooq Nazir. As many as 33 condemned criminals including a woman with rejected mercy appeals by the president are languishing in Punjab jails. Whereas, the mercy appeals of 5,431 condemned prisoners including 46 women are yet to be heard and approximately, 45 % of prisoners in Punjab jails are under-trial prisoners. According to figures available with Pakistan Today, number of convicted and condemned detainees is 19,781, whereas 194 are in the lock-up over the charges of death by negligence and 2,140 have been booked on murder attempt. According to Interior Ministry, the number of sentenced prisoners is not less than 8,000 including those who have moved appeal before the relevant courts. Over 8,500 death row prisoners were languishing in jails across Pakistan till March 2014. Pakistan is among the countries that have the highest number of accused held on murder charge. Former inspector general of police argued that keeping in mind the criminal justice system of the country which is slow and full of complications, capital punishment is the only way to deal with scourge of increasing crimes and terrorism. "The terrorist would have some sort of fear in their minds before committing such heinous crimes that if arrested they will be hanged. Capital punishment acts as a deterrent to the homicides (murders)," he added. SP Crime Investigation Agency (CIA) Umer Virk talking to Pakistan Today said that crimes rate has decreased since the lift on moratorium whereas some other police officials were of the opinion that the decrease in crimes rate is because the hardened habitual criminals are hiding somewhere due to ongoing general holdups and search operations being carried out by the Punjab Police and law enforcement agencies. However, the human rights activist argue that it was not established anywhere in the world that capital punishments act as a deterrent to crime and homicides. Speaking to Pakistan Today, Justice Project Pakistan Director Sarah Belal said, "It would be a first if this was true. Nowhere in the world has it ever been established that the exercising of the death penalty is a clear deterrent to crime. If such figures exist, the government should make them public and share them will all shareholders." Belal added that he organisation's experience of working with the criminal justice system revealed that owing to a wide and vague definition of terrorism, almost all those tried as terrorists in Pakistan are sentenced for crimes that do not fit any widely acknowledged definition of terrorism. "All the while, real terrorists who commit atrocities like the one in Peshawar remain unaffected. How then can the government claim that these executions have helped curb terrorism?" questioned Belal. (source: Pakistan Today) *************** Asia Bibi suffering from intestinal bleeding in Pakistan prison According to the family, the Christian women jailed in Pakistan is suffering from intestinal bleeding and requires medical treatment. Her lawyers have mobilized to call for a medical response after a recent family visit. Asia Bibi has endured years in prison, given the death penalty for false charges of blasphemy and is described by family as "so weak she can hardly walk." The family visited last week after not seeing Asia for over a month. They were traveling in Europe to come to Madrid for #WeAreN Congress, organized by MasLibres.org and after his visit to the Vatican, where they were received during the general audience by Pope Francis. Asia Bibi sentenced to death pakistanAccording to information provided to MasLibres.org, stomach problems developing for months worsened to the point that she is suffering from "intestinal bleeding". "When vomiting there is also shown traces of blood, Asia has difficulty feeding properly, while constant pain in the chest. Therefore, it is necessary that Asia Bibi be submitted as soon as possible a full medical checkup, including blood work," said the same sources. Lawyers of Asia Bibi have taken the necessary legal actions to receive timely medical treatment and is transferred to the prison in Lahore, which can provide more adequate health care and she would be closer to her family, who have to travel for several hours from Lahore to Multan on each visitation. Asia allegedly spoke negatively about Islam or their prophet as witnessed by some abusive women working near the women. (source: Global Dispatch) ******************* Not left hanging: Plea to abolish death penalty dismissed The Supreme Court while dismissing a plea against the abolition of the death penalty in Pakistan has observed that the right to life and liberty is not absolute in nature. Such a right is, however, circumscribed and subject to law. The 3-judge bench of the apex court, headed by Justice Mian Saqib Nisar dismissed the 4-year-old petition, filed by Barrister Zafarullah, a representative of the Watan Party, against the awarding of death sentence in 27 different offences. Now the top court has issued a four- page written order with reasons related to this matter. Justice Mian Saqib Nisar while authoring the judgment has observed that the petitioner has referred Article 9 of the Constitution, which says that no person shall be deprived of life or liberty. But the court has made clear that the right to life and liberty is not absolute in nature and a person cannot be bereft of his life and liberty except in accordance with the law. The court while referring Article 4 (2) (a) of the Constitution says that a person can be deprived of his life and liberty, if it is provided and prescribed by any law. The judgment also says that the petitioner has failed to show the court that on the basis of two constitutional clauses, the top court while exercising its jurisdiction in terms of Article 184 (3) of the Constitution can direct the abolition of the death penalty in Pakistan and annul any law. Regarding the petitioner's argument that Article 9 is not a properly worded article, therefore the parliament should make necessary amendment, the judgment says that the top court while exercising the instant jurisdiction does not deem it appropriate to issue such direction. "As regards the argument that the criminal justice system is unfair, unreasonable and convicts and death punishments lack due process, suffice it to say that this by itself is not a threshold or touchstone for striking down any law, rather if there is deficiency in the relevant law, it is the duty of the parliament to provide it or correct the law by amendment". The court while referring Article 10-A of the Constitution said that if any person is aggrieved on account of lack of fair trial or due process of law, he has the remedy, before the appropriate forum in appropriate proceeding, to challenge such a trial and conviction. (source: The Express Tribune) TAIWAN: Too soon to scrap death penalty: Ma----A 3-year-old opinion poll was used to back President Ma Ying-jeou???s view that society is not ready to abandon capital punishment President Ma Ying-jeou yesterday said the government cannot abolish capital punishment because society needs time to reach a consensus on the issue, according to Presidential Office spokesman Charles Chen. Chen's remarks came after some observers interpreted a comment by Ma a day earlier as a sign that his administration might be considering abolishing the death penalty. Asked about increased calls against ending the death penalty after an attack on an eight-year-old girl in a school bathroom in Taipei's Beitou District on Friday, Ma said that 2 views he described as "opposing" have been debated for some time: Some people believe that capital punishment does not deter crime, while others believe that abolishing the death penalty would encourage crime. "I think we better observe this for some more time," Ma said. Chen yesterday quoted Ma as saying that the government is unable to scrap capital punishment at the moment, but would continue to work toward reducing its application. When meeting recently with a British parliamentary group in favor of the abolition of the death penalty, Ma said that the majority of Taiwanese are against ending capital punishment, Chen said. The president also referred to a 2012 Ministry of Justice poll in which 76.7 % of respondents opposed scrapping the death penalty, while more than 85 % believe that abolishing the death penalty would affect public security, Chen said. Meanwhile, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) said that further dialogue with those who advocate abolishing capital punishment is needed in the wake of the slaying of the 2nd-grader. Every child is the darling of their parents and the party was saddened by the tragedy, DPP spokesman Wang Min-sheng said, adding that all children should be able to study in an environment free from fear. Complex and serious social problems were behind the killing, not just the issue of campus security, Wang said. On the abolition of the death penalty, there are still deficiencies in the complementary measures of the current law, and also different views in society regarding the issue, he said. "We need to have further dialogue and communication," he said. The suspect in the slaying, Kung Chung-an, 29, reportedly said he was under great pressure and suffering from auditory hallucinations at the time of the incident. His elder brother said Kung moved out of the family home 5 years ago. He did not know how a previously normal person could turn into a killer, the brother added. (source: Taipei Times) ************** Further discussion needed on scrapping capital punishment: DPP The main opposition Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) said Saturday that further dialogue and communication with those who advocate abolishing capital punishment are needed in the wake of the tragic murder of a 2nd-grader by a random attacker at her school campus in Taipei's Beitou District. DPP spokesman Wang Min-sheng said every child is the darling of the parents and that the party was saddened by the tragedy. He added that every child should be able to study in an environment free from fear. Wang said that there are complex and serious social problems behind the killing and not just the issue of campus security. He noted that on the issue of abolishing the death penalty, there are still deficiencies in the complementary measures of the current law, and also different views in society regarding the issue. "We need to have further dialogue and communication," he said. The suspect, Kung Chung-an, 29, allegedly killed the child because he was under great pressure and suffering from hallucinations. His older brother said Kung moved out of the family home 5 years ago, and added that he did now know how a previously normal person could turn into a killer. (source: Focus Taiwan) INDIA: President rejects mercy plea of Pune teacher who raped, killed 13 year-old A school teacher convicted for rape and murder of a minor girl in Pune 13 years ago will finally be hanged to death. President Pranab Mukherjee turned down the mercy plea of convict Shivaji Shankar Alhat, 58, who was sent to gallows by a Pune court in January 2003. Alhat is currently lodged in the Yerwada Central Jail in Pune where Mohammad Ajmal Kasab was the last man to be hanged in November 2012. "We have received the communication from the President's office about the mercy plea being turned down. Now the additional district judge of Pune, who had awarded the penalty, will fix the date of execution," said a highly-placed source in the Home department. Alhat was convicted for raping and murdering the victim, Hemalata Nanavre. As per the prosecution, Alhat lured the little girl to a nearby hill in Junnar on the pretext of collecting firewood on the morning of January 14, 2002. There he raped the girl and then stabbed her 21 times, before strangulating her to death. He later hid himself in a sugarcane field for 2 days. Meanwhile, the villagers recovered Hemalata's body on the morning of January 15 by the hillside. Hemalata's mother Sushila filed an FIR against Alhat at 10.15 am the same day with the Junnar police, following which the police carried out a panchanama at the rape and murder site and conducted a search for Alhat. When the police nabbed Alhat from the sugarcane fields two days later, they found the rope used for strangulation on his person. The blood stains on Alhat's clothes matched that of Hemalata. The blood-stained knife used by Alhat was also recovered from a field nearby. In the judgment, then Additional District Judge - Pune, Justice L S Pavshe, called Alhat 'shaitan' (demon) for committing the crime and said the judiciary would be failing in its task, if it did not pronounce the death sentence. Alhat, who was a father of 3, had even appealed that he was impotent, a fact that was negated through a medical examination. The judge said Alhat had brought shame to the noble profession of teaching and did not deserve any mercy. As many as 17 witnesses deposed in this case. (source: dnaindia.com) QATAR: Qatar drops death penalty for Filipino 'spy' A death sentence handed to a Filipino in Qatar for spying was reduced on appeal by a Doha court on Sunday to life imprisonment. 2 other sentences of life imprisonment against another pair of defendants, also from the Philippines, were reduced at the same time by Qatar's Court of Appeal to 15 years in jail. of the men sentenced to serve 15 years has been named as Ronaldo Lopez Ulep. All 3 had been convicted last year on charges of espionage and passing on Qatar military and economic secrets to the Philippines government. The unnamed defendant who was originally sentenced to death is likely to spend up to 25 years in prison. He worked as a supervisor at Qatar Petroleum. The other 2 defendants worked for the Qatar Air Force. At the time of their conviction it was alleged that the two men working for the air force supplied information to the third man for cash. Following Sunday's brief hearing, the Philippines ambassador to Qatar, Wilfred C. Santos, said the reduction in sentences was "welcome" but a further appeal may take place. "We welcome this development and we will continue to monitor the case," he said. "We are willing to exhaust all legal avenues." Manila has "emphatically" denied spying on Qatar. All 3 men have been detained since 2010. The case has raised concerns among rights groups, which question the convictions and allege the 3 men have been tortured while being detained. Amnesty International alleges Lopez Ulep spent four years in solitary confinement and was convicted "on t he basis of a 'confession' he was forced to sign, even though it was written in Arabic and he could not read it". Ahead of Sunday's hearing, Amnesty released a blog from the 17-year-old daughter of Lopez Ulep, who said her father was dragged away from their Doha home in April 2010 and the family have not seen him since. She said investigators took laptops, photos and the family's savings hidden in a safe. The teenager, who is now in the Philippines, urged the Qatari authorities to release her father and "return what they took from us for the past 5 years". Santos said Manila knew about the allegations of torture. "We are aware of these and are taking note of this," he said. Relatives of the defendants were also at court but refused to comment afterwards. (source: al-monitor.com) IRAN----executions 2 Prisoners Hanged in Prison of Kerman 2 prisoners who had been convicted of murder were hanged earlier this week in Kerman. According to the report of Human Rights Activists News Agency in Iran (HRANA), the death sentences of 2 prisoners, convicted to death on charges of murder, was conducted on Sunday 24th May, in the prison of Shahab, in Kerman. Their identities are unknown and official authorities and judicial authorities, also, have not commented in this regard. According to Human Rights Activists in Iran, the number of executions in the last several weeks, across the country have been increased, while, part of them were in the public, and other executions often not been declared and the administration of justice have not announced them. ************** 1 Prisoner Hanged in Central Prison of Tabriz A prisoner who was charged with murder, was hanged in central prison of Tabriz, on Wednesday May 27. According to the report of Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA), the executed prisoner with the name of Nourooz Basiri, had committed murder 2 years ago. Mr. Basiri was the residence of Youyghoonlooy-e-Jadid village, located in rural area of Malekan city in East Azerbaijan province. Need to be mentioned, the effort of his family and local trustees for getting consent failed and eventually he was hanged on Wednesday dawn. (source for both: HRANA news agency) *************** Mass-Executions of Ghezelhesar Prison Continue: 13 Prisoners Transferred For Execution----Less than a week after execution of 22 prisoners in Ghezelhesar prison of Karaj, 13 other death row prisoners have been transferred to the prison's quarantine for execution. 13 prisoners are scheduled to be executed in the Ghezelhesar prison of Karaj, the coming 2 days according to Iran Human Rights' sources today. All the prisoners are from Unit 2 of the prison and sentenced to death for drug-related charges. The reports say that the prison authorities had to use the prison's spacial guard to transfer the prisoners due to their resistance. Several prisoners were injured by the guards. One prisoner stubbed another prisoner to death in order to postpone the execution. It is well known that when a prisoner who is sentenced to death for drug charges is commits a murder his death sentence for drug charges is postponed since "qisas" (retribution in kind) is given higher priority. Iran Human Rights (IHR) once again calls for the international community's reaction to the mass-executions of the Ghezelhesar prison. Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam, the spokesperson of IHR said: "The situation among the death row prisoners of Ghezelhesar prison is desperate and needs the urgent reaction of the world community" - "It is a shame that the international community is watching these mass executions without showing any reaction." In addition to the prisoners who were transferred for execution today, 44 other prisoners have been executed in the same prison in less than 1 month. (source: Iran Human Rights)