From rhalperi at smu.edu Sat Jul 2 15:39:01 2016 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Sat, 2 Jul 2016 15:39:01 -0500 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, CONN., GA., FLA., OHIO, USA Message-ID: July 2 TEXAS: Texas' death penalty beyond repair so think about ending it, judge says We welcome Judge Elsa Alcala's frank - and courageous - assessment of the Texas death penalty, not for what people wish the state's capital punishment system to be, but for what it is: Discriminatory, inefficient and immoral. That assessment coming from an experienced judge on the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals - the state's highest court in criminal matters - is not easily dismissed. It's true that many Texans support the death penalty as a tough, fair and painless way to punish those convicted of certain heinous crimes. That category includes crimes in which more than one person was murdered, a law enforcement officer was killed, or circumstances that involve murder and another aggravated felony. An example of the latter would be fatally shooting a store clerk during the course of a robbery, or killing someone during a sexual assault or kidnapping. To be sure, those are horrible crimes that warrant the toughest punishment on the books. The problem with the death penalty is that it is final. Once done, it cannot be undone. As such, it requires a perfect system in which to operate justly and morally. An imperfect system means a killer gets away, while an innocent is imprisoned or executed. It's no wonder that Alcala has growing discomfort with the Texas death penalty system, riddled with imperfections. She wrote about them in a recent opinion regarding the case of Julius Jerome Murphy, sentenced to die for the 1997 shooting death of a man whose car had broken down along Interstate 30 in Texarkana. "I think there are, as I said in that opinion, significant problems with the death penalty," Alcala told the American-Statesman's Chuck Lindell. "There are lots of problems, and I think the public is not aware of the problems." Alcala wrote that Texas courts should study whether the death penalty is unconstitutional because it is arbitrarily imposed by race, disproportionately affecting minorities, and whether excessive delays in imposing the ultimate sentence results in cruel and unusual punishment because inmates are held in solitary confinement for years, if not decades. Those inequities are reflected in state figures that show 71 % of those awaiting execution in Texas are African American or Latino. Alcala came to the bench in 2011, when then-Gov. Rick Perry tapped her to fill a vacancy. Her doubts and concerns regarding the system have been sown by cases that came before her, including: -- Bobby James Moore: Alcala wrote that her court's reliance on a decades-old standard to measure intellectual disability, which is no longer used by medical professionals, "is constitutionally unacceptable." -- Duane Buck: Alcala sharply criticized rulings allowing Buck to be executed despite trial testimony that he was a future danger to society because he is black. Such concerns grabbed the attention of the U.S. Supreme Court, which earlier this month, announced it would examine the constitutionality of the death sentences given to Moore and Buck. Pointing out the flaws in the state's death penalty system takes political guts, given the wide support it enjoys in Texas, topping 70 % on a recent Gallup poll. That kind of courage has been in short supply since judge Tom Price left the state Court of Criminal Appeals in 2014. Before his departure, Price called for an end to the death penalty, saying he was haunted by a growing fear that Texas will execute an innocent inmate, if it hadn't already. He worried aloud whether he had participated in executing an innocent person. As a long-time judge on the court, Price was part of a body with a dubious history in death penalty matters. The court still is plagued by its unfortunate "sleeping lawyer" ruling more than a decade ago refusing to halt an execution of a death row inmate whose attorney had snoozed through major portions of his capital murder trial. Following that embarrassment, there was the "we close at 5" incident in a 2007 case. Presiding Judge Sharon Keller closed the court clerk's office at 5 p.m., preventing attorneys from filing a last-minute appeal for twice-convicted killer Michael Richard, who ultimately was executed without his final appeal being heard in court. That prompted the State Commission on Judicial Conduct to issue a public warning to Keller, but the rebuke was later dismissed on a technicality after Keller appealed. Aside from the court's well-documented missteps, there are other signs of the system's imperfections in the wave of exonerations of Texans, such as Michael Morton, who were wrongfully convicted and sent to prison for many years, while the true criminals went free. Oftentimes, the guilty go on to commit more crimes, which was true in the Morton case in which the person who murdered Morton's wife, went on to kill another woman. It's worth noting that Texas led the nation in the number of people wrongly convicted of crimes, who were exonerated in 2015, according to figures compiled by the National Registry of Exonerations. In all, 54 people were exonerated for mostly homicide and drug cases going back to 2004. New York was 2nd with 17. False identifications by witnesses, misconduct by police or prosecutors, errors by crime labs or defense attorneys, all are among the things that can and do go wrong. It's no wonder Alcala is uncomfortable remaining silent. Doing so perpetuates the fallacy that the state's death penalty is carried out fairly and justly. That might be what many wish it to be, but it is not the reality. (source: Editorial Board, Austin American Statesman) **************** Lubbock couple indicted in murder of woman's daughter A Lubbock County grand jury returned indictments Friday for capital murder against James and Debi Holland in the February slaying of their 18-year-old daughter. Grand jurors met in a special session to determine if there was enough probable cause to charge the Hollands for the killing of Holli Jeffcoat, a special needs student at Lorenzo High School. The indictment states the 2 are accused of killing Jeffcoat and her unborn child. A Lubbock judge The charges come with bonds set at $2 million and carry a punishment of life in prison or the death penalty. District attorney Matt Powell could not comment on the case, citing the judge's May 5 media gag order prohibiting officials associated with the case from speaking to the press. Jeffcoat was found killed Feb. 10 in a home in the 2900 block of County Road 3200. Lubbock County sheriff's officials in February said Jeffcoat suffered multiple stab wounds. According to a search warrant, Jeffocat's throat was slashed and her womb was removed. Investigators believe her killer also burned her body to conceal the crime. Prior to her killing Jeffcoat told Lorenzo school and police officials her step father, James Holland, had been sexually abusing her and the abuse resulted in her pregnancy. Court documents state she was about 12-weeks pregnant. Officials believe Debi and James Holland killed Jeffcoat in retaliation, the indictment states. Holland, 39, has been held at the Lubbock County Detention Center since March 10, on a felony count of continuous sexual abuse of a child. The charge stems from a 15-year-old family member's accusation he has been sexually abusing her since she was 9. The family member, who also lived with Jeffcoat in the home, found Jeffcoat's mutilated body Feb. 10. At time of Jeffcoat's killing James Holland was instructed to stay away from the girls after Jeffcoat's outcry. However, CPS workers believe Holland disobeyed the instruction. According to a search warrant, Holland had paint on his hands that was similar to paint found on the window in Jeffcoat's room, which investigators believe was possibly used by her killer to enter her room. Grand jurors also returned an indictment against Holland in connection with the investigation into Jeffcoat's sexual abuse. Debi Holland, 38, has been held at the detention center since April 29. She is charged with aggravated sexual abuse for allowing the abuse her husband inflicted on her Jeffcoat and for concealing it from authorities. Capital murder is punishable with life in prison without parole or the death penalty. Grand jurors also returned an indictment against her on similar grounds for the sexual abuse of the 15-year-old girl. (source: amarillo.com) *************** Anti-execution vigil to be held July 14 On July 14, a public ecumenical prayer vigil will be held during the time when the state of Texas is scheduled to execute a death row inmate. The vigil will be at 5:45-6:15 p.m. at the corner of University Avenue and 15th Street in front of St. John's United Methodist Church, across from Texas Tech. The public is welcome. The vigil is sponsored by Lubbock People of Faith Against the Death Penalty. (source: Lubbock Avalance-Journal) CONNECTICUT: Death Row Inmate Who Ordered Hit On 8-Year-Old Resentenced To Life Russell Peeler Jr., sent to death row for ordering the 1999 killings of Karen Clarke and her 8-year-old son Leroy "B.J." Brown in Bridgeport, was resentenced Friday in Superior Court to 2 consecutive life sentences without the possibility of release. Peeler, 44, was the 2nd of Connecticut's 11 formerly condemned prisoners to be resentenced since a landmark Supreme Court ruling that spared their lives. The latest chapter in the 17-year-old case unfolded in a nearly empty courtroom without family members from either side present. Senior Assistant State's Attorney Joseph Corradino said he tried to contact family members of the victims but telephone numbers he had for them years ago were no longer working. "Though this hearing is carrying out an order by the Supreme Court, this is technically a sentencing and they would want to be advised of that," Corradino said about the family. Attempts by The Courant to reach family members on both sides were unsuccessful. The 2 new life sentences for Peeler were added to a life sentence Peeler is already serving for federal drug crimes as well as a 105-year prison sentence he faces for a separate killing. Peeler spoke briefly at Friday's hearing in opposition to the current conditions of his confinement saying, "They want to hold us in Northern [Correctional Institution in Somers] for no reason." Peeler's attorney, Mark Rademacher, elaborated on behalf of Peeler saying there is a brewing controversy about the conditions under which the former death row inmates will be held, an issue he said he expects will be litigated but that he did not want to argue at Friday's hearing. Corrections officials last month told The Courant they are working to adjust their prison housing directives to comply with a state law regarding the incarceration of former death-row inmates and those now convicted of the crime of murder with special circumstances. The law addressing those inmates, put in place when the death penalty was repealed in 2012, will likely keep the former death-row inmates away from the general prison population and locked up in maximum-security facilities. Cheshire home invasion killer Steven Hayes was the first of the formerly condemned to be resentenced. Last month a New Haven Superior Court judge sentenced him to six consecutive life sentences without the chance for release. Hayes' accomplice, Joshua Komisarjevsky, is scheduled for resentencing on July 26 in Superior Court in New Haven. Peeler was sentenced to death in 2007 after a Superior Court jury in Bridgeport convicted him of ordering his younger brother, Adrian Peeler, to kill Clarke and her son at a Bridgeport apartment. The boy and his mother were slated to testify against the older Peeler at an upcoming murder trial. Rademacher had asked Judge Robert Devlin to run the sentences concurrently. "Now, I think I agree with the defense in a sense that as a practical matter the relationship of the sentences probably is not going to have much difference given the, you know, sort of cumulative sentences that are imposed to Mr. Peeler," Devlin said. "But in my view, if imposing consecutive life sentences does nothing more than place an exclamation point signifying this community's condemnation of these dastardly crimes, then it's worth it." Adrian Peeler, 38, is serving a 20-year prison sentence for his role in the slayings. According to trial testimony, the Peelers ran a lucrative crack cocaine ring and Leroy witnessed an attempt by Peeler to shoot his mother's boyfriend in a drug-money dispute. Peeler went after the boyfriend a second time, killing him. Days before Peeler was to be tried for the slaying, Clarke and her son were found shot to death in their Bridgeport apartment. Peeler was convicted of capital felony charges in 2000 but a jury deadlocked on whether to sentence him to death. A judge then imposed life in prison without the possibility of release. Prosecutors successfully appealed the judge's decision, arguing that the judge should have declared a mistrial instead. Though the high court also agreed with a challenge by the defense of the trial court's refusal to permit disclosure of a witness' psychiatric records to the jury, the justices said the mistake was harmless and ordered a new sentencing hearing for Peeler in which jurors voted for death. "Probably the lowest point in my professional career is when I stood up with Russell and the jury returned a death sentence," Rademacher, who has represented Peeler for 16 years, said after Friday's hearing. "And the high point of that career is today getting a ... life sentence for him. I'm sorry that 16 years later we're back where we started, having spent $1 million or two in the process." Connecticut abolished the death penalty in April 2012 but made the law prospective, meaning it applied only to new cases and kept in place the death sentences for those already on death row. Attorneys for the death-row inmates challenged the law, saying it violated the condemned inmates' constitutional rights. In August 2015, the justices ruled 4-3 to ban capital punishment for all defendants, saying in the majority decision that Connecticut's death penalty no longer fit with societal values and served no valid purpose as punishment. The Supreme Court's 5-2 decision in May, which upheld its 2015 ruling, said capital punishment in Connecticut is unconstitutional for everyone. The ruling overturned Peeler's death sentences and ordered the lower court to impose a new punishment of life in prison without the possibility of release. (source: Hartford Courant) GEORGIA----impending execution Condemned triple killer's lawyer says he's a 'peacemaker'; victims' kin fear he'll strike again As an 11-year-old boy, Mark Smyth rode around with his parents, searching woods and ditches. They scoured parts of rural Middle Georgia trying to find any trace of his older brother, Jesse, who'd disappeared after returning from a trip to New Orleans. Walking to school in Milan, a small Telfair County town about 70 miles south of Macon, Smyth recalls looking down the street toward the house where a man named John Wayne Conner lived. Smyth hoped he'd see his brother's car there. Smyth said his parents gave up nearly everything of value that they had to hire investigators and to pay for information about what had become of their 28-year-old son. It wasn't until Conner was in jail, charged with killing another Milan man, J.T. White, that Jesse's 1969 Chevrolet Caprice was pulled from the Ocmulgee River. Jesse's body had been in the trunk for nearly 9 months. His throat had been cut. A Telfair County jury sentenced Conner to death July 14, 1982, after convicting him of murder in White's Jan. 9, 1982, beating death. If he dies by lethal injection as scheduled July 14, Conner will have lived exactly 34 years under a death sentence. He'll also be the f1st person convicted in a Telfair County case put to death in more than 3 decades. White's sister, Julia Woodard, said she never thought Conner's execution would be scheduled. After seeing several of her family members die without seeing her brother's killer put to death, she figured Conner, 60, would die in prison. Upon hearing recently that an execution date had been set, "I jumped up and clapped," the McRae woman said. "I'd gotten to the point where I didn't even wait for it." Lawyer: Conner is 'intellectually disabled' Conner's fate rests in the hands of a Butts County Superior Court judge and the Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles. The board is set to hear arguments July 13 about whether Conner should be granted clemency. His execution is set to be carried out on the night of July 14 at the Georgia Diagnostic and Classification State Prison in Jackson, home of the state's death row. Meanwhile, a Butts County judge is considering a request filed by Conner's lawyer, Brian Kammer, to have a jury trial to determine Conner's intellectual status. It has been ruled unconstitutional for an intellectually disabled person to be executed. Kammer said a mental health expert has said his client has "at best, borderline intellectual functioning," and is just on the cut-off for being considered "mentally retarded." "We think we have a very good claim that he is intellectually disabled," he said. If executed, Conner would be Georgia's 6th death row inmate to be executed this year. 13 executions have been carried out since 2013. Jurors who convicted Conner of murder 32 years ago didn't hear evidence of his mental state, Kammer said. The trial lasted just 3 days. He said Conner also comes from one of the most violent and abusive upbringings he's seen in 20 years of representing inmates sentenced to death. His father was a "violent alcoholic" who shot, cut and beat his wife and children, Kammer said. Conner still has a dent in his head from when he was 8 and his father struck him with an ax, he said. "When you grow up in those circumstances, you're not going to do well in life," Kammer said. What's more, prosecutors these days aren't seeking the death penalty in cases involving fights that turn fatal such as the one between White and Conner, he said. "His case is like an artifact of a bygone era," Kammer said. He described his client as a "model inmate" who is "very well-liked in prison." Conner is a "peacemaker" who has a calming influence on younger inmates, Kammer said. 'He's a threat' Woodard and Smyth plan to attend Conner's clemency hearing to talk about their slain brothers, and to argue that Conner should be put to death. Woodard described the slain White as a bashful young man who was divorced and raising a 5-year-old daughter when he was killed. He worked at a local saw shop. "He wouldn't have done nothing against nobody," she said. She recalls him saying how he didn't fight because he "couldn't hurt another human." White was her friend. Of her 5 brothers, he was the one who was her confidant. She said Conner being executed won't just be justice for her brother, but also for Smyth and another man Conner fatally shot as a teenager. Smyth, who lives in Alabama, said he remembers his mother becoming sick from crying, not knowing what happened to his brother. Nothing was ever the same. His family became torn apart, he said. Before his mother died, she passed along information about how to stay in touch with the state and to be notified when Conner's execution was scheduled, Smyth said. "He's a threat. He will kill and kill again if he is out," Smyth said. "There is no rehabilitation for people like that." He said his brother treated Conner like a friend. To Smyth, it doesn't seem fair that Conner - if he is executed - will be injected and, as Smyth put it, go to sleep. "He'll go out quietly," Smyth said, "painlessly." (source: Macon Telegraph) FLORIDA: Man seeks release on bond before retrial in notorious Broward triple murder A man who spent 16 years on death row for 3 murders he insists he did not commit went before a Broward judge Friday to ask for a bond so he can leave jail as he and his lawyers prepare for a retrial. Broward Circuit Judge Raag Singhal said he will need time to review volumes of material provided by both sides and will make a decision July 14 on whether Pablo Ibar, 44, should go free while he awaits trial. Ibar was sentenced to death in 2000 for the murders of Casimir "Butch Casey" Sucharski, the flashy former owner of the Casey's Nickelodeon nightclub, and Sharon Anderson and Marie Rogers, 2 women he brought home with him early on June 26, 1994, the same morning 2 men chose to rob Sucharski's Miramar house. The case has proved one of the most expensive and time consuming in Broward history, with prosecutors going after 2 co-defendants spanning 4 trials so far, taking up more than 20 months in front of the juries. Ibar and former co-defendant Seth Penalver first went on trial together in 1997, with the jury deadlocking after 8 months of testimony. Penalver's 2nd trial ended in a conviction in 1999 after 6 months, and Ibar was convicted after a 6-week trial the following year. But Penalver was granted a retrial, which ended with his acquittal in 2012. Penalver was among more than 2 dozens supporters and family members who attended Friday's bond hearing before Singhal. Ibar was granted a retrial earlier this year, with the Florida Supreme Court ruling that Ibar's defense lawyer at trial, Kayo Morgan, failed to retain a facial recognition expert to challenge the prosecution's evidence that Ibar was at the scene of the crime. The brutal beating of Sucharski and all three murders were captured on home surveillance video, and the man believed to be Ibar left his face uncovered for part of the video. Ibar is legally entitled to bail unless prosecutors can demonstrate that the evidence against him is stronger than what a jury would require for conviction. Defense lawyers, led by Benjamin Waxman and Fred Haddad, told Singhal Friday that the Supreme Court's decision granting the retrial contained language showing prosecutors cannot meet that burden. In one place, the ruling described the evidence against Ibar as "scant." But prosecutor William Sinclair said the case remains strong enough to keep Ibar in custody. Both sides are pushing for the trial to get underway by this fall, and attorneys told Singhal they expect it to last 4 months. (source: Sun-Sentinel) OHIO: The priest, the exonerated death row inmate and their continued battle against the death penalty 156 people on death row in the United States have been exonerated since 1973. One of them sits on a stone walkway, between the Capitol building and the Supreme Court, at the feet of a Catholic priest. "Joe and I have big disagreements about God," says the priest, Father Neil, who's wearing a Cleveland Cavaliers T-shirt and sitting on a bench Thursday afternoon. Joe says that there's a reason God put him in jail, on death row, for decades, but God doesn't operate that way. "That's injustice. That's sin. That has nothing to do with God. And Joe disagrees. He --" "Because I think my testimony of 22 years is so much more powerful than a guy that was in there for a year," Joe says from the ground, jabbing the air with his hand-rolled cigarette. "And that's one of the reasons why I do our talks. Is because I think I was saved. Because I had no luck. I'm on death row! So it???s God's providence --" "But 22 years?" " -- to send me him." "22 years, Joe." "We do this every time. Argue back and forth." A speaker squeals with feedback across First Street NE. The sun is setting on the second day of a fast and vigil to abolish the death penalty. Joe, 54, and Father Neil, 57, will soon address the crowd, if there is a crowd, in front of a banner noting that Saturday marks 40 years since the Supreme Court affirmed the constitutionality of the death penalty. These days it's not easy to muster an army of abolitionists, even though American opposition to capital punishment - 37 % against - hasn't been this high since the early 1970s, according to Gallup. The new draft of the Democratic Party platform released Friday envisions abolition, and says the death penalty "has no place in the United States of America." Still, "it's the taboo issue," Joe says. Even though there are dozens and dozens of exonerees in the United States, "people don't wanna hear that, because that shows the giant flaw in our justice system. If they can't get that right, and they're willing to murder people." America is very animated right now on the other Big Issues. Last month's mass shooting in Orlando brought people out into the streets to demand gun-control legislation. Hundreds mobbed the steps of the Supreme Court on Monday to await the decision on an abortion case. So far this year 14 men have been executed in the United States, all by lethal injection. In California alone, 743 prisoners await the same fate. "People want to be right-to-life if it's innocent right-to-life, but not if it might be guilty right-to-life," Father Neil says. "It's a very deep contradiction." They share a business card. Above their names it says "Speaking Truth to Power." They have a 2-man act: the former dead man walking and the man of God who helped set him free. In 1988 Joe D???Ambrosio was 26, just out of the Army, a new hire at a landscaping company in Cleveland. Within weeks he was arrested and charged with the murder of a 19-year-old who was found in a creek with his throat cut from ear to ear. By the following year, Joe, an innocent man with no priors, was a convicted murderer on death row, a prison within a prison. He spent the next 10 years teaching himself law, unaware that he was really waiting for God to send Father Neil. Born into a Catholic family and raised with 7 sibilings, Neil Kookoothe first became a nurse, then became a lawyer, then became a parish priest who also ministered to death-row inmates. "He had to be all 3 things," Joe says. "That's God's providence all day long." If Neil weren't a lawyer, he wouldn???t have been troubled by the transcript of Joe's sentencing hearing, which was unusually short and glib. Because he was a nurse, it was easy to deduce that the victim could not have screamed for help, as court testimony had claimed, with his trachea slashed to bits. And if Neil wasn't a priest, he wouldn't have been in a prison in the '90s to hear of Joe's case in the first place. The case is far more complicated than providence; it involved years of studying, investigation, and negligence and misconduct on the part of authorities, who withheld evidence. All of this has been well-documented by Cleveland media. All of this led - after a torturous and prolonged appeals process - to Joe's exoneration in 2012, after the case made it all the way to the Supreme Court. Now Joe and Father Neil are back outside that court for a couple days of vigiling. They drove down together from Ohio, where Joe is a handyman and factotum at Father Neil's parish. Joe says his family abandoned him after the conviction, and so Father Neil became the brother he never had. They speak in tandem about how it's better to let 1,000 guilty people walk free than take the life of one innocent man. They hold banners together by the steps of the court. They try to talk to passersby about how several states in the last decade abolished the death penalty, about how DNA testing and botched executions are proving how unreliable and cruel the criminal-justice system can be. It's hard to get anyone's attention on First Street. Everyone's hurrying home, or jogging, or their ears are plugged up with music. Around 7 p.m., it's their turn at the microphone, in front of a banner that reads "40 Years of Blood on Our Hands." In the amber glow of the sunset, their voices echoing between the facades of the Capitol and the court, they tell their story. There's little hope for an innocent man condemned to death, they say, if he doesn't have a friend who's advocating on the outside. They get close to tears, but end their speech with a rehearsed joke about sharing a hotel room when they travel, to save expenses. "I do sleep with 1 eye open," Father Neil says, "just to be on the safe side." "Uh, I sleep with 1 eye open," Joe says. "He's the Catholic priest." And the shocked laughter from the small crowd is what finally gets pedestrians to turn their heads. (source: Washington Post) USA: 14% of Death Row Inmates Are There Because of Just 5 Prosecutors ---- Report argues overzealous DAs are making the death penalty arbitrary Just f5 prosecutors representing less than 0.2% of US counties are responsible for 14% of all people currently on death row and 5% of people sentenced to death in the past 40 years. That's according to a recently released report from Harvard Law School's Fair Punishment Project. The report - subtitled "How overzealous personalities drive the death penalty" - found the death penalty was more about prosecutors cultivating an "over-aggressive" and "reckless" style than the actual crimes, the Huffington Post reports. And, according to the Guardian, that leads to a "highly arbitrary" use of the death penalty. The 5 prosecutors, who have sentenced a total of 440 people to death, are Joe Britt in North Carolina, Bob Macy in Oklahoma, Lynne Abraham in Pennsylvania, Johnny Holmes in Texas, and Donnie Myers in South Carolina. Only Myers is still serving as a prosecutor. All 5 prosecutors seem to relish securing the death penalty. Myer has an electric chair paperweight. Macy, who got a 16-year-old sentenced to death, saw it as his "patriotic duty." Abraham says she's never doubted one of her death sentences, despite 2 of them later being exonerated. And that leads to another problem: the "illegal or unethical behavior" that seems to go hand-in-hand with a passion for the death penalty. Misconduct was found in 1/3 of Macy's 54 death sentences, and 3 of them were exonerated. Britt was found to have committed misconduct in more than 1/3 of his 38 death sentences and had 2 developmentally disabled teens exonerated. Myers was found to have a 46% misconduct rate, often for excluding jurors on the basis of race. He once referred to a black defendant as "King Kong" and a "beast of burden." (source: newser.com) ****************** Democratic Party Endorses Abolishing The Death Penalty - Breaking With Hillary Clinton----The party platform says it's time to end the practice, even though the presumptive nominee still supports it. "I do think there are certain egregious cases that still deserve the consideration of the death penalty," Hillary Clinton said in October. The draft of the 2016 Democratic Party platform endorses abolishing the death penalty, a break with the views of its presumptive presidential nominee. "We will abolish the death penalty, which has proven to be a cruel and unusual form of punishment. It has no place in the United States of America," reads the document, which the Democratic National Committee released Friday afternoon. The 2012 platform did not call for an end to capital punishment, instead saying that "the death penalty must not be arbitrary." The position in the new platform is at odds with what Hillary Clinton has said she supports. In October, she acknowledged significant issues with the way the punishment has been used, but said it should not be ended altogether. "We have a lot of evidence now that the death penalty has been too frequently applied, and too often in a discriminatory way," she said. "So I think we have to take a hard look at it." "I do not favor abolishing it, however, because I do think there are certain egregious cases that still deserve the consideration of the death penalty, but I'd like to see those be very limited and rare, as opposed to what we've seen in most states," she added. In March, she said she would "breathe a sigh of relief if either the Supreme Court or the states, themselves, began to eliminate the death penalty." But, she added, she believes it still has some value right now on the federal level. "Where I end up is this, and maybe it is distinction that is hard to support, but at this point, given the challenges we face from terrorist activities primarily in our country that end up under federal jurisdiction for very limited purposes, I think that it can still be held in reserve for those," she said, citing the Oklahoma City bombing as an example. More recently, the Clinton campaign told The Huffington Post that she supports the death penalty for Dylann Roof, the accused shooter of nine parishioners at a historically black church in Charleston, South Carolina. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Clinton's competitor in the primary, opposes capital punishment. A Clinton campaign spokesperson emphasized that the platform "represents diverse views across the democratic coalition," even though in some cases, such as on the death penalty, the "presumptive nominee has a slightly different position." The platform is a compromise document between Clinton and Sanders supporters. Sanders received an unprecedented amount of say in the platform when the Democratic National Committee allowed him to name 5 members to the 15-member committee. Hillary Clinton chose 6, and DNC Chair Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.) picked 4. The committee - both Sanders and Clinton appointees - approved the death penalty provision, with only 1 abstention by a DNC appointee. The draft now heads to the full 187-member platform committee for approval on July 8 and 9 in Orlando. It will then be ratified on the floor of the convention in Philadelphia. (source: Amanda Terkel, Senior Political Reporter, The Huffington Post) From rhalperi at smu.edu Sat Jul 2 15:40:32 2016 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Sat, 2 Jul 2016 15:40:32 -0500 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide Message-ID: July 2 PHILIPPINES: Manila lawmaker files bill reviving death penalty A member of the House of Representatives from Metro Manila filed the first bill for the revival of the controversial death penalty in support of the vow of President Rodrigo "Rody" Duterte to stamp out corruption and rampant criminality especially illegal drugs "in 3 to 6 months." Congressman Ruffy Biazon of Muntinlupa City in Metro Manila said his bill sought to amend the law banning the imposition of capital punishment which Congress had passed in 2004. "Filing the bill ahead will give the bill (an advantage) so it could be referred to the (appropriate) House committee and hopefully, taken up ahead in its agenda," Biazon pointed out. Biazon was among the 90 House members who filed their pet bills on the first day of the filing on Thursday before the House and the Senate would open the 16th Congress on July 25 for a joint session to hear Duterte deliver his first state-of-nation address. Duterte strongly urged the revival of the death penalty to strengthen his vow for an all-out war on corruption and rampant criminality especially illegal drugs which, he warned, were destroying particularly the youth of the land. But even before Congress could act on its revival, officials said an intensified police campaign resulted in the death of more than 60 suspected "drug lords" and dealers since the May 9 election. On Friday, police reported that at least 8 more "major" drug dealers - 6 from Bulacan in Central Luzon and 1 each from Sorsogon in the Bicol Region and Negros Oriental in the Visayas - were killed in "shoot-outs" a day after Duterte took his oath as the country's 16th president. Duterte pressed for the restoration of the death penalty despite strong opposition from Pope Francis as well as local human rights advocates led by the Commission on Human Rights (CHR) and the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines (CBCP). Without referring to any country, Pope Francis warned against the return of capital punishment in his recent message sent to an international conference against its revival which was hosted by Oslo in Norway. The Philippine Congress abolished the death penalty and replaced it with life imprisonment which was imposed on "heinous" crimes like plunder, illegal drugs, murder, kidnap-for-ransom, robbery-homicide and rape. (source: The Gulf Today) TRINIDAD: Man to hang for killing probation officer The mother of murdered Cedros probation officer, Krysta Lackpatsingh, broke down in tears yesterday after the man accused of stabbing her daughter to death 12 years ago was found guilty and sentenced to hang. It was after an hour and 20 minutes of deliberation that the 12-member jury in the San Fernando First Assizes returned with a guilty verdict against Jason Housten. Asked by the court officer whether he wished to say anything before sentence is passed, Housten, 36, said: "No, Sir." As he was being escorted to prison, Housten, who claimed someone had threatened to kill him and his brother if he did not confess to killing Krysta, 23, smiled for photographers outside the court. Speaking with reporters afterwards, Krysta's mother, Jade Lackpatsingh, called on the Government to enforce the death penalty. Wiping away tears, Lackpatsingh, who along with her husband Steve attended the trial every day said: "I believe in the death penalty. I think that is why Trinidad is the way it is now. People feel they can do what they want and get away. She (Krysta) was young and had so much to live for." She said her daughter, who was attached to the Point Fortin Magistrates Court, had returned home early that fateful day to type up a report on the family's computer because a computer had not yet been installed at work. The parents, who found their daughter's body in a pool of blood at their Lime Field Road home when they returned from work, said for a long time they avoided walking in the area they found her body. "It felt like we walking on her," said Jade. After all these years, the parents, both teachers, said her room remained untouched and her clothes were still in her drawers. The father said they placed a table with a picture of Krysta in the area where she died. And every time he passes he says "girl I hope you rest in peace." He said every year on her death anniversary they would put a new ornament on the table. State attorneys Shabaana Shah and Stacy Laloo-Chong led evidence from 12 witnesses during the trial which started before Justice Carla Brown-Antoine in May. Housten confessed to the police, detailing how he forced his way into the Lackpatsingh's home on January 20, 2004, and stabbed her more than 20 times. He spoke about how he took a kitchen knife, stabbed her repeatedly as she begged for her life. blood spilled out of her. He told police he went upstairs where he He stole $1,500 from a purse and came back downstairs where he used a wet towel to wipe off his bloody hand and foot prints. Housten, who was represented by attorneys Rekha Ramjit and Gina Ramjohn, did not deny giving the police oral and written statements. However, he claimed his cellmate and fellow villager who was also detained by police in connection with Krysta's murder, threatened to kill him if he did not take the rap. He said while they were in the station cell together the man told him what to tell the police. Under cross-examination however, Housten admitted he made up certain parts of the his statement, but he denied killing Krysta. Among the officers involved in the investigations were ASP Paul, ASP Paloo, Insp Flaveny, Cpl Ramtoole, Cpl Hood and others. (source: Trinidad GUardian) JAPAN: Japan dances with the death penalty Last week, Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte announced his plans to reinstate the death penalty, which was abolished in his country in 2006. Duterte says he believes in retribution: If you kill someone, you deserve to die. Some people are shocked by this rationale, but they shouldn't be. The death penalty has always been more or less about revenge, though it is sometimes justified as a deterrent. The Japanese government has never clearly explained its adoption of capital punishment except to say that most Japanese people want it. In recent years, some have called for a nationwide debate on the death penalty, including 1 justice minister who actually signed off on an execution for the purpose of starting such a debate. Recently, several major newspapers, including The Japan Times, published the name of the man who was sentenced to death for 2 murders he committed in Ishinomaki, Miyagi Prefecture, in 2010 as a minor. Making this name public breaks a self-imposed rule that people arrested or convicted as minors will not be identified publicly. The ostensible reason for this rule is that the suspect has a chance at rehabilitation, which means he or she could re-enter society at some future date. In the minor's case, some newspapers claimed that, since the young man in question was condemned to death, there was no possibility of rehabilitation, so it was OK to print his name. This reasoning has always been used by the tabloids and weeklies, especially Shukan Shincho, which has often published the names of people arrested for murder as minors. Shincho's real reasons are cynical - they know if they print the name, people will buy the magazine - but they explain the disclosure by saying the public has a right to know, as if understanding the name of a boy who killed someone would make readers better citizens. Regardless of one's opinion of such revelations, the argument over whether or not it is ethical is a sideshow to the main event: shallow, one-sided coverage of a capital case. In journalist Keiko Horikawa's 2013 book about Norio Nagayama, who was convicted of murdering 4 people in 1968 when he was 19 and executed in 1997, she explains how the Supreme Court's reversal of a lower court's reduction of Nagayama's sentence to life-in-prison gave rise to the so-called Nagayama Criteria, which are used by judges to determine whether or not they should impose the death penalty. Among these criteria are previous criminal record, number of people killed, degree of remorse, age at the time of the crime, impact on society, method of killing and the feelings of victims' families. Though they have been referenced in court, experts say they have never constituted a uniform judicial standard. In fact, the application of Nagayama Criteria, especially those regarding victims' families, social impact and the perceived "brutality" factor, tends to be determined by public sentiment rather than the tenets of criminal justice. Convicted murderers are now being sentenced to death based on considerations that would not have led to capital punishment in the past. So while the number of murders has dropped in the last few decades, the number of death sentences has increased. Horikawa believes the change has come about through an effort to make people feel "less guilty" about the death penalty. When the lay judge system was implemented 7 years ago, it institutionalized this effort by giving average people the power to put someone to death. First, certain standards had to be allowed into court and emphasized, such as the feelings of victims' families, who are now allowed to question defendants before a verdict is reached, even if they have pleaded not guilty. In Horikawa's book, 1 of the lay judges for the Ishinomaki case is quoted as having said after the trial, "If the victim's family hadn't demanded it, I wouldn't have voted for capital punishment." In the March issue of Sekai magazine, Masayoshi Taguchi writes about how he formed his group, the Lay Judge Community Club, made up of former lay judges like himself, for the purpose of studying capital punishment so that future lay judges would be able to make better decisions. Several members of LJCC heard capital cases, and they say the only things they were told about the death penalty during the trial is that the execution must take place within 6 months of the sentence's finalization and that hanging is the method used. The group sent a letter in February 2014 to the Justice Ministry asking it to explain the "system," including how death-row inmates spend their days, why Japan maintains the death penalty, why it chose hanging, how the ministry decides when a person is to be put to death, and why condemned prisoners are not informed of their execution until the morning it is to take place. The ministry never answered the letter, despite follow-up phone calls and messages. Taguchi writes that at his 1st post-execution press conference, Justice Minister Mitsuhide Iwaki made a point of mentioning "the victims' families' feelings," even though, according to the law, the death penalty is not supposed to be used to "satisfy desires for revenge." At another press conference last December, where Iwaki announced 2 executions - including that of Sumitoshi Tsuda, whose death was decided by a member of the LJCC - a reporter for the Asahi Shimbun asked him if the ministry will ever reply to the LJCC's letter. Iwaki said they are still studying the matter, which in bureaucratese means, "No, we will not." The government doesn't want to talk about it and, for the most part, the media doesn't either. Last year, during a news conference for a book she had just published about the victims of Hiroshima, Horikawa said she started writing books about capital punishment because it was a taboo subject for the mainstream media. That's not entirely true. The media loves covering murder cases from the standpoint of victims' families, who have their full attention. When the purpose is retribution, no effort is too great. Understanding is something else. (source: Philip Brasor, The Japan Times) BARBADOS----new death sentence: Bynoe found guilty Jamar Dewayne Bynoe, accused of the deaths of 6 women in the Campus Trendz fire, has been found guilty on 6 counts of murder and sentenced to death by hanging. The verdict in the so-called Campus Trendz trial was handed down a short while ago. The 6 young women died in a fire at the former Tudor Street boutique following an alleged robbery in September 2010. (source: Barbados Today) From rhalperi at smu.edu Sun Jul 3 08:35:31 2016 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Sun, 3 Jul 2016 08:35:31 -0500 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----ALA., IND., USA Message-ID: July 3 ALABAMA: Morgan County judge denies motion to rule death penalty unconstitutional If found guilty in a trial scheduled for Aug. 22, a capital murder defendant could face the death penalty despite a defense effort to have the state's death penalty law declared unconstitutional. Morgan County Circuit Court Judge Steven Haddock, citing a state appeals court ruling, has denied Marqueze Smith's motion to bar the state from seeking the death penalty. Haddock last month denied the motion and declined to rule the state's death sentencing scheme unconstitutional in advance of Smith's retrial scheduled for this fall. Haddock had delayed a decision on the matter during a March hearing in which defense attorney Britt Cauthen cited a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that struck down Florida's sentencing scheme in capital cases. Haddock's ruling on June 21 followed an Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals ruling June 17 that said the state law is constitutional. The appeals court ordered Jefferson County Circuit Court Judge Tracie Todd to vacate her ruling that prosecutors couldn't seek the death penalty against 4 men because the state's death sentencing scheme was unconstitutional because it was similar to the Florida case struck down by the Supreme Court. The appellate court ruling said the state's capital murder sentencing scheme is constitutional because in Alabama "it is the jury, not the trial court, that makes the critical finding necessary for imposition of the death penalty ...." Haddock said in his ruling that he "is bound generally by the rulings issued" by the state's appellate courts. Cauthen was not surprised by Haddock's ruling. "We knew that was going to happen," he said. "We were hoping it wouldn't happen." Cauthen added that the U.S. Supreme Court has sent 3 death penalty cases back to the state that are similar to the Florida case. "It's not over yet," he said. "We're just in a holding pattern." Morgan County Assistant District Attorney Jerry Knight said prosecutors expected Haddock to rule in the state's favor. "Haddock said he felt bound by the Court of Criminal Appeals, and there wasn't any discretion left for him on the constitutionality of it," Knight said. In Hurst vs. Florida, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled Florida's death penalty scheme unconstitutional because the Sixth Amendment requires a jury to find the aggravating factors needed to impose the death penalty. Florida's law allowed a judge to decide the facts and override a jury's "advisory" sentencing recommendation. Florida's law has been changed since the January court ruling. Smith, 35, is scheduled to go on trial in August for the 2003 killing of Jeremy Black. Smith was convicted of capital murder and sentenced to death in 2012, but the Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals overturned his conviction in 2014 and ordered a new trial. The appeals court in Smith's case said the fact a witness against Smith had passed a polygraph test should not have been allowed into the trial during the prosecution's closing argument because it bolstered the witness' credibility. Evidence from a polygraph test is not admissible in court, the appeals court said. ********************* Huntsville men indicted for capital murder in Brandon Harris shooting 2 Huntsville men have been indicted for capital murder in connection with the November shooting death of Brandon Harris while Harris sat in a car in a Southeast Decatur alley. Jovan Deante Anderson, 25, and Gary Lorenzo Hill Jr., 24, were each charged with 1 count of capital murder in indictments recently returned by a Morgan County grand jury, according to Morgan County District Attorney Scott Anderson. Jovan Anderson told police in a sworn statement that Hill shot Harris, 30, for selling Hill fake marijuana. Scott Anderson said he has not decided whether to seek the death penalty if Jovan Anderson and Hill are convicted. A capital murder conviction carries a sentence of either life in prison without the possibility of parole or execution. Scott Anderson has said the men were charged with capital murder because it involved shooting into an occupied vehicle. Scott Anderson said a decision to seek the death penalty isn't something to take lightly or to make a quick decision about. "We're still looking through the evidence," Anderson said after a hearing for 4 young Decatur residents accused of killing 2 men last year. "We've got these cases on the front-burner. We've got Marqueze Smith on the front-burner. And we've got 2 capital trials in August." Smith is to be retried for the 2003 shooting death of Jeremy Black. Terrence Baker, a friend of Harris' since childhood, said he wants to see justice served, but doesn't want Jovan Anderson and Hill executed if found guilty. He said he has been praying for the families of Jovan Anderson and Hill. "Honestly, I'm not a harsh person," said Baker, who is director of Strengthening the Integrity 4 Future Families (STIFF). "Brandon was like a brother to me. The pain we've suffered with his death shouldn't be placed on anybody. I don't wish death on anyone." Harris' sisters "don't want to ever see these guys again," Baker said. Police testified in a March hearing that Hill was seen holding a pistol minutes before Harris was shot in an alley behind his home at 1616 Wadsworth St. S.E. Witnesses at the hearing said they never saw Jovan Anderson with a gun. Jovan Anderson said in a police statement that he was not in the alley when the shooting occurred. Jovan Anderson is in Morgan County Jail with bail set at $150,000. Hill is in Morgan County Jail without bail. (source for both: Decatur Daily) INDIANA: Death-row prisoner runs out of appeals Joseph Corcoran waits. The convicted killer has been on Indiana's death row for nearly 20 years, in 1998 sentenced by Allen Superior Court Judge Fran Gull to death for a quadruple murder. Armed with a shotgun, Corcoran killed his brother, James Corcoran, 30; his sister's fiancee, Robert Scott Turner, 32; and 2 of his brother's friends, Timothy G. Bricker, 30, and Douglas A. Stillwell, 30, in a home on Bayer Avenue in July 1997. Since his incarceration, Corcoran has bragged about killing his parents, also with a shotgun in Steuben County in 1992 - a crime for which he was charged and acquitted. To say his case has been heavily litigated is probably an understatement. It has been heard in Indiana's Court of Appeals and Supreme Court, and the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Indiana and the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals. Corcoran's appeal has even been heard by the U.S. Supreme Court on multiple occasions. In 2010, his sentence of death was reinstated by the nation's highest court, overturning a ruling by the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals. It appears that that was the end. In March, the Supreme Court denied Corcoran's request to have his case reviewed by the court for a 3rd time. The refusal to hear it again lets stand a 2015 ruling by the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago that upheld lower federal court rulings that left the sentence of death in place. He has no more appeals left in Indiana, either. For the past decade or so, the courts have looked at whether Gull improperly considered factors against Corcoran in his sentencing, or whether she properly considered factors in his favor. The state of Indiana can request the death penalty if a defendant is found to have committed murder with at least 1 aggravating circumstance, such as the age of the victim, multiple victims, while committing another crime or killing a law enforcement officer. In Corcoran's case, Gull found that one of the aggravating circumstances existed, specifically the multiple victims. But when she sentenced Corcoran to death, she cited several factors against him - the innocence of the victims, the heinousness of the crime and the likelihood Corcoran would kill again. She also cited factors to be considered in his favor, but gave them less weight than what she considered against him. In 2000, Gull rewrote her sentencing order, carefully explaining what she considered and what she did not. The order reaffirmed the death penalty, and it has ultimately survived challenges in state and federal courts for the past 13 years. In 2013, U.S. District Court Judge Jon DeGuilio upheld Gull's order, after Corcoran's attorneys filed a writ of habeas corpus asking for another review of the sentence. DeGuilio denied their request but allowed them to appeal to the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago, which they did in the fall of 2013. It was on Corcoran to show the appellate court that Gull's sentence was unreasonable. The 7th Circuit backed DeGuilio, and, as of an order issued in late March, the U.S. Supreme Court won't hear it anymore. For now, the 41-year-old Corcoran, who is a paranoid schizophrenic, sits in a cell in the Indiana State Prison in Michigan City, 1 of 14 people in the Indiana Department of Correction under the sentence of death, according to the Indiana Department of Correction. The last execution in the state was in 2009, with the death by lethal injection of Matthew Wrinkles who was convicted of the murder of his wife, brother-in-law and his brother-in-law's wife in 1994. A lawsuit is pending in LaPorte County Circuit Court on the use of Indiana's 3-drug protocol for executions. The lawsuit was filed in January by death-row inmate Roy Lee Ward against the Indiana Department of Corrections. There was a hearing held Friday on a motion by the State of Indiana to dismiss the lawsuit, but no ruling has been issued yet, according to court record. No executions are scheduled, according to the Department of Correction. And the Indiana Attorney General has not asked for a date for Corcoran's execution, officials said. Corcoran's attorney, Alan Freedman, said there is but 1 likely option left: clemency. That is probably a longshot option, based on recent behavior by past Indiana governors. Democrat Gov. Joseph Kernan granted clemency twice. In 2004, Kernan commuted the sentence of Darnell Williams because his co-defendant received a sentence of life without parole. Again in 2005, Kernan commuted a death sentence to life without parole, this time in the case of Michael Daniels. There were doubts about Michael Daniels' personal responsibility for the crime, according to the Death Penalty Information Center. Gov. Mitch Daniels, a Republican, granted clemency to Arthur P. Baird II in 2005. The family of Baird's victims believed he deserved a life sentence because of his mental illness. No clemency has been granted in the past decade in the Hoosier State. (source: The Journal Gazette) USA: The Prosecutors Who Aim to Kill One kept a paperweight model of an electric chair on his desk. Another boasted about being named the "deadliest prosecutor in America" by the Guinness Book of World Records and mocked defendants with intellectual disabilities. A third was dragged from the courtroom when jurors who acquitted six defendants he had charged with shooting police officers said he approached them and reached for his gun. These 5 people are members of a very small club: The death sentences they have obtained are equal to 15 % of the current national death row population. Even as most states have moved away from capital punishment, the practice continues to be used in a tiny fraction of counties, and under the leadership of specific prosecutors, according to a new report by the Fair Punishment Project at Harvard Law School. The prosecutors are Joe Freeman Britt in North Carolina, Robert Macy in Oklahoma, Donnie Myers in South Carolina, Lynne Abraham in Philadelphia and Johnny Holmes in Texas. Of these 5, only Mr. Myers remains in office. But during their tenures, each either secured dozens of death sentences personally or led offices that won hundreds. And each, in his or her way, embodies the vindictive, idiosyncratic nature of state-sanctioned killing. The 5 prosecutors also share a disturbing tendency to break the rules to win. Mr. Macy - the one who pulled a gun on the jury - won 54 death sentences during 2 decades as Oklahoma County's district attorney. But courts overturned almost 1/2 of them, and they found him guilty of misconduct in 1/3 of them. 3 people he sent to death row were later exonerated. In 2002, a federal appeals court said that Mr. Macy's persistent misconduct "without doubt harmed the reputation of Oklahoma's criminal justice system." Mr. Britt was found to have committed misconduct in more than 1/3 of the 38 death penalty cases he had won; Mr. Myers, in nearly 1/2 of his 39 wins. Another prosecutor said of Mr. Myers, "Virtually the only time you see him in the courtroom is when he's trying to kill people." Most revealing, the frequency of death sentences sought and won in these prosecutors' counties dropped dramatically after they left office. During Mr. Holmes's 21-year tenure, which ended in 2000, juries in Harris County, Tex., sentenced 201 people to death, almost 1 a month. Since 2008, the average has been about 1 a year. The report identifies 8 more recent or current prosecutors who have sought the death penalty far more than their colleagues around the country. And many of their records are rife with misconduct. As long as the death penalty remains legal, people like this will find their way into positions where they have the power to make life-or-death decisions. The United States is one of the last developed countries to continue killing its citizens in the name of the state, but it is misleading to talk about the death penalty as an American phenomenon. As the report shows, capital punishment today is driven largely by individuals in a few locations. That is, the rate of death sentences has less to do with the crimes of the people being prosecuted than with the men and women doing the prosecuting. (source: Editorial, New York Times) ************************ Abolitionists Promote Message of Compassion on 40th Anniversary of Gregg V. Georgia In December 1986, SuZann Bosler was stabbed and left for dead and witnessed her father, the Reverend Billy Bosler, be killed by an intruder seeking to rob them for drug money at their church parsonage in Opa Locka Florida. As a Brethren minister, Rev. Bosler had been an opponent of capital punishment, and had once told SueZann that if he was ever murdered he would not want his killer to receive the death penalty. On her father's behalf, SueZann worked for 10 1/2 years to spare the life of his murderer, James Bernard Campbell, and found it in her heart to forgive him. She in turn helped found the organization Journey of Hope (https://www.journeyofhope.org/) consisting of family members of murder-victims opposed to the death penalty. The organization believes the death penalty is an act of revenge that will not bring back their loved ones but perpetuate an endless cycle of violence and that it is foolish to show people killing is wrong by killing. This holiday weekend Journey of Hope organized a 4 day vigil and teach-in in front of the Supreme Court in conjunction with the national abolitionist organization Starvin' for Justice to coincide with the anniversary of the 1972 Furman v. Georgia and 1976 Gregg v. Georgia Supreme Court cases abolishing and then reinstituting capital punishment. As David Garland points out in his book Peculiar Institution: America's Death Penalty in an Age of Abolition, the Furman case vacating the death sentences of 587 condemned men and 2 women ignited an immediate backlash by white conservatives and death penalty advocates supportive of the Nixon administration's law and order agenda. Georgia's Governor Lester Maddox called the decision a "license for anarchy, rape and murder." Florida was the 1st state to reintroduce capital punishment just months after the Furman decision followed by California under Governor Ronald Reagan and Georgia under Governor Jimmy Carter. The Gregg v. Georgia case which followed suit was premised on the argument that democratically elected legislators and not the Supreme Court should determine whether the death penalty constituted cruel and unusual punishment. Garland points out that the reinstitution of the death penalty was key to the conservative backlash against civil rights, the Great Society, the liberal Warren Court and cultural changes of the 1960s, and was a product of a new culture of control synonymous with harsh sentencing, mass imprisonment and neoliberal economic policy. Studies have shown that the death penalty does not serve as a deterrent to murder or coincide with declining murder rates, as there are many other variables effecting this, and that it costs 2 to 6 times as much to kill 1 person than to incarcerate him for life. The strongest argument against the death penalty is that it could lead to innocent men or women being killed. It is estimated that 4 % of the approximately 3,000 death row inmates are likely innocent, which amounts to over 100 innocent people who could be killed. In 2003, Illinois Governor George Ryan became convinced the system that had produced so many errors could not be trusted to determine life and death verdicts, even for the guilty, and he emptied death row, granting four pardons and 167 commutations for those with death sentences. Jenn Meeropol spoke outside the Supreme Court at the Starvin' for Justice teach-in last Wednesday about her grandmother Ethel Rosenberg who appears innocent of the charges of espionage directed against her that led to her execution with her husband Julius in 1953. The Rosenberg's did not receive a fair trial in the hysterical climate of McCarthyism. Grand jury testimony released only last year shows that David Greenglass, who worked for the army weapons lab at Los Alamos and served ten years for conspiracy, changed his story between the Grand Jury and actual trial about Ethel having typewritten blueprints of a cross-section of the bomb and having persuaded his wife Ruth to recruit him into a spy ring led by her husband Julius in order to protect Ruth from prosecution. Ethel it appears was convicted and executed not for any direct involvement but simply for failing to turn on her husband who according to the Rosenberg family, never engaged in atomic spying. The Rosenberg's are unfortunately only one of the many cases of people executed unjustly by the state. in 2004, Cameron Todd Willingham was executed by the state of Texas for allegedly starting a house fire that killed his 3 kids, though a forensic review using updated fire science investigative methods revealed there was likely no arson and the fire was an accident- information Texas state authorities chose to ignore in proceeding with the execution. Then there is the case of Clayton Lockett in Oklahoma who died of a heart attack after twitching and shaking while still alive for 25 minutes after he was given an experimental blend of lethal drugs. The botched execution exposed for everyone the barbaric nature of the death penalty. Public support for the death penalty has declined considerably since its peak in the mid-1990s and over 20 states have now abolished it. Nebraska has become a key battleground state on the issue as the legislature voted to rescind it, though the Governor Pete Ricketts (R) vetoed the bill and then financed a $300,000 petition drive with his billionaire father after his veto was overridden. The Journey of Hope activists are traveling to Nebraska next week to lend their support to the abolitionist efforts. I was personally moved to hear the stories of Journey of Hope members who after undergoing traumatic life experiences were able to show compassion towards those who had committed horrible acts. Striving to break the cycle of violence gripping our world today, they promote a message of tolerance, healing and love which we should all embrace. Members of the group include people wrongfully imprisoned such as George White, a former drill sergeant falsely accused of killing his own wife by corrupt, over-zealous prosecutors in Enterprise, Alabama and Shujaa Graham, who was tortured in San Quentin prison after being accused of killing a guard during rebellions that followed the murder of Black Panther Party activist George Jackson. Graham was exonerated after his 4th trial with the help of community activists who organized his legal defense, though still bears some of the psychological scars. He is living example of the racial discrimination and injustice that continue to mar our court system and of the need for systematic reforms which abolishing the death penalty should be central to. (source: Jeremy Kuzmarov, Huffington Post) From rhalperi at smu.edu Sun Jul 3 08:36:23 2016 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Sun, 3 Jul 2016 08:36:23 -0500 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide Message-ID: July 3 MALAWI: Malawian president drafts new law to deal with Albino killers----Malawi President, Peter Mutharika, Friday announced that he will introduce a new law to deal with "evil-minded" people involved in the killings of persons with albinism in the country. Muntharika announced this at a development rally held in the former Malawi capital, Zomba. The president's announcement follows a series of abductions and killings of people with albinism in the country for ritual practices. The Malawi leader denounced the trend and described as "total nonsense" the notion of hoping to get rich by killing persons with albinism for their body parts. "Next week I'm introducing a new law amending the Penal Code," said Mutharika. "You'll see what is waiting for them. There's going to be stiff sentences for anyone found with body parts or bones of human beings," the president added. Malawi's laws stipulate death sentence as a maximum penalty to those convicted of murder but no president has ever endorsed one before. In the wake of the albino killings in Malawi, some sectors of the society have been pushing the authorities to put the death penalty into effect. Recently, parliamentarian for the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), Bon Kalindo conducted demonstration urging Malawi parliament currently sitting in the capital Lilongwe to bring into effect the death penalty to any albino killer in the country. Calls for death penalty to anyone convicted of murder have been watered down by Malawi government and Amnesty International. Amnesty International Media Manager, Robert Shivambu, told journalists at a press briefing held in Lilongwe prior to the meeting with Mutharika that the organization believed that there were other ways of dealing with the matter than death sentence. Malawi Government Spokesperson, Patricia Kaliati, also told state radio MBC, recently that the maximum sentence for murder convicts remained life imprisonment and that Mutharika would not commit himself to be the 1st leader of the country to endorse death sentence. With President Mutharika's announcement of the introduction of a new stiffer law on the matter, it remains to be seen what the Malawi leader has in store for the perpetrators of the infamous killings of people with albinism. Meanwhile, close to 20 cases of cold-blood killings of people with albinism have been reported since 2015 and over 65 cases of abuse and exhumation of graves keeping remains of the body have been reported during the same period. (source: Xinhua/NewsGhana.com.gh) INDIA: UP minister seeks death penalty for corrupt engineers Senior Uttar Pradesh Minister and Samajwadi Party (SP) general secretary Azam Khan courted controversy after he demanded "death penalty" for "corrupt" engineers. Azam Khan, who had, a few days ago, slapped a senior engineer in his Assembly constituency of Rampur, said that engineers, who indulged in corrupt practices and compromised with the quality should be prosecuted under the National Security Act (NSA) and given death penalty. The minister, while referring to the construction of a flyover in his Assembly constituency, charged that the slabs of the structure had collapsed several times and at least 2 labourers had died and many injured in 1 such incident. He also charged that the UP Bridge Corporation, the nodal agency for the construction of the flyover, tried to bury the incidents under the carpet and shielded "corrupt" engineers. On the threat of the engineers that they would proceed on strike if he did not tender an apology, Azam said that they (engineers) would lose their commission if they carried out their threat. Azam, known to be a temperamental person, had caught an executive engineer by his collar, during an inspection in Rampur a few days ago and then slapped him. The aggrieved engineer lodged a written complaint with the engineers' association in the regard. Ashok Tewari, a leader of the association here, had threatened that engineers would go on strike if the minister did not tender an apology. Azam Khan had once publicly used derogatory words for the cops and had also abused an IAS officer. He had then referred to them as "dogs". (source: Deccan Herald) PHILIPPINES: Zero judicial executions under Duterte? Pro-life lawmaker says lawmaking process may take 5 years Despite President Rodrigo Duterte's wish to hang hardened convicts by the neck until they are dead, it is very unlikely that any judicial executions would actually be carried out during his term, simply due to lack of material time, Buhay Rep. Lito Atienza said in a news release Sunday. "Since it is very doubtful that the President would actually see any judicial killings while he is in office, we should just concentrate on effectively suppressing rampant crime by stamping out endemic corruption in law enforcement, the prosecution service, the courts, and in prisons," Atienza said. "Instead of reviving the death penalty, it would be better for the new Congress to push for criminal justice system reforms - to ensure that every felon is instantly nabbed, successfully prosecuted, convicted, and caged forever. This is our best strategy to fight crime -- to dissuade other would-be offenders," Atienza said. No place in civilized society The death penalty has absolutely no place in a civilized and modern nation wholly devoted to the value and dignity of human life, the lawmaker said. "Let us forget about reinstating capital punishment. The best criminologists around the world have long established that the death penalty does not serve any purpose that is not already being served by lifelong imprisonment," Atienza, former 3-term mayor of Manila, said. Duterte has said he wants Congress to restore the death penalty inside six months not necessarily to help deter crime, but as "retribution." But Atienza said even the desire for "payback" is precisely already being served by the permanent incarceration of convicts. Even assuming Congress passes a new law reintroducing the death penalty by yearend, Atienza said it would take another 5 years for new death penalty cases to go through "due process" - from the time a felony is committed until final judgment and execution. "If we look at the cases of the seven convicts put to death by lethal injection during President (Joseph) Estrada's term, they were all executed around 5 years after they committed their crimes," the lawmaker said. He said the Bureau of Corrections killed convicts Leo Echegaray, Eduardo Agbayani, Dante Piandiong, Archie Bulan, Jesus Morallos, Pablito Andan, and Alex Bartolome an average of 61 months after they did the crimes for which they were convicted. Except for Bartolome who was executed in 2000 for a felony committed in 1995, the rest of the convicts were put to death in 1999 for offenses done in 1994. 'Reality check' Atienza said Estrada was able to carry out judicial executions in 1999 because by then the 1993 law that imposed capital punishment for 13 heinous crimes had been in force for 5 years, and death row inmates with final judgments had already started to arrive. Congress formally abolished the death penalty in 2006 after a 6-year halt to judicial executions. "Based on our reckoning, even assuming Congress railroads the revival of the death penalty so that it would take effect by early 2017, the initial convicts with final verdicts would start coming in only by the 1st half of 2022, or toward the last 6 months of the President's term," Atienza said. "5 years of waiting is actually a best case scenario that does not include such factors as potential lawsuits questioning before the Supreme Court the constitutionality of judicial executions by hanging," he said. While the 1987 Constitution gives Congress some leeway to reimpose the death penalty, Atienza said the charter also forbids "cruel, degrading, or inhuman punishment." Section 19 of the Bill of Rights of the Constitution, states: "Excessive fines shall not be imposed, nor cruel, degrading or inhuman punishment inflicted. Neither shall the death penalty be imposed, unless, for compelling reasons involving heinous crimes, the Congress hereafter provides for it. Any death penalty already imposed shall be reduced to reclusion perpetua." (source: interaksyon.com) From rhalperi at smu.edu Mon Jul 4 11:45:32 2016 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Mon, 4 Jul 2016 11:45:32 -0500 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, FLA., LA., KY., MO., NEB., OKLA., ARIZ., CALIF., USA Message-ID: July 4 TEXAS: More court review ordered for Bastrop County murder case The state's top criminal appeals court is asking the trial court in a lengthy Central Texas death penalty case to further review the legality of DNA testing of evidence. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals ruling Wednesday is the latest in a long appeals process for convicted killer Rodney Reed. He's on death row for the rape-slaying 20 years ago of 19-year-old Stacy Stites, whose body was found off the side of a road in Bastrop County. Reed was arrested nearly a year later when his DNA surfaced in another sexual assault case. He long has insisted he and Stites had a consensual sexual relationship. His attorneys want more testing of items. They've argued Stites' police officer fiancee later imprisoned for improper sexual contact is a more likely murder suspect. **************** Top court upholds death sentence in 1975 slaying case The top Texas criminal court has upheld the conviction of a Central Texas man sent to death row 3 years ago for the 1975 rape-slaying of a 20-year-old woman in San Marcos. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals on Wednesday rejected arguments from 62-year-old Willie Jenkins that DNA evidence was faulty and insufficient to prove he killed Sheryl Norris at her apartment. She was a secretary at the Texas Crime Prevention Institute at what's now called Texas State University. Attorneys also challenged jury instructions and contended misconduct by a juror should have resulted in a mistrial. A national DNA database in 2010 tied the long-unsolved case to Jenkins, who was at a California state hospital for violent sexual predators. Trial witnesses tied him to 5 rapes in California and Texas. (source for both: Associated Press) FLORIDA: Abolish the death penalty I have a brother on Death Row. So have you. Execution of a human being is contrary to the will of God, contrary to civilized society, and contrary to any concept of the family of humanity. Execution is premeditated murder. The conspirators are the governor, legislators who allow it to continue and voters who elect them, judges, prosecutors, juries and executioners. The process of condemnation and execution is unjust for well-demonstrated reasons and stupid for well-known practical reasons. I speak for the Episcopal Peace Fellowship of Pensacola. Others will join me. If you love God's creation, or simply believe your conscience forbids you to tolerate this bizarre practice of ritual killing, join us and tens of thousands of others in fighting to abolish the death penalty. William M. Sloan, Pensacola (source: Letter to the Editor, Pensacola News Journal) LOUISIANA: Orleans public defender wins, death penalty groups lose as state redirects money for indigent defense In New Orleans and across Louisiana, public defenders are starting off the new fiscal year on better footing. Gov. John Bel Edwards and the Legislature held steady the total amount of funding the state kicks in for indigent defense, while voting to shift more of that $32 million to the front lines. But the shift has taken a toll on the agencies that represent defendants in capital cases, both at trial and in years of appeals after convictions. 2 of those outfits, the Capital Post Conviction Project of Louisiana and the New Orleans-based Capital Defense Project of Southeast Louisiana, say their budgets have been cut in half, with each losing about $1 million. A bill that Edwards signed June 17 requires the Louisiana Public Defender Board to dole out at least 65 % of its budget to local district defenders, an increase of nearly $5 million from what the state board had been delivering to local defenders in recent years. The biggest beneficiary is the Orleans Parish Public Defenders Office. It will see a nearly $1.5 million increase in state money, bringing its total budget to $7.9 million. That figure assumes funding from the city stays level at $1.5 million, with a modest decline in revenue from fines and fees generated largely from traffic tickets. A long slide in the number of traffic tickets written across Louisiana - the biggest revenue source for most public defender offices in the state - reached a crisis point last year. More than a dozen district defenders curtailed services, cut staff or turned away poor defendants, leaving more than 1,000 arrestees in Louisiana without attorneys. Ultimately, the Legislature spared those offices a steep projected cut in the state's annual supplement to local funding, though advocates note that a largely "user-funded" system remains shaky, with reform elusive. In Orleans Parish, Chief Public Defender Derwyn Bunton described "a burst of resources that's going to delay and mitigate some bad things." The extra cash will mean an end to a hiring freeze and other stiff cutbacks that Bunton resorted to over the past year to grapple with a severe budget shortfall. The added money will allow him to add perhaps 8 lawyers to his depleted staff and to beef up contracts for private attorneys to handle cases in which his office has a conflict, Bunton said. "The good news is we're getting an increase," Bunton said. "But because of the problems created over the last year, we'll be dealing with a backlog of wait-listed and some refused cases." In January, Bunton's office began turning away scores of violent felony cases, citing an overworked staff and the loss of experienced attorneys in his office. The dire budget picture prompted one Orleans Parish judge to order the release of 7 inmates accused of violent crimes, citing a lack of money to represent them - a ruling that has since been blocked on appeal. As it stood Friday, 54 indigent defendants remained on waiting lists for lawyers in New Orleans, according to figures provided by Bunton's office. They have gone without lawyers for as long as 5 months, though most have been waiting for shorter periods. That list has been whittled down from more than 400 at one point. Some ended up hiring private attorneys. For others, judges appointed pro bono lawyers to handle their cases. District Attorney Leon Cannizzaro's office refused charges in some cases, while Bunton's office has made room for others. However, Bunton bristled at the notion that the dwindling roster of unrepresented defendants suggests the problem wasn't as bad as it looked. "The size of the list should not be diminished by the ingenuity of desperation," Bunton said. "Just because you get a lawyer in 6 months and a day doesn't mean no harm happened. This is the Bill of Rights, not a line at Rouse's." Chief State Public Defender Jay Dixon said most but not all local offices will benefit from the shift in state funding. But the statewide funding troubles are far from over, he said. For one thing, he said, the money may not last the year. It also doesn't account for some 300 cases in which a recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling demands new sentencing hearings for inmates who are serving life prison sentences without the possibility of parole for crimes committed while they were juveniles. Just a few of those hearings could cripple smaller parish defenders' offices, he said. In New Orleans, some 70 juvenile lifers are awaiting new hearings, at a cost that Dixon pegged at as much as $50,000 apiece for cases that reach a full-blown hearing. What remains, as district defenders like Bunton try to dig out of a fiscal hole, is a local funding structure that relies mainly on traffic ticket revenue, which for various reasons has slid by some 30 % since 2010, Dixon said. "I'm grateful to the governor, who basically protected our budget, but we've been talking about the shortage in funding for years and we're still in the same place," Dixon said. "The number of tickets keeps going down. As long as local funding keeps dropping, it's putting lipstick on a pig." Whether the Legislature intended it or not, the shift of money to local offices has spelled trouble for capital representation, which saw overall state funding drop from $10 million to a little more than $6 million. The Capital Post-Conviction Project of Louisiana has scored some hard-fought victories in recent years. It helped secure the 2014 release of death row inmate Glenn Ford, then saw a 6-2 U.S. Supreme Court majority grant death row inmate Michael Wearry a new trial this year in a 1998 murder case. But the new legislation has left the agency $1 million short and forced it to reduce its staff from 22 to 12, said Gary Clements, the group's director. "All I can tell you is we put in very high-quality work, and we see positive results," Clements said. "We see the population of death row decreasing. Prosecutors apparently don't seem to like that result." Whether the organization will have to turn away some cases or delay others remains uncertain, he said. "We still have attorneys. We still have support staff. We're still open for business," he said. Also taking a $1 million hit was the Capital Defense Project of Southeast Louisiana, which handles capital cases at trial in various parishes that don't have qualified attorneys to handle them. Few such cases arise these days in Orleans Parish, but director Kerry Cuccia said the volume fluctuates. His budget was reduced from $2.1 million to $1.1 million in the legislative restructuring, he said. Cuccia said he heard proponents of the legislation argue that too much was being spent on capital defense, though he said, "I'm not sure that translated into a purposeful thing to reduce" funding for capital defense, rather than simply a bid to stanch the tide of red ink among local public defenders offices. "The fiscal problems this Legislature and the governor had to face in this session were mammoth," he noted. Cuccia said the Legislature has taken some steps over the years to bolster funding for poor defendants, increasing the state's contribution and in 2012 approving a $10 increase in the fee that convicts and traffic violators must pay to support indigent defense. But that increase hasn't done much to solve the problem. "I would not say the Legislature kicked the can down the road," Cuccia said. "They tried to address it. The things they have done have not worked out to provide enough for what the demand is." (source: The Advocate) KENTUCKY: ATTORNEY SAYS CAPITAL PUNISHMENT IS ON A DOWNWARD SPIRAL A Kentucky native who has helped overturn dozens of death sentences says it's "inevitable" that the death penalty will come to an end in the United States. It remains legal for now in 31 states including Kentucky, but attorney Stephen Bright says capital punishment is on a steady downward trend toward abolition. Bright is president and senior counsel at the Atlanta-based Southern Center for Human Rights. Last month, he won a new trial for a Georgia death-row inmate, when the U-S Supreme Court, in a 7-to-1 ruling, said the defendant's constitutional rights had been violated at trial. The 68-year-old Bright has now won all 3 of the capital cases he has argued before the nation's highest court. He grew up on a farm outside of Danville in the 1960's, in a community that at that time was, in his words, "still segregated for the most part." Bright says he was influenced by Martin Luther King Junior. Bright was student body president at U-K when protests against the Vietnam War reached their boiling point on campus, and he was arrested. By 1974, he had graduated from U-K's law school and began working for the Appalachian Research and Defense Fund in rural Kentucky. But Bright says his opposition to the death penalty began well before then. Bright has led the nonprofit legal defense center in Atlanta since the early 1980's, but still maintains a part-time home in his native Boyle County. He believes the Kentucky Legislature will eventually agree with him that the death penalty takes too long and costs too much. (source: WCLU news) MISSOURI: Getting to know Jim and Genie We would like to introduce you to James and Regina Wood. They are friends of ours. But many of you already know them. Genie was a nurse in our community for many years. She may have touched your life while working at St. John's/Mercy Hospital for 27 years. Jim has been a teacher/coach in Springfield's public schools and now is at the Catholic high school. He has influenced you or your children for over 30 years. They will celebrate their 50th wedding anniversary this year. They are also the parents of Craig Wood. Craig is charged in the kidnapping and homicide of Hailey Owens in 2014. He is now awaiting trial. The Greene County prosecutor intends to seek the death penalty. Certainly, Hailey and her family deserve justice. But there is no justice to be found in the death penalty. Hailey's parents, family and friends have suffered a nearly insurmountable loss in a horrific tragedy. Our community has rallied around them - and rightfully so. Many in the community supported us, too, when our son Damon died in an accident nearly 16 years ago. We get the heart-wrenching emptiness, the waves of grief and the actual physical pain resulting from the deep emotional trauma of the loss of a child. We cannot know the grief resulting from knowing violence was inflicted on a little girl. Nor do we entirely grasp the drawn-out grief over years of facing the possibility of a son being executed. Hailey's murder caused ripples of pain. Our son's death caused ripples. And the threat of Craig's death is causing and will continue to cause ripples for years. At the center of this pain are the parents. Having suffered the loss of a child ourselves, we cannot condone the possible killing of Craig Wood with the pain it will bring to his parents and others. But even now, Jim and Genie are verbally assaulted. Some friends who came to their defense are hassled, and multiple finger pointing and comments while in public continue. The demand for justice does not justify the harassment, nor does it justify use of the death penalty. There is no proof for the effectiveness of the death penalty as a deterrent. Its use falsely implies closure for the victim's family. And it is more costly than life imprisonment without parole. For these reasons and others we have become supporters of Missourians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty. Also, importantly, the death penalty removes the possibility of a person's redemption. This may only come with time, and as a compassionate people, we should allow this opportunity. It has been said many times in many ways, "Justice without compassion is cruelty; compassion without justice is chaos." Let us be a community seeking justice and giving compassion. (source: The News-Leader) NEBRASKA: Deputy in Beatrice 6 case denies telling suspects to confess or face the death penalty The Nebraska sheriff's deputy whose 1985 homicide investigation helped convict 6 people later cleared by DNA tests said in court Wednesday that he never made any threats to gain a confession. The defense wrapped up its case with the testimony of Gage County Deputy Burt Searcey, who once again defended himself against allegations that he led a reckless investigation and manufactured evidence to solve the cold-case rape and homicide of Helen Wilson of Beatrice. Attorneys will make closing arguments Thursday morning, and the jury is expected to begin deliberations by the afternoon. A similar trial 2 years ago ended after jurors could not reach a verdict. Members of the Beatrice 6 have sued Gage County and its investigators for alleged civil rights violations and the more than 70 combined years they served in prison. In 2008, DNA testing of blood and semen preserved from the crime scene failed to match the 6 but did lead state investigators to an Oklahoma man who died in 1992. Joseph E. White, the only 1 of the 6 to maintain his innocence, had his conviction reversed. Ada JoAnn Taylor, Thomas Winslow, James Dean, Debra Shelden and Kathy Gonzalez, all of whom pleaded to lesser charges, were all pardoned. Searcey still stands behind his 27-year-old investigation. Testifying for the 2nd time on the 18th day of the trial, he denied several key allegations made by the plaintiffs. "Did you ever tell any of the plaintiffs they better come clean or they're going to get the death penalty?" asked Jennifer Tomka, co-counsel for Gage County. "Never," Searcey said forcefully. Dean testified earlier in the trial that on the day of his arrest, authorities told him to lay face-down on the ground. Dean alleged that Searcey then put his boot against Dean's face and told him he was under arrest for the murder of Helen Wilson. Searcey denied it Wednesday. He also denied that he fed sensitive crime scene information to the suspects, a practice experts say can help a suspect craft a false confession without genuine firsthand knowledge of a crime. "When you took on this investigation ... was it your goal to get these 6 people and railroad them?" Tomka asked. "My goal was to solve the case," Searcey replied. Under intense cross-examination by lawyers for the 6, Searcey acknowledged several spots in videotaped interrogations where he revealed crime scene information after suspects repeatedly give wrong answers about key details. He brushed it off by saying he was simply asking questions. Taylor, Dean and Shelden all initially denied involvement in the killing. But at White's 1st-degree murder trial in 1989, they gave similar testimony. Searcey also testified Wednesday that he knew he had included some invalid information in sworn affidavits used to make the first 2 arrests in the case. But he said he reported what his informants had told him, suggesting that it was up to the judge to determine whether the deputy had provided enough evidence to justify the arrests. "I put in my affidavits what I felt I could possibly prove," he responded. Searcey also said it was important to find a match for the Type B blood found in Wilson's apartment. That person was Kathy Gonzalez, although forensic tests in 1989 showed that her blood lacked a key genetic marker found in the killer's blood. Searcey said the lack of a match with the genetic marker mattered little to him. "I was going for the Type B blood," he said. (source: Omaha World Herald) OKLAHOMA: City in Oklahoma Renews Fight for 'Old Sparky,' Electric Chair Taken by State The city of McAlester, Oklahoma, is preparing to breathe new life into a feud over an instrument of death - the electric chair that the state used for more than 6 decades to execute 82 inmates. The tiny city has long coveted the chair known as "Old Sparky," which became a relic when the state sidelined it in the 1970s in favor of lethal injections, as a tourist attraction. But the state Department of Corrections, which spirited it away for its own now-shuttered museum, has refused to return the oak chair first used in 1915 to McAlester, where the state penitentiary and its execution chamber are located. After an initial attempt in 2014 to regain custody of Old Sparky, the city let the issue lapse. But now officials say they're preparing for a new bid to return the chair to its rightful home - this time, for good. "It's a very important historical artifact for the city of McAlester and the state of Oklahoma, and it should not be kept locked away in a warehouse," McAlester Mayor John Browne told NBC News. "It should be on display." The City Council last week discussed a move to authorize officials to draft a letter to the state demanding the return of the chair. A formal decision is likely at next month's meeting, Browne indicated. Councilman Buddy Garvin, who for years has pressed the issue, said if the DOC doesn't comply, the city would take legal action. "It's ours, and we want it," Garvin said. "It's black and white." Officials with the Department of Corrections did not respond to a request for comment on McAlester's new threat. But in 2010, the department's lawyer told the city in a letter that "there is no evidence that the chair was properly transferred to the city pursuant to law," and therefore McAlester didn't have a rightful claim to it, according to local news reports. The dispute springs from some dealing that occurred in 1980, when McAlester gained control of the chair after the item's retirement as state executioner. The city later loaned it to a private museum in McAlester, the Tannehill Historical Museum, where it remained on display until 1989. At that time, the DOC planned to open its own museum at the site of the nearby state penitentiary, and asked for the chair back. The city agreed to loan the chair to the prison, and Old Sparky went back to its original home - the penitentiary - where it was displayed inside the visitors center. There it remained, along with other macabre prison memorabilia, until 2011, when the museum run by the Oklahoma Prisons Historical Association was definitively shuttered. The city at the time said it had an agreement with the association that if the chair wasn't displayed there, it would be returned. But the DOC wanted proof, and the city didn't have the concrete evidence. Garvin, the McAlester city councilman, told NBC News the city now has the goods to prove it is the rightful owner of the chair, though he couldn't provide the details. The Department of Corrections had previously came up with another reason it couldn't return the chair. In April 2014, Oklahoma's use of lethal injection became a political issue after an inmate died from a heart attack following an initially botched execution. The state temporarily halted its executions and the use of a 3-drug lethal injection cocktail while it determined what went wrong. At the time, the state told the city that it was holding on to Old Sparky in the event that the chair was its only option for executing inmates. But that reason no longer exists. The Supreme Court upheld the legality of lethal injections in June 2015. Given that Oklahoma would no longer need the electric chair as a backup, McAlester officials say the time has come for the state to relinquish the chair. Asked by NBC News where the chair is being stored as its fate hangs in the balance, a Department of Corrections spokeswoman replied by email that she didn't know and "no one is disclosing the location." Garvin said he'd like to see the chair return to McAlester by August, when the city plans to observe the 75th anniversary of the murder of a prison warden and a deputy there when 4 inmates escaped from the state penitentiary. 3 of the inmates were killed in a shootout, and the 4th was executed using Old Sparky 2 years later, in 1943. August also marks 50 years since the last Oklahoma inmate was strapped into the chair to die. The doomed murderer, James French, is still remembered for his famous last words: "How's this for your headline? 'French Fries.'" James Tannehill, whose museum hosted the electric chair in the 1980s, said he's in the process of expanding the site and would be willing to keep the chair again for posterity and to preserve history. He's just worried that if no one acts, Old Sparky will be left to rot - or wind up where it doesn't belong. "If everyone blows this thing off and doesn't think anything about it, it will eventually disappear and you won't find a living soul to tell you where it is," Tannehill said. "It'll be in some politician's den." (source: NBC news) ARIZONA: Arizona Death Penalty Case Continues: State Has Not Promised To Rule Out Future Midazolam Use Parties in the lawsuit over the state's death penalty protocol met in federal court Wednesday for a hearing. The drug midazolam Arizona previously used in a botched execution was the topic of discussion. The hearing centered around a core issue - whether or not the Arizona Department of Corrections (DOC) could promise it would never use midazolam again, under any circumstance. Currently, the state's supply of the lethal injection drug is expired, and it cannot get any more. Lawyers for the DOC argue because of those reasons and because the state has removed midazolam from execution procedures, the case is moot. Lawyers representing the 7 inmates on Arizona's death row said it's not, because the DOC can change policy back whenever they feel, and refuses to say it would never use the drug, if there were different circumstances. "We're surprised, frankly, that the state of Arizona would not say, today, that it will not use midazolam, period, going forward regardless of whether it's available or not," said plaintiff lawyer Mark Haddad. The state said it would consider "tightening up" how procedures can be changed by the DOC. The federal judge gave the state 30 days to explain how it won't be able to use midazolam in the future. (source: KJZZ news) CALIFORNIA: Caryl Chessman sentenced to death In January 1948, a man in a grey Ford used a red spotlight to pull over couples parked in lover's lanes outside of Los Angeles. He robbed the couples, and on 2 occasions, pulled the women off to his own car where he demanded they perform "unnatural sex acts". The media dubbed the man the "Red Light Bandit". After the last attack, Los Angeles police received notification that a clothing store had been robbed by 2 men in a grey Ford. 2 police officers spotted the vehicle and began to chase it down. The car took off, going over 70 mph. When the cops finally caught up, they arrested the driver, Caryl Chessman. Charged with the Bandit crimes, Chessman opted to serve as his own attorney at trial. The facts against him were clear to the jury. The grey Ford had been stolen January 13th, right before the attacks took place. The victims identified a .45 pistol as the weapon he had brandished, one that Chessman tossed out of the car as the patrol car had caught up with him. A pen flashlight was found in the car, which the victims had said was used. Police officers testified that Chessman had admitted to committing the crimes. All 3 witnesses, including the women who had been assaulted, testified that he was the one who had done it. On July 3rd, 1948, the jury found him guilty, without mercy. This meant that under the "Little Lindbergh Law" he was eligible for the death penalty, and the jury elected he should be put to death. Chessman argued that he had never admitted the crimes. He first claimed to be a victim of mistaken identity, then that he was a victim of a conspiracy to have him killed. During the 12 years between his conviction, and his death, he avoided 8 execution deadlines. During this time, he claimed that the real Bandit was known to him, and he would provide evidence of this 50 years from the time California rejected a moratorium on the death penalty. Though many put that date to be sometime in 2007, as a moratorium was passed in 1957, any evidence offering proof that he was not the culprit has yet to come to light. (source: The Examiner) USA: Withheld Evidence by Prosecutors Leads to 30 Years on Death Row The Philadelphia District Attorney's Office intentionally withheld critical evidence in 1986 when it prosecuted 18-year-old Terry Williams and won a death sentence. Earlier this month, the Supreme Court sent the case back to the Pennsylvania courts, putting the prosecution's wrongdoing on display. At Terry's trial, the prosecution told the jury a story: at age 18, Terry had killed 56-year-old Amos Norwood for "no other reason" than to rob him. The prosecutors described Norwood as a kind man who volunteered at church. But they knew much more about Norwood than they let on. When they withheld that information from the defense and from the jury, they violated the law. Terry had grown up in a terror-filled household, the victim of beatings by his mother and stepfather. He was 6 when an 11-year-old neighbor, someone he considered to be like a big brother, first lured him with promises of food - something that he often didn't have at home - and then sexually assaulted him. Terry was repeatedly sexually abused and exploited by adults, including 1 of his middle school teachers. Among Terry's many abusers was Amos Norwood, who had begun sexually exploiting and physically abusing Terry when he was 13. The prosecutors had evidence of Norwood's history of abusing young boys, including Terry, yet they hid it. The jury never heard evidence that Terry had snapped that night because Norwood had been sexually abusing him, violently. The prosecution also hid from the jury evidence that Norwood had sexually exploited other teenage boys for years. The jury voted for death. Had they known the truth, it would have made all the difference. In fact, it had made the difference in Terry's trial for killing Herbert Hamilton less than a year earlier. Hamilton was a 50-year-old man who had been sexually abusing Terry and other teenagers. But because that jury heard the evidence about Terry's past and Hamilton's abuse, they didn't sentence Terry to death. He was convicted of 3rd-degree murder. In the Norwood trial, the prosecution wasn't going to let that happen again. Despite that conviction, Terry's death sentence case wound through the appeals process for more than 25 years. All the while, the prosecution insisted that it had no evidence of any illicit sexual activity by Norwood against Terry or others. The truth only came to light decades later, as Terry's execution date neared and his new attorneys finally obtained access to the prosecution's files. When Terry's lawyers brought the suppressed evidence to the post-conviction court's attention, it found that the Philadelphia District Attorney's Office had acted unconstitutionally in concealing this evidence from the defense. The court granted Terry a new sentencing trial. The District Attorney's Office appealed to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, with Chief Justice Ronald Castille at the helm. Castille had formerly served as the longtime elected district attorney of Philadelphia and had authorized his staff to seek the death penalty against Terry. In campaigning for his seat on the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, Castille touted his record of obtaining a staggering 45 death sentences as Philadelphia's district attorney, including Terry's. When Terry's case reached the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, his attorneys urged Castille to recuse himself, due to his prior role in the case. He refused. Under Castille's lead, the court reversed the lower court's decision and reinstated Terry's death sentence. Then on June 9, in Williams v. Pennsylvania, the U.S. Supreme Court recognized that given his role as a former prosecutor in the case, Chief Justice Castille should have recused himself from considering Terry's case. It was especially troubling to the court that Castille was presiding over a case that called into question the integrity of his former subordinates. Unfortunately, the kind of prosecutorial misconduct that occurred in Terry's case is far too common; it infects trials involving the most minor charges to the most serious. Only in capital cases, though, can prosecutorial misconduct kill. We have seen too many narrow escapes from death sentences obtained by prosecutors willing to violate the Constitution in order to win. In Birmingham, Alabama, our client Montez Spradley was wrongfully convicted and sentenced to death. Prosecutors and law enforcement officers never disclosed that they had paid their star witness in the case more than $10,000 for her testimony. Fortunately, after years of aggressive litigation, Montez regained his freedom. Yet through the end, prosecutors steadfastly denied any wrongdoing. A few weeks ago, Texas prosecutors finally dropped murder charges against Kerry Max Cook, nearly 40 years after the crime took place. Kerry was convicted on the basis of false evidence that the prosecution concealed for years - misconduct a court found "egregious" and "pervasive." As a result, Kerry served 20 years on death row for a crime he did not commit. Even after dropping the charges against him at last, the prosecutors vowed to oppose Kerry's efforts to prove his innocence and obtain the compensation to which he is entitled for his wrongful incarceration. While exposing the prosecution's wrongs eventually led to freedom for Montez and Kerry, many people, like Cameron Todd Willingham, have been executed despite strong evidence of innocence in a case involving prosecutorial misconduct. The Williams decision was a very small step on the path of holding prosecutors accountable for their wrongdoing, from a court that has all too often looked the other way in the face of egregious prosecutorial behavior. We must work to root out prosecutorial misconduct wherever it is in our justice system, but first, we must do away with its power to take a life. We must abolish capital punishment. Death is too high a price to pay for a prosecutor's hubris. (source: Anna Arceneaux is Senior Staff Attorney, ACLU Capital Punishment Project----The Davis Vanguard) ************ In Dissents, Sonia Sotomayor Takes On the Criminal Justice System The Supreme Court term had barely gotten underway in early November when Justice Sonia Sotomayor issued her f1st dissent. A police officer's "rogue conduct," she wrote, had left a man dead thanks to a '''shoot 1st, think later' approach to policing." Justice Sotomayor would go on to write 8 dissents before the term ended last Monday. Read together, they are a remarkable body of work from an increasingly skeptical student of the criminal justice system, one who has concluded that it is clouded by arrogance and machismo and warped by bad faith and racism. Only Justice Clarence Thomas wrote more dissents last term, but his agenda was different. Laconic on the bench, prolific on the page and varied in his interests, Justice Thomas is committed to understanding the Constitution as did the men who drafted and adopted it centuries ago. Justice Sotomayor's concerns are more contemporary and more focused. Her dissents this term came mostly in criminal cases, and were informed as much by events in Ferguson, Mo., in 2014 as by those in Philadelphia in 1787. She dissented again in January, from Justice Antonin Scalia's final majority opinion. Joined by no other member of the court, she said the majority in 3 death penalty cases might have been swayed by the baroque depravity of the crimes. "The standard adage teaches that hard cases make bad law," she wrote. "I fear that these cases suggest a corollary: Shocking cases make too much law." 9 days after Justice Scalia died in February, on the day the 8 remaining members of the Supreme Court first returned to the bench, Justice Sotomayor laid the groundwork for what would turn out to be her most important dissent of the term. The question in the case, Utah v. Strieff, No. 14-1373, was whether prosecutors could use evidence obtained by the police after illegal stops. A lawyer for the state told the justices that the Constitution allowed this if there had been an outstanding arrest warrant for the person the officer happened to stop. There is logic to the position. The warrant existed before the illegal stop. It called for the suspect's arrest. Searching people in the process of arresting them is prudent and constitutional. The contraband the Utah officer found was real. There may be better ways to discourage unlawful stops than by suppressing evidence. But, as Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. wrote, "the life of the law has not been logic; it has been experience." At the argument in February, Justice Sotomayor asked the first 6 questions, ripping into the state's lawyer with a blast of real-world experience rooted in the Black Lives Matter movement. "What stops us," she asked, "from becoming a police state and just having the police stand on the corner down here and stop every person, ask them for identification, put it through, and, if a warrant comes up, searching them?" A moment later, she answered her own question. "If you have a town like Ferguson, where 80 % of the residents have minor traffic warrants out, there may be a very good incentive for just standing on the street corner in Ferguson and asking every citizen, 'Give me your ID, let me see your name.'" Last month, Justice Thomas, writing for a 5-justice majority, accepted the state's logic. Justice Sotomayor, a former prosecutor who grew up in a housing project in the Bronx, responded with an unusually direct dissent. "Do not be soothed by the opinion's technical language," she wrote. "This case allows the police to stop you on the street, demand your identification, and check it for outstanding traffic warrants - even if you are doing nothing wrong." "If the officer discovers a warrant for a fine you forgot to pay," she continued, "courts will now excuse his illegal stop and will admit into evidence anything he happens to find by searching you after arresting you on the warrant." In many communities, she said, the tactics the court endorsed will allow the police to search people almost at will. "It is no secret that people of color are disproportionate victims of this type of scrutiny," she wrote. She cited precedents, naturally. But she also named major works on the African-American experience: W. E. B. Du Bois's "The Souls of Black Folk," James Baldwin's "The Fire Next Time," Michelle Alexander's "The New Jim Crow" and Ta-Nehisi Coates's "Between the World and Me." You might be forgiven for thinking she was suggesting some summer reading for her fellow justices. 3 days later, Justice Sotomayor dissented again, this time from a ruling that said the police do not need warrants to conduct breath tests when they arrest people for drunken driving. "I fear," she wrote, "that if the court continues down this road, the Fourth Amendment's warrant requirement will become nothing more than a suggestion." Most of the justices, including some of its more liberal members, are inclined to give the police the benefit of the doubt. Justice Sotomayor is more apt to see encounters with the police through the eyes of the powerless, as tinged with humiliation, danger and worse. "For generations," she wrote in the Utah case, "black and brown parents have given their children 'the talk' - instructing them never to run down the street; always keep your hands where they can be seen; do not even think of talking back to a stranger - all out of fear of how an officer with a gun will react to them." Her 1st dissent of the term arose from an attempt to serve an arrest warrant for a misdemeanor probation violation. Disinclined to be arrested, the subject of the warrant, Israel Leija, instead led the police on a high-speed car chase on an Interstate highway north of Tulia, Tex. The authorities set up a spike strip to try to disable Mr. Leija's car. But Chadrin L. Mullenix, a Texas state trooper who had earlier that day been told he was not "proactive enough," had a different plan. He positioned himself with a rifle on an overpass. A superior told Mr. Mullenix to "stand by" and "see if the spikes work first." Mr. Mullenix instead fired 6 shots, killing Mr. Leija. The car then hit the spike strip and rolled over twice. Mr. Leija's family sued, saying Mr. Mullenix had used excessive force, and an appeals court let the case proceed. The Supreme Court reversed that court's ruling, in an unsigned opinion. Justice Sotomayor said she was struck by Mr. Mullenix's "glib comment" after he finished shooting Mr. Leija. "How's that for proactive?" Mr. Mullenix asked. "The comment seems to me revealing of the culture this court's decision supports," she wrote, alone on the court. (source: New York Times) From rhalperi at smu.edu Mon Jul 4 11:47:30 2016 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Mon, 4 Jul 2016 11:47:30 -0500 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide Message-ID: July 4 CHINA: Bus-torching murderer gets death penalty A man who set fire to a bus in Yinchuan in January, killing 18 and injuring 32, was yesterday sentenced to death, Yinchuan City government said yesterday. The man, Ma Yongping, launched an appeal after the verdict was announced at the Yinchuan Intermediate People's Court in the Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region. According to the court, Ma, who had been involved in financial disputes, decided to vent his anger by setting fire to a bus. Early on January 5, he got on the bus with 2 containers of gasoline and set them alight shortly afterwards. The blaze killed 17 people and injured 33 others. Ma climbed out a window and fled the scene, but was captured by police 10 hours later. (source: Shanghai Daily) INDONESIA: British grandmother on death row for smuggling cocaine in Bali celebrates her 60th birthday behind bars A British grandmother on death row in Bali for smuggling cocaine has celebrated her 60th birthday after being warned she may be fast-tracked for execution. Lindsay Sandiford held a party for fellow inmates and supporters as the Indonesia government prepares to send a group of foreign convicts to the firing squad this week. The Mail on Sunday was given exclusive access to Sandiford's birthday party at the notorious Kerobokan prison, where the Yorkshire grandmother insisted: 'I'm not frightened of dying.' Sandiford revealed that she had received a letter from Indonesia's Attorney General 6 weeks ago warning her to lodge a final appeal within 30 days. If she didn't, it would be seen as acceptance of her sentence and she would be listed for execution. But following legal advice, Sandiford refused to sign an official form acknowledging she had received the letter, saying: 'It would be like signing my own death warrant.' She has been told she is not among the first batch of executions expected shortly after Ramadan ends on Tuesday, but could be included in the next group of prisoners. Up to 16 prisoners have already been moved to Nusa Kambangan - known as Execution Island - where they will be taken into a jungle clearing and shot. Sandiford has been on death row since 2012 after admitting trying to smuggle cocaine worth 1.6 million pounds through the holiday island's airport. She claimed a drugs syndicate had threatened the life of her son if she did not co-operate and helped police with a sting operation. As she celebrated her birthday last Saturday with pizza, blueberry cheesecake and soft drinks, Sandiford told The Mail on Sunday: 'I want to make the best of the time I have left.' She watched video messages from family members in Britain, and her wish as she cut her birthday cake was for a hug from granddaughter Ayla, 3. Ayla was born after Sandiford's arrest and visited her in prison with her parents last October. Sandiford said: 'A lot of people don't get to see their grandchildren as they grow up, so I'm not alone in that.' After blowing out her candles, Sandiford joked to inmates: 'Thanks for coming. Your taxis are waiting outside.' (source: Daily Mail) PHILIPPINES: Lacson: Death penalty for heinous crimes Senator Panfilo Lacson has filed a bill that will make a wide range of heinous crimes, including drug-related offenses, treason, terrorism and human trafficking, punishable by death. But while President Rodrigo Duterte is pushing for death penalty by hanging, Lacson wants the use of lethal injection as mode of execution. The death sentence shall be carried out not later than one year after the judgment has become final and executory, but without prejudice to the prerogative of the President to exercise executive clemency powers. Lacson, who headed the Philippine National Police from 1999 to 2001, noted that the alarming surge of heinous crimes in recent years has shown that life imprisonment is not a deterrent to grave offenders. "Hence, to reinstate public order and the rule of law, there is an impending need to revisit and re-impose the death penalty on certain heinous crimes," Lacson said. Citing PNP data in 2015, he said 75 % of most heinous crimes were drug-related while 65 % of inmates in prisons were either accused or convicted of drug-related crimes. The PNP's Directorate for Investigation and Detective Management has documented 9,646 murder cases; 31,741 cases of robbery; and, 10,298 rape cases in 2015. These translate to an average crime incidence of a murder every 54 minutes, a robbery every 16 minutes, and a rape case every 51 minutes. >From January to May 2016, Lacson noted the PNP recorded "a staggering number" of crime incidents, including 3,615 murder cases, 3,996 rape cases, and 9,971 robbery cases. Meanwhile, Buhay Rep. Lito Atienza urged Congress to push for reforms in the justice system instead of backing efforts to revive the death penalty. "We should just concentrate on effectively suppressing rampant crime by stamping out endemic corruption in law enforcement, the prosecution service, the courts and in prisons. Instead of reviving the death penalty, it would be better for the new Congress to push for criminal justice system reforms - to ensure that every felon is instantly nabbed, successfully prosecuted, convicted and caged forever. This is our best strategy to fight crime - to dissuade other would-be offenders," Atienza said. "Let us forget about reinstating capital punishment. The best criminologists around the world have long established that the death penalty does not serve any purpose that is not already being served by lifelong imprisonment," he added. (source: The Standard) ****************** 'Hangings still to happen by 2022' Even if the death penalty were restored by Congress, it would take 5 years before an actual hanging of convicts could take place, Buhay Rep. Lito Atienza said in a statement on Sunday. Atienza said this would be "simply due to lack of material time," proposing instead that Congress focus on pushing for criminal justice system reforms "to dissuade would-be offenders." "Based on our reckoning, even assuming the Congress railroads the revival of the death penalty so that it would take effect by early 2017, the initial convicts with final verdicts would start coming in only by the 1st half of 2022, or toward the last 6 months of the President's term," Atienza said. "5 years of waiting is actually a best case scenario that does not include such factors as potential lawsuits questioning before the Supreme Court the constitutionality of judicial executions by hanging," he added. With this timeline, President Duterte himself would not be able to see any judicial killings carried out while he is in office. Atienza proposed that Congress instead concentrate on improving the criminal justice system, such as by stamping out corruption in law enforcement, the prosecution service, the courts and prisons. 7 convicts Atienza said the seven convicts put to death through lethal injection during President Joseph Estrada's term were executed 5 years after they committed their crimes. Records showed that none of them were executed for drug-related crimes. The executed - Leo Echegaray, Eduardo Agbayani, Dante Piandiong, Archie Bulan, Jesus Morallos, Pablito Andan and Alex Bartolome - were either convicted for rape or robbery with homicide. There is widespread protest against the death penalty primarily because of questions of the country's judicial maturity. The law was abolished during the term of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. Anticriminality drive President Duterte, ran and won on an anticriminality campaign. He vowed death to criminals, especially those engaged in illegal drugs. The President said death for criminals was not to deter crime but in "retribution." "Let us forget about reinstating capital punishment. The best criminologists around the world have long established that the death penalty does not serve any purpose that is not already being served by lifelong imprisonment," Atienza said. (source: inquirer.net) From rhalperi at smu.edu Tue Jul 5 09:27:01 2016 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Tue, 5 Jul 2016 09:27:01 -0500 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, USA, US MIL. Message-ID: July 5 TEXAS: Mom and girl slain, family awaits justice Elizabeth Goodman was on the phone in her kitchen with her youngest daughter when the call was dropped. 10 minutes later, she heard from a friend that her daughter had been shot in her doorway on Hartel Street in Beaumont's South End, less than 3 miles from the Goodmans' home on Potts. Mary Goodman, 41, wasn't the only one who was hit. Her 16-year-old daughter, Briana Goodman, was found shot to death in the backyard. "To lose a child and a grandchild like that, I just don't understand," Elizabeth Goodman, 72, said in her 1st interview since the July 31, 2010 double slaying. "No one deserves to be killed in cold blood." Elizabeth and Joseph Goodman, 77, mourn the loss daily. Pictures of anniversaries, birthdays, rodeo and zydeco events fill their home - reminders of what was stolen from them. Briana Goodman, the youngest of 13 grandchildren, hoped to become a teen model in Houston. Her grandmother tore up an acceptance letter from a modeling agency she received four months after Briana's death. "Briana was too young to die," Elizabeth Goodman said. 6 years after the deaths, the accused killer has yet to go to trial, and the Goodmans have grown impatient with the criminal justice system. 3 close relatives have died while waiting. Joseph Kenneth Colone, 37, remains in jail on a $2 million bond in the killings - Jefferson County's oldest capital case, which is scheduled for trial in January 2017. Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty. Colone, who unsuccessfully sought his release last year because of the trial delays, intends to plead not guilty. "We're ready for closure," said Andre Goodman, 52, Mary's brother, who lives in Liberty County. "This has changed our lives. I don't even drive to Beaumont like I used to because I think about it every time I come here." 'Gaming the system' The Goodmans said they believe Colone is "gaming the system" by attempting to delay the trial, but his is not the only case to linger in the system. Of 230-plus active cases on the 252nd District Court trial docket, more than 1/2 date to before 2015. After the Ninth Court of Appeals turned down his request to be released pending the trial, Colone's focus turned to prosecutors' pursuit of the death penalty. Bob Loper, Colone's Houston-based attorney, unsuccessfully tried to have the state's death penalty law declared unconstitutional, which would eliminate it from consideration at trial. Such suggestions are rarely given much consideration in capital cases, Loper admitted. But defense attorneys often challenge death penalty laws based on fear of innocent people being executed. District Judge Raquel West ruled against Colone's attorneys. They preserved the issue for possible later appeal by an appellate attorney, since it was rejected at the trial level. Loper was part of a defense team that in 2010 convinced a Houston judge to call executions unconstitutional. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals stopped the judge's plans to hold a hearing on the matter. The capital murder suspect, John Edward Green, escaped the death sentence by pleading to a last-minute 40-year deal in 2011. "This is not something new and novel, but it has been tried in many other cases," Loper said. In Colone's case, Loper argues the law requirement for a jury to consider whether a capital offender has a likelihood of being a "continuing threat to society" is something not even members of the psychiatric community can do accurately. The delays irritate Joseph Goodman, an aging and ailing man who wants to see his daughter's killer die before he does. Andre Goodman points out other family members have died waiting for justice since 2010 - his and Mary's grandmother, an aunt and uncle. "We're just sick and tired of nothing happening," Joseph Goodman said. DNA calculations Last year, the FBI notified crime labs across the country that data used to calculate the chances of someone's DNA being found at a crime scene was determined in error, though they downplayed the errors' impact. Their methods drastically overestimated reliability of DNA results, from 1 in a billion, down to less than 1 in a 100. DNA is key in the case against Colone, lead prosecutor Pat Knauth said. Knauth did not want to comment on specific evidence for fear of contaminating the local jury pool, he said. Colone's attorneys are still considering a push to have the trial transferred out of Jefferson County for a 2nd time, a costly move that prosecutors do not want to make. Prosecutors were ready to try the case this past April, but Colone's attorneys wanted more time to recalculate any DNA allegedly linking Colone to the crime. M "There's a lot of (DNA at the crime scene), some that's very crucial to the case," Knauth said. The Goodmans call it "trial strategy," despite the discrepancies in DNA calculations becoming a nationwide issue, especially for already backlogged courts. "It really threw a wrench into our program," Knauth said of DNA calculation errors. "(The defense attorneys) are doing a good job. It's what I would do if I was on the defense, present the same motion (to recalculate DNA)." Outspoken victim A probable cause affidavit supporting charges against Colone in a robbery a month before the double slaying names Mary Goodman as an eyewitness who recognized him at the scene. She identified Colone by name and through a six-man photo lineup, according to the affidavit. This is the theory prosecutors will present as motive for the killings. Mary Goodman's willingness to speak up is consistent with how family members remember her. "Mary was funny. She would tell you what's on her mind, whether you like it or not, and Briana was the same way," Andre Goodman said. Andre last saw his sister, the youngest of the 5 kids, for their parents' 52nd wedding anniversary - the week before she was killed - and 3 weeks before that at the 70th birthday party for their Uncle Henry, who owned a rodeo and zydeco club in the Hillebrandt area. Uncle Henry died in 2012. He was one of the family members who wanted to see a resolution in the slayings. "We go through this every day," Andre Goodman said. (source: Beaumont Enterprise) USA: 40 Years of Experience with the 'New and Improved' Death Penalty, 1976???201 4 decades after the creation of the modern death penalty, the system remains racially biased, costly, and prone to error. In this September 21, 2010 file photo, the view a condemned inmate would have from a table inside the death chamber is shown during a tour of the new lethal injection facility at San Quentin State Prison in San Quentin, California. July 2, 2016, marked the 40th anniversary of the Supreme Court's 7-2 decision in Gregg v. Georgia validating the modern death penalty. 4 years earlier, the Court had invalidated all existing capital punishment laws in Furman, leading to the rapid revision of capital punishment laws in 37 states. Gregg was the opportunity for the Court to determine if these "new and improved" laws passed the constitutional bar that the old laws had been seen to fail. Safeguards mandated by the Court included reserving the penalty only for those found guilty of certain specified crimes, such as particularly heinous murders involving torture, rape, or the killing of a police officer; separating out the trial of guilt or innocence from a separate penalty phase during which aggravating and mitigating factors would be considered; and mandating appellate "proportionality review" to ensure that the punishment was in fact being used for the "worst of the worst." The Court also mandated direct (automatic) appeals to the federal court system before a state could carry out a death sentence, thereby showing its lack of trust that Southern states would carry out the penalty in compliance with the new federal standards. In Furman, the Court had found the death penalty to have had strong racial overtones, and to have been applied arbitrarily and capriciously to a seemingly random and small set of murderers, akin to a lightning strike. This, the Court ruled, was no way to operate a system involving life and death. In the 40 years since Gregg brought the death penalty back, more 700,000 homicides have taken place, and over 8,000 inmates have been sentenced to die. As of May 1, 2016, 1,435 have been executed. It's time we took stock. Has the "modern" and improved system resolved the problems inherent in the old system? In a word, no. Let's review some of the problems with the old system and see if they have been resolved. Capricious and arbitrary: As the numbers above indicate, there have been more than 700,000 homicides, but "only" 1,435 executions. In Furman, the Court complained that only a tiny handful of murders were selected, capriciously, for the death penalty. James Holmes faced 140 counts of attempted murder and was convicted on 12 counts for the 2012 shooting rampage in a Colorado movie theater; he was not sentenced to death. While all the more than 700,000 homicides were of course not death-eligible, a good estimate is that about 20 % of these were, perhaps 140,000 cases or so. With 1,435 executions and 140,000 death-eligible homicides, the math is pretty clear: Perhaps 1 percent of death-eligible homicides lead to execution. Various studies, most recently a comprehensive review of all eligible homicides in Connecticut, have made clear that that 1 percent does not systematically coincide with the worst of the worst. Nationally, the odds of execution are dozens of times higher if the victim is a white woman than if the victim is a black male. Racially biased: The Court rejected capital punishment in Furman partly because of its fear that Southern states were prone to execute blacks for crimes against whites. The Court was right to be concerned, and the concern remains at least as strong today. Louisiana, for example, has never executed a white for killing a black (though it did execute a white soldier for a bayonet attack on 2 slave women in ... 1752). Missouri, in which, like Louisiana, a majority of all homicide victims are black males, has executed exactly 1 white for killing a black; this was for an Aryan nation hit inside a prison. Nationally, the odds of execution are dozens of times higher if the victim is a white woman than if the victim is a black male. In the rare cases where a black male kills a white female, his odds of execution are higher still. Compared to earlier periods, the modern death penalty is more geographically focused on the South than it was in earlier eras. Prone to reversals and error: With more than 8,000 death sentences but fewer than 1,500 executions, the odds of execution, given a death sentence, are just 13 percent. By far the most likely outcome when a death sentence is applied is that an appeals court will overturn it and the inmate will be resentenced to life in prison. Further, with 156 exonerations and 1,435 executions, we have had one exoneration for every nine executions. Exonerees, we should note, often leave prison with no compensation, and often not even an apology. Costly: California has the nation's largest death row, but a very inactive death chamber. The state has executed just 13 individuals (most recently in 2006), but has spent over $4 billion on capital punishment related expenses (chiefly, maintaining a separate death row) since reinstatement in 1978. New Jersey, which did not execute a single individual before abolishing capital punishment in 2007, spent over $250 million on the system. Geographically arbitrary: Harris County, Texas (home to Houston) has seen 125 executions, whereas the next most active state (after Texas), Oklahoma, has had just 112 in the same time period. Just 2 % of U.S. counties generate more than 1/2 of all the executions. Perhaps the most surprising element of this question of geography is that the localities with the highest murder rates (for instance, New Orleans) are not the places with the highest rates of execution, or even close. In other words, the "lightning strike" element of the death penalty so firmly rejected by the Court in 1972 has not disappeared. Crimes in St. Louis are much more likely to be met with execution if they occur in the outlying suburbs rather than in the central city. Crimes in Los Angeles are likely to be met with a penalty of "life in prison with the remote possibility of death" whereas in Houston it may be met with death. As we reach the milestone of 40 years since Gregg, perhaps we should assess the death penalty again as it really operates, rather than as some wish it might. (source: Frank Baumgartner, The American Prospect) US MILITARY: Defendant in Okinawa slaying seeks change of venue A U.S. base worker has denied premeditation in the brutal slaying of an Okinawan woman and wants his case moved to Tokyo, saying he can't get a fair trial on the tiny Japanese island due to extensive media coverage. Kenneth Franklin Gadson, who worked on Kadena Air Base and goes by his Japanese wife's family name of Shinzato, was charged last week with murder and rape resulting in death in the death of Rina Shimabukuro, 20, an Uruma office worker who disappeared in April. Gadson confessed to the crime, though his attorney said he was under the influence of narcotics following a suicide attempt. In a statement to Stars and Stripes over the weekend, Gadson did not deny killing Shimabukuro but said the police account of the incident isn't correct. "I did not have the intention of killing the victim," Gadson wrote. "Furthermore, I did not rape her. I will state the details of the case in court." A petition for a change of venue was filed Monday with the Supreme Court of Japan. Defense attorney Toshimitsu Takaesu requested that jurisdiction of the case be changed to Tokyo District Court. "The content of [Gadson's] confession and the presence of evidence in this case has been reported by media, which not only contributed to people on Okinawa to have prejudgment in this incident but to let all women on Okinawa to have the victim's mindset with a feeling that the victim could have been me," Takaesu wrote in the petition. "Men and women alike share the mourning feeling with the victim's parents and feel a close kinship with the victim???s family. This circumstance applies to every and all of the citizen judge candidates that could be called upon to participate in the criminal trial." The slaying has sparked protests in Okinawa, where tens of thousands turned out to call for the U.S. to leave the island where it has retained a large presence since World War II, and elsewhere in Japan. It drew apologies from President Barack Obama, U.S. Ambassador Caroline Kennedy and Lt. Gen. Lawrence Nicholson, Marine Forces Japan commander, along with condemnations from Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and Okinawan Gov. Takeshi Onaga. Takaesu said the Okinawa public is filled with "hatred" for his client, and the audience for any trial could be filled with Shimabukuro's friends or family, which could further influence the judiciary. He also said Gadson is in need of a mental evaluation and adequate translation services. If convicted, Gadson could potentially face the death penalty, though it is rarely imposed in Japan for single homicides. "I believe that the jurors not only have concluded me as guilty through the polices' 1-sided story, but also will not believe what I say despite it being the truth," Gadson wrote to Stars and Stripes. "They believe that the case is cold-blooded and heinous and will decide to give me the death sentence." Gadson has been held since May 19 when he reportedly admitted to strangling Shimabukuro and led police to her body in a remote wooded area in northern Okinawa. Shimabukuro had been missing since April 28 when she told her boyfriend she was going for an evening walk. Her boyfriend reported her missing the next morning. Gadson's red SUV was among about 300 vehicles captured in security-camera footage from the area where the victim was last seen. Police say he was out cruising, looking for a victim to rape and kill. They have said he clubbed Shimabukuro over the head from behind, then strangled and stabbed her while attempting to rape her, but that she died before he could finish the sexual assault. (source: Stars and Stripes) From rhalperi at smu.edu Tue Jul 5 09:28:23 2016 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Tue, 5 Jul 2016 09:28:23 -0500 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide Message-ID: July 5 IRAQ----executions Iraq executes 5 after devastating Baghdad blast: ministry Iraq executed 5 convicts on Monday, the justice ministry said, linking the timing of the executions to the Baghdad suicide bombing the previous day that killed more than 200 people. The ministry said it wanted families bereaved in the bombing to know "that their brothers in the justice ministry are continuing to deliver just punishment to those whose hands are stained with the blood of Iraqis". "Therefore, we would like to announce the implementation of death sentences against 5 convicts this morning," it said in a statement, without specifying their crimes. The ministry also offered its condolences to families of victims of Sunday's carnage in Baghdad. A suicide bombing claimed by the ISIS terrorist group ripped through a crowded shopping area, killing more than 200 people in one of the deadliest ever attacks by terrorists in Iraq. Jordan responded in a similar way last year, executing 2 extremist prisoners after ISIS had burned alive one of its pilots whose plane was downed over Syria. The move drew fire from rights group Amnesty International, which said executions should not be used "as a tool for revenge". ISIS overran large areas north and west of Baghdad in 2014, but has since lost signficant ground to Iraqi forces. Experts have warned that the terrorist group may step up bombings targeting civilians as it suffers setbacks on the battlefield. (source: Decan Chronicle) ************** PM of Iraq orders immediate execution of convicted terrorists The Prime Minister of Iraq Haider Jawad Kadhim Al-Abadi ordered on Monday to execute immediately all terrorists on death row in the country. The instructions were submitted to the Ministry of Justice after deadly attacks in Baghdad on Sunday, which killed 165 and wounded 225. A lorry packed with explosives was detonated in a busy shopping district of the capital of Iraq where locals were shopping for the holiday marking the end of Ramadan. The 2nd bomb exploded at an outdoor market in the Shaab, neighbourhood of southeastern Baghdad. So-called Islamic State (ISIS) claimed responsibility for the attacks, which believed to be the deadliest in Iraq since 2007. Prime Minister al-Abadi condemned the bombing and declared 3 days of mourning across the country after visiting the scene of the attack. Despite territorial gains by Iraq's ground forces against ISIS and losing by the latter one of 45 % of the territory it once held in Iraq, the terrorist group is still able to launch attacks. (source: neweurope.eu) THAILAND: PM Changes His Mind on Death Sentences for Rapists Prime Minister Gen Prayut Chan-o-cha has now decided he does not support calls for the death penalty for rapists. Only last month he ordered the legal community and judiciary to ensure that convicted rapists are sentenced to death saying, 'foreign countries tackle rape cases by resorting to capital punishment.' He asked 'is it possible in Thailand? The judicial sector must undertake this.' Since then, and in the wake of the murder of a young teacher in Saraburi, there has been public support for the idea. And calls for the Criminal Code to be amended to reflect this and condemn those guilty of rape to death. But now the Prime Minister says he does not support this idea anymore. He has explained that many countries have repealed laws such as this as they have been shown not to act as an effective deterrent. 'Let's look at the world around us,' he said. 'Many countries have already abolished the death penalty. They do not 'promote respect for the law and in solving the problem at hand in a sustainable fashion.' The leader of the Thai military has warned that the death penalty for rape cases may result in an abuse of power and would rather see convicted rapists exposed to social pressures in order to discourage them from committing similar crimes again. He might have added that long jail sentences could also discourage such repeated offences. The Deputy Prime Minister, and Defence Minister General, Prawit Wongsuwan, has only said that public opinion and legal counsel from experts will need to be taken into account when a final decision is taken by the National Legislative Assembly. (source: Pattaya News) *********** Calls for death for rapists after brutal Saraburi murder Public calls for the death penalty against rapists are growing in the wake of the shocking murder of a young female teacher, who died at the hands of a former convict. Chatri Ruamsoongnern, a 27-year-old cement factory worker, has confessed to slitting the throat of a 26-year-old teacher to steal her valuables in Saraburi province. He has denied attempting to rape her but evidence at the scene reportedly suggested otherwise. Tests are ongoing to determine whether the teacher was sexually violated. Chatri emerged as the prime suspect from the beginning of police inquiries because he and the victim were neighbours, and he had previously been convicted of raping the wife of a friend. He completed a jail term of 1 year and 7 months last August. "We are waiting for the results from forensic tests to get solid evidence related to this case," Provincial Police Region 1 commissioner Pol Lt-General Chaiwat Getvorachai said yesterday. At present, Chatri is charged only with premeditated murder. The teacher had rented a room inside a fenced estate where 10 rooms are available and many tenants are colleagues teaching at the same school. Chatri moved in about 6 months ago as the live-in boyfriend of a transgender woman. The grieving family of the victim yesterday demanded that harshest penalty be meted out against the culprit. "Don't give him any chance to harm others again. Please enforce the laws harshly," the mother said. Her husband also felt the same way. "I don't intend to see laws kill a person. But if we let such a bad guy go free, he will kill again," the victim's father said. Many social-media users joined their call, saying all rapists should be punished with death. The sentiment echoed opinions expressed by many 2 years ago when a State Rail worker admitted to raping and killing a 13-year-old girl during an overnight ride with her family. Prime Minister General Prayut Chan-o-cha, who also heads the National Council for Peace and Order (NCPO), was cool on the emotional response to the crime, noting that there was a global trend for capital punishment to be scrapped. "Let's look at the world around us. Many countries have already abolished the death penalty," he said, in response to the call. Justice Ministry deputy permanent secretary Tawatchai Thaikyo expressed similar sentiments via Facebook, cautioning against any move to push for the death penalty for all rapists. "We have to think as to whether the push will encourage rapists to kill all victims," he said. He also said some parents lodged complaints against boys who had been in love and had sex with their underage daughters. "Would it be better if we require all convicted rapists to undergo a rehabilitation programme and give them support to prevent them from committing such crimes again?" he said. Kobkiat Kasivivat, another deputy permanent secretary for the Justice Ministry, said separately that due to a shortage of psychologists and social workers, such rehabilitation programmes are now only available in Bangkok. He said if Chatri is convicted of any criminal offence he will not be eligible for a royal pardon because he committed the crime within 5 years of his previous jail sentence. At present, 3,406 men and 985 women are serving jail terms under final court rulings for sex offences. Department of Juvenile Observation and Protection's head Wisit Wisitsora-at said facilities under his agency had individual counsellors in place. "Only 2 % of the high-risk group have become repeated offenders," he said. (source: nationmultimedia.com) From rhalperi at smu.edu Wed Jul 6 09:44:24 2016 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Wed, 6 Jul 2016 09:44:24 -0500 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide Message-ID: July 6 GHANA: Human rights lawyer calls for death sentence to be expunged A leading human rights activist explained that even though the basis for the death sentence was for a culprit to receive equal measure of punishment of what he meted out to a victim, many culprits are found innocent of the said crime after execution. Human rights activist Francis Xavier Sosu has called on government to expunge the death penalty from the statutory books of the country. Sosu was speaking after a 22-year old trader was handed a death sentence by a Tamale High Court in the Northern Region. The culprit Zeila Sulemana stabbed the girlfriend of his ex-boyfriend in the chest and abdomen to death after a heated argument over the Zeila's ex boyfriend. Amnesty International described the sentence handed to her as pointless as the death sentence does not deter crime. Director of Amnesty International Ghana Lawrence Amesu who also called for the removal of the death sentence from the statutory books of the country argued that "[The] death sentence is not an answer to a crime. It is unfortunate it is still in our constitution and the judges will continue ruling in such directions...a death sentence doesn't deter crime, otherwise crime would have been stopped in countries that practice it". Speaking to pulse.com.gh Sosu explained that even though the basis for the death sentence was for a culprit to receive equal measure of punishment of what he meted out to a victim, many culprits after they have been executed are found innocent of the said crime. "That is the genesis for the death sentence, that tooth for tooth, eye for eye, those who live by the sword must die by the sword. But research over the years has shown that there are many people who have been executed and later on pieces of evidence are found to show that they did not commit those offences. "I've met people who have served the full sentence, some 50 year jail term just for them to come out and evidence is showing they are not the people who committed those offences. So we cannot rule out the fact that the possibility of us convicting somebody and sentencing that person on offences he never committed or knew nothing about are also there, once those possibilities are there it will be better to tread on the side of caution". He also mentioned that even though nobody has been executed in Ghana since 1993 it is important "that those punishments are taken out of our statutory books to also show that we have equal respect for human rights and human dignity". He also argued that there are times fresh evidence is found only after the culprit has been executed. He therefore questioned that "what then do you do? There is no more remedy". Sosu said to expunge the death sentence from the statutes of the land "it would require a constitutional amendment, which will affect all statutes that push forward this agenda". But until that is done, he recommended that culprits who formerly deserved a death sentence should rather be handed a number of years to serve a jail term or at worse a life sentence. "In Ghana once you are convicted and sentenced to death you are usually put in the condemn cell and then abandoned there. So I think it will be right and consistent with international practices for us to take that [death sentence] out of our statutory books and have life imprisonment or a number of years for handed for such high crimes," he said. ************** Amnesty International condemns Tamale woman's death sentence----Amnesty International has described a death sentence handed to a 22-year-old trader to death by a Tamale High Court as pointless. Amnesty International has described the death sentence handed to a 22-year-old trader by a Tamale High Court as pointless, as death sentences do not deter crime. A 5-member jury convicted Zeila Sulemana of murder. On April 11, 2014, Zeila Sulemana stabbed a nursing student Rawdia Aminu in the abdomen and chest at Lamashegu in the Northern Region. Rawdia was stabbed when an argument ensued between her and Zeila over Alhassan Abdul-Rahman (Rawdia's boyfriend) who was also ex-boyfriend of Zeila. Prosecutor of the case, Mr. Salia Qudus, narrated that the convict had earlier made friends with Aminu and introduced her (Aminu) to her parents as her friend. On the day of the incident the convict told Aminu that she wanted to hold a discussion with her outside her house. The convict is said to have questioned Aminu about Abdul Rahaman who was then boyfriend of Aminu. The conversation got heated and Zeila stabbed Aminu in her chest and abdomen leading to her death. After hearing and considering the case, a 5 member jury unanimously pronounced Zelia guilty of murder. Even though Ghana has not undertaken any executions since 1993, the number of death sentences as at 2015, was 18. Director of Amnesty International Ghana Lawrence Amesu said "[The] death penalty must be abolished. It must be taken out from all legal documents of the country". He called on judges to desist from handing death sentences to culprits even though it is still allowed per the constitution of the land. "[The] death sentence is not an answer to a crime. It is unfortunate it is still in our constitution and the judges will continue ruling in such directions. Judges must move away from the death penalty and rather hand over years. A death sentence doesn't deter crime, otherwise crime would have been stopped in countries that practice it". The death penalty should never be signed by Ghana's president, current or future, he said. "I am appealing to the president and subsequent ones after him, he should not sign this penalty. Nobody should be executed in Ghana." (source for both: pulse.com.gh) SUDAN: 2 Sudanese opposition students face death penalty: SCoP The opposition Sudanese Congress Party (SCoP) on Tuesday said that 2 students belonging to its chapter at the Omdurman Ahlia University (OAU) are facing charges which could bring the death penalty. In a statement extended to Sudan Tribune, SCoP legal sector said that the National Intelligence and Security Services (NISS) has handed over Bakhit Abdel-Karim and Sabah al-Zain Omer to the state security prosecution office on Sunday. The 2 students were arrested by the NISS during the anti-government protests that had swept Sudanese universities last April following statements by the tourism minister about government intentions to sell University of Khartoum (UofK) land. The statement pointed that charges have been filed against the 2 students under article (50) of the 1991 Criminal Act on undermining the constitutional order and article (53) on spying against the state. It added that Sabah al-Zain was detained from his home on May 12, saying neither his family nor his lawyer were able to meet him since then. "No charges have been filed against him throughout this period until he was handed over to the state prosecution office which filed a criminal case under provisions of laws items that don???t allow release on bail and punishable by death" read the statement. The SCoP also pointed that a third student, Asim Omer, from its chapter at the UofK is facing charges punishable by death under article (130) on premeditated murder. It added that Omer was detained by the NISS on May 2 and has been handed over to the police on May 6, saying the police had initially filed charges against him under article (139) on serious harm but later changed them to article (130) on premeditated murder. The police had previously said that at least 2 of its officers had died from wounds they sustained during clashes with the UofK students in April and May. The SCoP stressed that its students are facing a fierce security and political campaign, saying the NISS seeks to curb its peaceful struggle to overthrow the regime. The statement further held what it called "the regime's militias inside the universities" responsible for killing 2 students during April protests, pledging to exert every effort to defend the students against the "fabricated charges". 2 students Mohamed al-Sadiq of OAU and Abu Bakr Siddiq of Kordofan University were killed during violent clashes between government and opposition supporters respectively on 27 and 19 April. (source: Sudan Tribune) THAILAND: Thai government rules out death penalty for rapists Thailand's Justice Ministry says it has no plan to execute rapists who murder their victims, saying such a harsh penalty would provoke more rapists to kill. The ministry's 3rd-ranking official, Tawatchai Thaikyo, posted the comments Monday on his Facebook page amid growing outrage over the suspected rape and murder of a 27-year-old teacher, whose alleged attacker was a convicted rapist who lived in her apartment building. The woman's death has prompted calls for harsher penalties for rapes and capital punishment for fatal rapes. Capital punishment is legal in Thailand for 35 different crimes, including drug offences, terrorism, national security crimes, murder and fatal rapes. But in practice, the death penalty is rarely used. The last execution was carried out in 2009 for 2 drug traffickers. "If raping equals the death penalty, it would encourage rapists to kill all victims to shut their mouths," Tawatchai said. "Wouldn't it be better if we require all convicted rapists to undergo a rehabilitation program and give them support to prevent them from committing such crimes again?" Part of the public anger is over the prison system's failure, in this case, to rehabilitate. The main suspect in the attack Friday is a 27-year-old factory worker who was released from prison last August after serving less than two years behind bars for raping a friend's wife. He initially told police that he lived a few doors down from the teacher and knew her apartment door was broken, so he sneaked in late Friday with the intention of raping her but she fought back so he killed her, local media reported. He later changed his confession to say he had no intention of raping but only wanted to rob the teacher. Another neighbour found the woman's naked body, her throat slashed, the day after the attack. The suspect, identified as Chatree Ruamsungnoen, was arrested Saturday and police cancelled a subsequent reenactment of the crime, which is common in Thailand when suspects confess, over concern he would be attacked by angry mobs. The head of Thailand's military government also commented on the case, saying he disagreed with the calls for capital punishment. "Look at what other countries are doing globally. Human rights laws have stopped capital punishment in many countries around the world," Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha said, adding that severe penalties alone won't prevent rapes. Even if the punishment were "3 executions" it still might not be enough to deter criminals, he said. "Society has to help pressure them," Prayuth added, saying public condemnation could be a greater deterrent than the death penalty. Rights groups say rape in Thailand goes largely unreported and unpunished, partly because police often don't take complaints seriously. Thai police receive about 4,000 rape complaints a year and make about 2,400 arrests, according to the Thailand Development Research Institute, a public policy research institute that gets data from the Justice Ministry. The number of unreported rape cases is estimated at 30,000 per year, the institute says, amounting to a case every 15 minutes. The victim's father added his voice to the calls for capital punishment at a news conference after his daughter's death. "I don't want to see laws kill a person," the father said Monday. "But if we let such a bad guy go free, he will kill again." (source: Canadian Press) GUINEA: New criminal code drops death penalty but fails to tackle impunity and keeps repressive provisions Guinea's National Assembly vote in favor of a new criminal code abolishing the death penalty is a significant step for human rights in the country, but the code contains provisions which will strengthen the impunity enjoyed by security personnel and repress the expression of dissent, Amnesty International said. The new criminal code removes the death sentence from the list of applicable penalties and criminalizes torture for the 1st time. But some of the most frequently used forms of torture are defined as cruel and inhuman treatment, for which the law carries no explicit penalties. "15 years since it last carried out executions, the promulgation of the law will make Guinea the 19th country in Africa to abolish the death penalty for all crimes, putting itself on the right side of history," said Francois Patuel Amnesty International West Africa researcher. "But other provisions in the new code will strengthen the culture of impunity for security forces, restrict freedom of expression and peaceful assembly and cast a dark cloud over this otherwise historic win for human rights. When promulgating the code, the president should ensure that it will be revised to bring these provisions in line with international and regional human rights law." The penalty for torture ranges from a fine of 500,000 Guinean Francs ($56) to prison terms of up to 20 years in detention. However, some acts which would fall within the definition of torture under international law are classified in the criminal code as "inhuman and cruel" treatment, for which no penalties are specified. These acts include rape, electric shocks, burns, stress positions, sensory deprivation, mock executions and simulated drowning. Amnesty International and Guinean NGOs have documented at least four cases of torture since the beginning of the year, including one which was filmed and broadcast on social media. No suspected perpetrators have been prosecuted. The code also contains vague language around actions justifiable as "self-defense," and a new provision called "state of necessity," which could essentially be used to shield members of the security forces who cause death or injury by the use of excessive force. International law and standards on law enforcement clearly stipulate that security forces may use force only when strictly necessary and proportionate for the performance of their duty. "The Guinean authorities should not on the one hand abolish the death penalty and on the other exempt the security forces from criminal liability for killings claimed to be in the name of crime prevention," said Patuel. The code's provisions on assemblies remain vague and unclear, giving the authorities a wide margin of discretion to ban peaceful demonstrations on grounds that are not in line with international standards. Moreover, organizers of demonstrations could be held liable for unlawful acts committed by demonstrators. The code also retains oppressive laws that criminalize defamation and "insults" directed at public figures, whether in the form of gestures, text or illustrations, carrying a maximum penalty of 5 years' jail. Background Last year, security forces killed dozens of people and wounded hundreds at a peaceful demonstration. None of the perpetrators have been brought to justice. Since the beginning of the year, 5 trade unionists and 1 journalist have been sentenced to prison terms for insulting the head of state. Another journalist was sentenced to paying a fine of 1,000,000 Guinean francs ($111) for complicity in insulting the head of state. The UN Human Rights Committee has underlined that heads of state and government are legitimately subject to criticism and political opposition, and has expressed concern about laws prohibiting defamation of the head of state and th4e protection of the honor of public officials. After the adoption of the law at the national assembly, the president will have to promulgate it before it becomes enforceable. If he has not done so within 10 days, the law becomes enforceable. (source: Amnesty International USA) INDIA: Court confirms death penalty for four in triple murder The High Court of Karnataka in Kalaburagi confirmed capital punishment imposed on 4 accused in a triple murder case by the District and Sessions Court of Yadgir. A Division Bench consisting of Justice Anand Bayraraddy and Justice L. Narayanaswamy pronounced the order confirming death penalty to Basavaraj Pulleppa Chigarikar (52), Pallya Shankarappa Chigarikar (28), Yankappa Hulleppa Chigarikar (57) and Ramesh Chigarikar (26). All the convicts belong to Gundagurathi village in Deodurg taluk of Raichur district. In October 2012, Principal District and Sessions Judge Sanjeev Kumar Hanchate, who heard the case, convicted the four, while acquitting another accused, head constable Meghanath Naik, for want of evidence. On February 14, 2009, the convicts barged into a farmhouse at Gondadagi village in Saidapur police station limits of Yadgir district and murdered Basavarajappa Gouda, Srinivas and Shivareddy and set the bodies on fire. They stabbed Suryakantamma in the neck and stomach and took away gold ornaments and cash from the house. Suryakantamma was the mother of Srinivas and Shivareddy. Hearing Suryakantamma's screams, Srinivas, a neighbour, rushed her to a hospital and she was saved. The evidence provided by Suryakantamma proved to be crucial in the case resulting in the conviction of the accused. While the prosecution approached the High Court for confirmation of the death sentence, the accused had filed a review petition challenging the order passed by the Principal District and Sessions Judge. (source: The Hindu) MALDIVES: Maldives Foreign Minister Quits in Opposition to Death Penalty The foreign minister of the Maldives, Dunya Maumoon, quit on Tuesday, July 5, as she opposed the government's use of capital punishment, which the government adopted in May. "It was one of the most difficult decisions I had to take," Maumoon said in a statement sent to Reuters. "Yet, the decision became inevitable because of the profound differences of opinion on the government's policy in implementing the death penalty at a time when serious questions are being asked, and concerns being expressed, about the delivery of justice in the Maldives." Ibrahim Hussain Shihab, a spokesman in President Abdulla Yameen's office, confirmed Maumoon's resignation without elaborating on the reason. Local media, however, linked the resignation to the ongoing conflicts between her father, Maumoon Abdul Gayoom and the presdient, who is his half-brother. Gayoom previously ruled the Maldives for 30 years and is now the leader of the ruling Progressive Party. The Maldives adopted democracy in 2008 but the path from there on has been very rough for the country. Last month, a 22-year-old man was convicted and given the death penalty by the Supreme Court in a 2012 assassination case. UN human rights experts have urged the government to halt the execution and uphold the unofficial moratorium on capital punishment. Maumoon previously served as deputy minister for foreign affairs in Mohamed Waheed's government in 2012 and her father's government in 2008. She was appointed foreign minister in 2013 when Yameen assumed power. (source: The Wire) ************ Maldives to implement death penalty despite FM's resignation Maldives President Abdulla Yameen Abdul Gayoom has said that he would go ahead with implementing the death penalty, an official said. Abdul Gayoom made the announcement on Tuesday hours after Foreign Minister Dunya Maumoon decided to resign over the stand taken by the president, Xinhua news agency reported. While addressing the nation to mark Eid ul-Fitr celebrated by the Muslims on Wednesday, the president said his administration had seen 3 vice presidents and as many defence ministers as well as several changes in cabinet positions. The ruling Progressive Party of the Maldives (PPM) was the largest political movement in the nation and this was a time for the party to come together, rather than slide back to the uncertainty of 4 years ago, and to deliver on meaningful change for the nation to move forward through clear dialogue and mutual counsel, Gayoom said. Speaking on the implementation of the death penalty, Gayoom said while he moved forward with a heavy heart and with scrutiny from the international community, he was steadfast in his belief that it served the greater good for the safety and protection of society. He said the country was facing added international scrutiny because of leaders of political parties being sentenced by the courts, and that while the administration cannot and should not influence the judiciary, that justice should not elude those with higher influence. Acknowledging that it was the duty of every leader to bring happiness and progress to the people, Abdul Gayoom said his intention of taking office was not to challenge other leaders but to face and deliver on the challenges to the nation. (source: daijiworld.com) IRAQ: Executions in Iraq will not deter further deadly attacks Iraq's execution of 5 prisoners is a brazen knee-jerk reaction to the abhorrent weekend Baghdad bombing and a worrying sign that the country is stepping up its use of the death penalty, Amnesty International said today. The Iraqi Ministry of Justice said that the 5 prisoners had been put to death on Tuesday as authorities vowed more executions would be carried out following Saturday night's attack in Baghdad, which killed at least 213 people and injured a further 200, according to media reports. "The Baghdad bombing that targeted civilians in a busy shopping area is an unconscionable attack on the basic right to life and a war crime, and there can be no justification for such odious violence," said Philip Luther, Director of the Middle East and North Africa Program at Amnesty International. The armed group calling itself the Islamic State (IS) claimed responsibility. Amnesty International called for those responsible to be brought to justice in fair trials without resorting to the death penalty. "Executions are not the solution and they do not address the root causes of crime. The death penalty, which is a violation of the right to life and the ultimate cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment, has been proven time and time again not to have a greater deterrent effect than a term of imprisonment," said Luther. The criminal justice system remains critically flawed in Iraq. Trials, particularly of defendants facing charges under the anti-terrorism law and possible death sentences, can be grossly unfair, with courts often admitting torture-tainted evidence, including when defendants recant their "confessions" in court. In a statement on Monday, the Ministry of Justice said it would "categorically reject" any international interference in its executions, adding it would not accept any human rights arguments against the death penalty. The ministry said that 3,000 people remained on death row, while more defendants were being sentenced to death. Last year, the Iraqi cabinet had proposed amendments to the Code of Criminal Procedure aimed at speeding up the execution process. Before a death sentence can be carried out, the president of Iraq must ratify it. But if the amendment is passed, executions could be carried out without the president's approval a month after being submitted for ratification. The cabinet's proposal would also make it more difficult for defendants sentenced to death to seek a retrial. "The government's response marks a worrying surge in the use of the death penalty in the country???s counter-terrorism efforts," said Luther. "We call on Iraq to immediately halt all executions and establish an official moratorium on executions. The country cannot continue to use counter-terrorism to justify gross miscarriages of justice and the use of the death penalty." Background: Iraqi courts have handed down more than 123 death sentences in 2016 alone, mostly to men accused of acts of terrorism. At least 105 people have already been executed this year. Former President Jalal Talabani refused to ratify any death sentences, which led to a backlog. Last year, the new president, Fuad Ma'sum, came under significant pressure from MPs and the public to ratify death sentences following the Speicher massacre, in which at least 1,700 military cadets from Speicher military camp near Tikrit were killed after capture by IS fighters in June 2014. A special committee was set up in the presidency to manage the backlog. On June 29, 2016, Amnesty International wrote to the Iraqi authorities asking them to halt all executions, establish an official moratorium on executions, commute all death sentences, and ensure that all retrials are in full compliance with international fair trial standards. (source: Amnesty International) PHILIPPINES: First bill in Congress seeks reinstatement of death penalty Death penalty was the main push of the first bill filed in the 17th Congress under the Duterte administration. Davao del Norte Rep. Pantaleon "Bebot" Alvarez, President Rodrigo Duterte's pick to be the next Speaker, filed a bill seeking to reinstate death penalty on heinous crimes through lethal injection. In House Bill 1 he authored with Capiz Rep. Fredenil Castro, Alvarez said there is a need to reimpose death penalty because "the national crime rate has grown to such alarming proportions requiring an all-out offensive against all forms of felonious acts." "Philippine society is left with no option but to deal with certain grievous offenders in a manner commensurate to the gravity, perversity, atrociousness and repugnance of their crimes," according to the bill. The bill added that "the basic tenets of equity and justice demand that our penal system be one not only of reformation but corresponding retribution." Lethal injection according to the bill should be adopted as the method to carry out the capital punishment. In the explanatory note, the authors said there is a need to reimpose death penalty because of the prevalence of heinous crimes and illegal drugs. "There is no denying the scourge illicit drugs have foisted upon our society, and neither is there denying the audacity with which malefactors, whether under the influence or otherwise, have perpetuated the most perverse and atrocious crimes in the most repugnant of manners," the authors said. The authors said there is a need to reimpose death penalty as a retribution of justice against heinous criminals. "The imposition of the death penalty for heinous crimes and the mode of its implementation, both subjects of repealed laws, are crucial components of an effective dispensation of both reformative and retributive justice," the authors said. "It is thus, imperative, that this Congress, in the exercise of its mandate to take every conceivable step to protect the honor and dignity and the very life of each and every law-abiding Filipino, pass in the most expeditious manner such laws reimposing the penalty of death for the most abhorrent of offenses and provide for its execution," the authors added. The bill sought to reimpose death penalty on heinous crimes listed under Republic Act 7659, including murder, plunder, rape, kidnapping and serious illegal detention, sale, use and possession of illegal drugs, carnapping with homicide, among others. The bill sought to reenact into the law Republic Act 8177 which designated lethal injection as a method of carrying out capital punishment. According to the bill, all laws that are inconsistent with this measure would be repealed. The bill would then repeal Republic Act 9346, or the law signed by former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo in 2006 which abolished death penalty. Alvarez filed the bill to fulfill the mandate of the Duterte administration to bring back death penalty as a deterrent to the rising criminality and use of illicit drugs in the country. Duterte had wanted Congress to bring back death penalty by hanging. (source: Philippine Inquirer) ************* Philippine Sen. Manny Pacquiao Favors Death Penalty by Hanging Newly elected Philippine Sen. Manny Pacquiao said on July 4 that he will push to reimpose the death penalty by hanging. (source: newsbeatsocial.com) ******** Congressmen want 9-year-old kids charged for crimes----Davao del Norte 1st district's Pantaleon Alvarez and Capiz 2nd district's Fredenil Castro file an accompanying bill seeking to restore the death penalty Congressmen are seeking to lower the age by which suspects can be criminally charged, while also proposing the restoration of the death penalty for heinous crimes. Presumptive House Speaker and Davao del Norte 1st District Representative Pantaleon Alvarez and Capiz 2nd District Representative Fredenil Castro filed a bill seeking to amend Republic Act Number 9344 or the "Juvenile Delinquency Act of 2006." RA 9344 is also known as the Pangilinan Law, named after its author Senator Francis Pangilinan. It raised the minimum age of criminal responsibility from 9 to 15 years old. Now, Alvarez and Castro want to revert this to 9 years old under their House Bill Number 2 or the "Minimum Age of Criminal Responsibility Act." The lawmakers explained that while the Pangilinan Law's intent "may be highly laudable," it is also "pampering... youth offenders who commit crimes knowing they can get away with it." "Worse, adult criminals - individually and/or in organized cabal - knowingly and purposely make use of youth below 15 years old to commit crimes, such as drug trafficking, aware that they cannot be held criminally liable," said Alvarez and Castro in a statement on Wednesday, July 6. The Pangilinan Law would be amended to read: "A child nine (9) years of age and above but below eighteen (18) years of age shall likewise be exempt from criminal liability and subjected to an intervention program unless he/she is determined to have acted with discernment, in which case he/she shall be subjected to appropriate proceedings in accordance with this Act. "The exemption from criminal liability herein established does not include exemption from civil liability, which shall be enforced in accordance with existing laws." They also filed HB Number 1, which seeks to restore the death penalty via lethal injection for heinous crimes. Such crimes include plunder, human trafficking, illegal recruitment, treason, parricide, infanticide, rape, qualified piracy and bribery, kidnapping and illegal detention, robbery with violence against or intimidation of persons, carnapping destructive arson, terrorism, drug-related cases, among others. The 2 bills are consistent with the legislative priorities of President Rodrigo Duterte, who vowed to return the death penalty as well as to amend the Juvenile Justice Law. Should HB numbers 1 and 2 pass under the 17th Congress, it would mean that a 9-year-old could be sentenced to death should he or she commit a heinous crime. 'Reformative, retributive' justice Duterte previously said he wants to imprison parents of unaccompanied minors caught loitering on the streets between 10 pm and 5 am. Several cities have since imposed curfews on minors, with district police naming the crackdowns as "Oplan RODY," an acronym after Duterte's nickname. It stands for "Rid the Streets of Drinkers and Youths." On the return of the death penalty via lethal injection, Alvarez and Castro said these are "crucial components of an effective dispensation of both reformative and retributive justice." "[The] criminal justice system has had to make do with penal laws that are perceived to be less than dissuasive. There is evidently a need to reinvigorate the war against criminality by revising a deterrent coupled by its consistent, persistent, and determined implementation," the congressmen said. (source: rappler.com) From rhalperi at smu.edu Wed Jul 6 14:36:35 2016 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Wed, 6 Jul 2016 14:36:35 -0500 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----USA Message-ID: July 6 USA: Dylann Roof's lawyers seek dismissal of federal charges Dylann Roof's lawyers are seeking to dismiss the federal indictment against Roof, saying his charges exceed the authority of the federal government and are unconstitutional. The request was filed on Tuesday by Roof's defense attorneys. Defense attorney Sarah Gannett argues that all 33 indictments against Roof should be thrown out because they assert federal jurisdiction in a case that should be left to South Carolina authorities. Roof's lawyers say if the government withdraws Roof's death penalty, he will plead guilty as charged to all counts in the indictment. On June 18, 2015, Roof was arrested by authorities in North Carolina, for an arrest warrant issued by the State of South Carolina. He was transferred to South Carolina custody later that day and charged with various state offenses stemming from the shooting deaths of 9 people, and injury of 3 more at the Emanuel AME Church in Charleston on June 17, 2015. Roof was later charged in federal court with related offenses, including obstruction of religious exercise resulting in death, hate crime acts resulting in death, and use of a firearm in connection with a crime of violence resulting in death. Unlike in many federal cases, in which the state prosecution is dismissed in favor of federal prosecution, or in which the federal case is charged only after the state case, the federal and state cases here were charged concurrently. The federal case is scheduled for November 7, 2016. The state case is scheduled for trial on January 17, 2017. In both the state and federal cases, Roof faces a potential death sentence or life in prison without release. (source: WSPA news) From rhalperi at smu.edu Wed Jul 6 14:37:58 2016 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Wed, 6 Jul 2016 14:37:58 -0500 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide Message-ID: July 6 IRAN: Shahram Ahmadi in Imminent Danger of Execution after Request for Retrial Rejected Shahram Ahmadi is in imminent danger of execution after his lawyer's request for a retrial was rejected by Iranian authorities. Iran's Supreme Court has reportedly rejected a request for retrial regarding the case of Shahram Ahmadi, a political prisoner on death row in Karaj's Rajai Shahr Prison (northern Iran). Mr. Ahmadi, who is a Sunni Muslim preacher, is in imminent danger of execution for Moharebeh (enmity against God). Mr. Ahmadi was arrested in Sanandaj (in the province of Kurdistan, northwestern Iran) by Iranian authorities on April 26, 2009, after he was shot and injured by security agents. He was reportedly taken to the hospital and later transferred to a detention centre in Sanandaj operated by the Ministry of Intelligence. He endured more than 40 months in solitary confinement cells in Ministry of Intelligence detention centres in Sanandaj and Zanjan. He was severely tortured and accused of relations with Salafi groups and the assassination of a Sunni Friday prayer Imam in Sanandaj. In an unprecedented move, Iranian authorities reportedly transferred Mr. Ahmadi's case file from Sanandaj to branch 28 of Tehran's Revolutionary Court, presided by a corrupt judge by the name of Moghiseh. In accordance with the judicial process in Iran, the case file of defendants must be examined or investigated where the alleged crime was committed. Mr. Ahmadi was reportedly sentenced to death by Judge Moghiseh based on forced confessions. According to Mr. Ahmadi's lawyer, his client has never possessed or used a weapon and has never harmed anyone. The lawyer, who had filed the request for the retrial, wrote in his appeals about the psychological and physical tortures his client endured in order for the Iranian authorities to extract confessions from him. Mr. Ahmadi has written multiple letters from prison denying the assasination charge against him and claiming that he was arrested only because he is a preacher of Sunni Islam. Mr. Ahmadi's brother, Bahram, was executed at Karaj's Ghezelhesar Prison by Iranian authorities on December 27, 2012 along with nine other Sunni Muslim political prisoners. Bahram was reportedly arrrested by Iranian authorities on September 19, 2009 when he was under the age of 18. On March 4, 2014 6 other Sunni Muslim political prisoners were executed by Iranian authorities in Ghezel Hesar Prison: Hamed Ahmadi, Jahangir Dehghani, Jamshid Dehghani, Kamal Molaei, Sedigh Mohammadi, and Hadi Hosseini. There are currently at least 35 Sunni Muslim political prisoners in Rajai Shahr Prison who are in imminent danger of execution. (source: Iran Human Rights) PHILIPPINES: Bill to re-impose death penalty filed in Philippines----First bill filed under President Rodrigo Duterte seeks to reintroduce capital punishment for 'heinous crimes' A bill seeking to re-impose the death penalty in the Philippines has become the first to be filed under the presidency of Rodrigo Duterte. Local media reported Wednesday that the bill proposes that those convicted of certain "heinous crimes" be executed by legal injection, and was filed by Davao del Norte Representative Pantaleon Alvarez -- Duterte's choice for Speaker of the House of Representatives -- and Representative Fredenil Castro of central Capiz province. "Philippine society is left with no option but to deal with certain grievous offenders in a manner commensurate to the gravity, perversity, atrociousness and repugnance of their crimes," according to House Bill No. 1 of the newly sworn in 17th Congress. After winning the May 9 election on a crime-fighting campaign, Duterte vowed to work toward re-introducing the death penalty, which had been abolished for a 2nd time in 2006. Duterte -- a lawyer by profession -- served 22 years as the mayor of southern Davao, overseeing its transformation from a crime-ridden hovel to a peaceful and investment-friendly city. He has pledged to curb corruption and criminality within 3 to 6 months of his presidential term, which began June 30. In House Bill No. 1, Alvarez underlined the need to revive the death penalty due to the country's crime rate having "grown to such alarming proportions requiring an all-out offensive against all forms of felonious acts". "There is evidently a need to reinvigorate the war against criminality by revising a deterrent coupled by its consistent, persistent and determined implementation," Alvarez and Castro said. Listed among the "heinous crimes" that could be subject to the death penalty are human trafficking, illegal recruitment, treason, rape, qualified piracy and bribery, kidnapping and illegal detention, robbery with violence against or intimidation of persons, terrorism and drug-related cases. "The imposition of the death penalty for heinous crimes and the mode of its implementation, both subjects of repealed laws, are crucial components of an effective dispensation of both reformative and retributive justice," the bill's authors stressed. The Philippines became the 1st Asian country to prohibit the death penalty under its 1987 Constitution, drafted after the overthrow of late dictator President Ferdinand Marcos. Capital punishment was restored in the 1990s -- as allowed under the constitution with the approval of Congress -- before being abolished in 2006. As Davao City mayor, Duterte imposed bans on public smoking, and the selling of alcohol and the operation of entertainment spots past midnight. In 2015, however, Amnesty International alleged that "death squads" under his control were responsible for 700 extrajudicial executions in the region. Duterte reported to have responded that it was more like 1,700. (source: aa.com.tr) From rhalperi at smu.edu Thu Jul 7 13:24:58 2016 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Thu, 7 Jul 2016 13:24:58 -0500 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, GA., OHIO, TENN., KY., ARK. Message-ID: July 7 TEXAS----stay of impending execution Texas halts scheduled execution pending drug test The scheduled July 14 execution of a man convicted in the slaying of a medical student robbed of $40 has been postponed indefinitely. A Texas prison system spokesman said Wednesday that a state district judge in Houston has withdrawn the execution order for Perry Eugene Williams pending test results for the drugs to be used in his execution. The Texas Attorney General's Office had agreed in a lawsuit filed on Williams' behalf to have the drugs tested before his execution. Williams is set to die for the 2000 slaying of Baylor College of Medicine student Matthew Carter. Texas Department of Criminal Justice spokesman Jason Clark says the delay doesn't affect the state's next scheduled lethal injection, the Aug. 10 execution of Ramiro Gonzales for the 2001 slaying of an 18-year-old woman in Medina County. (source: Associated Press) ************************ xecutions under Greg Abbott, Jan. 21, 2015-present----19 Executions in Texas: Dec. 7, 1982----present-----537 Abbott#--------scheduled execution date-----name------------Tx. # 20---------August 10----------------Ramiro Gonzales-------538 21---------August 23----------------Robert Pruett---------539 22---------August 31----------------Rolando Ruiz----------540 23---------September 14-------------Robert Jennings-------541 24---------October 19---------------Terry Edwards---------542 (sources: TDCJ & Rick Halperin) ************ Indicted: Man Charged In Shooting Death of Stepson An Olney man is indicted for capital murder for the shooting death of his 3-year-old stepson. Clay County Sheriff Kenny Lemons said the grand jury met Wednesday and indicted George Coty Wayman for capital murder. Sheriff Lemons said he is very proud of the job District Attorney Paige Williams did in presenting the details of the case to ensure a solid indictment. 3-year-old Dominic Castro was shot on the afternoon of May 18. Initially, witnesses told investigators he was jumping on the bed and caused a gun on the bed to accidentally go off. But, Sheriff Lemons said interviews soon revealed Wayman pointed the gun at Dominic. Witnesses also said police that if he did not stop jumping on the bed he'd shoot him. Lemons said Wayman then fired the gun and struck Dominic in the back of the head. At Dominic's funeral, a family friend described him as being a fun-loving and sweet little boy who loved hugs and who never knew a stranger. In Texas, a capital murder conviction can carry a death penalty sentence if prosecutors chose to pursue it. (source: texomashomepage.com) GEORGIA----impending execution Clemency hearing set for Georgia death row inmate Representatives seeking clemency for death row inmate John Wayne Conner are to meet with the State Board of Pardons and Paroles at 9 a.m. on Wednesday, the day before Conner is scheduled to be executed by lethal injection at the Georgia Diagnostic and Classification Prison in Jackson. Conner received the death sentence, set for 7 p.m. July 14, for the January 1982 murder of James T. White in Telfair County. A jury found Conner guilty of malice murder, armed robbery and motor vehicle theft that July, sentencing him to death. In May 1983, the Georgia Supreme Court affirmed his convictions for malice murder and motor vehicle theft and his death sentence, but reversed his armed robbery conviction. The U.S. Supreme Court denied Conner's appeal on Feb. 29. The Parole Board, which has the sole constitutional authority to grant clemency and commute or reduce a death sentence to life with the possibility of parole or to life without the possibility of parole, only considers commutation of a death-sentenced inmate after all judicial avenues of relief appear to have been exhausted. The meeting is expected to be closed, as authorized by Georgia law, and no public comment will be taken at the meeting nor any other business conducted. (source: Albany Herald) *************** Panel to hold clemency hearing for Georgia death row inmate The Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles has scheduled a clemency hearing for an inmate scheduled to be executed next week. The parole board said in a news release Wednesday that supporters of 60-year-old John Wayne Conner can appear before the board on July 13. Conner is set to be executed July 14 at the state prison in Jackson. Conner was convicted of beating his friend J.T. White to death in January 1982 during an argument after a night of drinking and marijuana use. The parole board is the only entity authorized to commute a death sentence in Georgia. Conner's attorneys have also asked a judge to halt his execution. They say Conner is intellectually disabled and, therefore, ineligible for execution. The state counters that those arguments are procedurally barred. (source: Associated Press) OHIO: Ohio Supreme Court to hear local death-row appeal The Ohio Supreme Court is expected to hear an appeal from death-row inmate Steven Cepec next week. Cepec, now 47, became the 1st person to receive the death penalty from a Medina County court in 60 years when he was sentenced in April 2013. He was convicted of killing Frank Munz, a 73-year-old Chatham Township historian, using the claw end of a hammer and a lamp cord on June 3, 2010 - just 6 days after being released from prison for other crimes. The Ohio Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in Cepec's case Wednesday in Columbus. A document of more than 150 pages filed by Cepec's appeal attorney, Nathan Ray, contests Cepec's sentence. The document outlines 7 arguments against the case's outcome based on the actions of the now-retired judge who heard the case, the prosecution and Cepec's defense counsel: --The document alleges the court should have had a competency hearing for the victim's nephew, who served as a witness against Cepec, because Common Pleas Judge James L. Kimbler asked the attorneys if the witness was "developmentally challenged." A document filed by county Assistant Prosecutor Matthew Kern in response to the appeal said Cepec's defense counsel did not request a hearing during the trial and the judge's statement was just a "whimsical question in an attempt to convince the prosecutor to change his approach." --The appeal argues Kimbler should have considered more deeply defense attorney Kerry O'Brien's request for a mistrial after a witness mentioned Cepec's prior criminal record. Kern argued this mention was insufficient for a mistrial and Cepec's prior burglary convictions were discussed later during the trial. --The document argued that statements made by Cepec to police after he asked for an attorney should not have been included in the trial. A response filed by Kern argues the phrasing Cepec used to request a lawyer was ambiguous and he received multiple warnings reminding him he could ask for counsel during the interrogation. --According to the appeal, the defense counsel presented inconsistent arguments during the trial, particularly in the opening and closing statements. The document argues these changes and other alleged errors show Cepec's legal representation was "deficient." Kern argued these deficiencies "were strategic decisions made by counsel in the face of overwhelming evidence of Cepec's guilt." --The appeal holds the prosecution's closing arguments were "improper" and confused the details of the case with aggravating circumstances, perhaps causing the jury to choose the death penalty instead of a lighter sentence. A document filed by Kern said the prosecution was "careful to note" the difference between circumstances in the case. --In a court filing, Ray argued the trial was unfair because Kimbler repeatedly interrupted witnesses and defense counsel, including taking over the questioning of witnesses several times. Kern responded through a court document that the questioning was not prejudicial and the prosecution similarly was interrupted by Kimbler. --The final argument in the appeal disputes the constitutionality of the death penalty and argues that the current sentencing system is vague, leading to the "arbitrary imposition of the death penalty." A document filed by Kern said the argument against the death penalty commonly is raised and "consistently rejected" by courts. County Prosecutor Dean Holman said death penalty cases frequently are appealed. "I can't think of one from any county that they have not," he said. County Assistant Prosecutor James Price, Holman and Kern will present the state's side of the case at the hearing. Akron-based attorneys Adam VanHo and Ray will represent Cepec's. Cepec is no longer the only former Medina County resident on death row at the Chillicothe Correctional Institution. Earlier this year James Tench, 30, received the death penalty after being convicted of killing his 55-year-old mother and disposing her body near their shared Brunswick home. Cepec and Tench are among 137 men and 1 woman on death row in Ohio. Since early 2014, executions in Ohio have been on hold due to a shortage of lethal injection drugs. The next execution in Ohio is scheduled for January. (source: Medina Gazette) TENNESSEE: East Tennessee Man';s death penalty conviction being upheld The death penalty is being upheld for one East Tennessee man convicted of killing and dismembering 2 people. Howard Hawk Willis was found guilty and sentenced in 2010. Willis was found guilty of the murders of 2 Walker County teenagers. Adam Chrismer and Samantha Leming were killed and dismembered by Willis in Washington County, Tennessee. In October, Willis appealed his case to the Supreme Court, but his convictions and sentencing were upheld. (source: WDEF news) KENTUCKY: The last public execution in the United States Aug. 14 will mark the 80th anniversary of the last public execution in the United States. Rainey Bethea, a 27-year-old black man, was publicly hanged in Owensboro, Ky. on Aug. 14, 1936 for the rape of Lischia Edwards, a 70-year-old white woman. Not only did an estimated 20,000 people, including thousands from out of town, gather to watch the execution, the circumstances of the execution and the media circus that ensued embarrassed members of the Kentucky legislature enough to put an end to public executions in Kentucky and the United States. Bethea, originally from Roanoke, Va., arrived in Owensboro in 1933 where he worked as a laborer earning $7 per week. In 1935, he was charged with breach of the peace and fined $20. Shortly thereafter, Bethea was caught stealing 2 purses valued at more than $25 each (equivalent to approximately $550 today) from a beauty shop and was convicted of grand larceny, a felony. He was sentenced to 1 year in the Kentucky State Penitentiary and was paroled in December 1935. Less than 1 month after his release, Bethea was arrested again for breaking and entering into a house. The charge was later amended to drunk and disorderly. However, because he couldn't pay the $100 fine (the equivalent of $1,738 today) he remained incarcerated until April 18, 1936. On June 7, 1936, a drunken Bethea entered Edwards??? home and woke her when he climbed into her bedroom window. After Bethea violently raped and choked Edwards, he searched her home for valuables and stole several rings. Bethea, who removed his prison ring and inadvertently left it behind at Edward's house, stashed the stolen jewelry in a nearby barn. Edwards' body was discovered late the same morning when concerned neighbors had not heard Edwards stirring about in her room and decided to make a welfare check. It was the coroner who found Bethea's celluloid prison ring, which several people told police they had seen Bethea wearing. Because Bethea had a criminal record, police were able to employ new fingerprint technology to match Bethea's prints to items he touched in Edwards' bedroom. After eluding police for several days Bethea was eventually spotted again on a river bank where he attempted to hop a barge. When police questioned Bethea, he denied he was Bethea and told them his name was James Smith. Bethea was arrested and later identified as Bethea by a scar on his head. To avoid a lynch mob, a circuit court judge ordered the sheriff to transport Bethea to a county jail in Louisville. It was during the transfer that Bethea confessed to raping Edwards and strangling her to death while lamenting about leaving his prison ring behind at the scene. On June 12, 1936, Bethea made another confession as to where he stashed the stolen jewelry. Under the statutes in force at the time, if the death penalty was given for murder and robbery, it had to be carried out by electrocution at the state penitentiary. However, the punishment for rape could be carried out by public hanging in the county seat where the crime occurred, so prosecutors decided to only charge Bethea with rape. After less than 2 hours, the grand jury indicted Bethea on the rape charge. Bethea was never charged with murder or any other crime. The night before his trial, Bethea decided he wanted to plead guilty, which he did the next day. Prosecutors still had to present their case to jurors at trial because they would be the ones who decided Bethea's sentence. The case was infamous in Owensboro and surrounding areas but gained national attention because Daviess County Sheriff Florence Shoemaker Thompson, whose duty it was to hang Bethea, was a woman. Thompson became sheriff in 1936 after her husband Everett Thompson, who was elected sheriff in 1933, died unexpectedly of pneumonia in April 1936. After it became public knowledge Thompson would perform the hanging, letters to the sheriff poured in by the hundreds, including one from Arthur L. Hash, a former Louisville police officer, who offered to perform the hanging for free and only asked that his name not be released to the public. Thompson promptly accepted his offer. Chief Deputy U.S. Marshal for the District of Indiana also sent Thompson a letter informing her of a farmer from Illinois named G. Phil Hanna who had supervised numerous hangings across the country, although he never actually pulled the trigger that released the trapdoor. Hanna apparently became interested in the art of hanging after witnessing the botched execution of Fred Behme in 1986 in McLeansboro, Ill, which resulted in Behme suffering. Some people may recall the story about the hanging execution of convicted murderer Eva Dugan at the state prison in Florence, Ariz. in 1930, which resulted in her decapitation and influenced the state to replace hanging with lethal gas. Hanna wanted to provide assistance with hangings to ensure a quick and painless death, although he didn't always achieve that goal. In 1920, during the hanging of James Johnson, the rope broke and Johnson was severely injured when he fell to the ground and Hanna had to carry Johnson back up the scaffold to carry out the execution. Bethea was the 70th hanging execution Hanna supervised. Gov. Albert Benjamin "Happy" Chandler signed Bethea's execution warrant, setting the execution for sunrise on Aug. 14 in the courthouse yard. Thompson requested a revised death warrant since the county had just planted new shrubs and flowers in the courthouse yard at great expense and didn't want spectators trampling the gardens. A 2nd death warrant was subsequently issued, moving the execution to an empty lot near the county garage. Bethea ate his last meal, consisting of fried chicken, pork chops, mashed potatoes, pickled cucumbers, cornbread, lemon pie and ice cream at 4 p.m. on Aug. 13. Hanna visited Bethea in jail and instructed him he would need to stand on the X marked on the trapdoor. On the morning of the hanging, Hash arrived drunk in a white suit and Panama hat. At that point, no one but he and Thompson knew he would be pulling the trigger. Hanna placed the noose around Bethea's neck, adjusted it and signaled Hash to pull the trigger. The crowd watched in silence. Hash was apparently too drunk to respond. Hanna yelled at Hash to "do it" to no avail. Instead, a deputy leaned onto the trigger, springing the trapdoor and dropping Bethea 8 feet, breaking his neck instantly. Despite Bethea wanting his body sent to his sister in South Carolina, he was buried in a pauper's grave at a cemetery in Owensboro. Bill Shelton recalls in a YouTube video his parents taking him to the execution when he was young child. Stating there were hawkers everywhere selling sandwiches and Coca Cola, Shelton said you would have thought you were at a picnic rather than an execution. Newspapers from all over, after having spent considerable money to cover the first execution performed by a woman, left disappointed. Several took liberties in reporting about the execution, some claimed Thompson fainted, while others claimed the crowd stormed the scaffolding for souvenirs. The media circus surrounding the execution embarrassed members of the Kentucky General Assembly and prompted Sen. William R. Attkinsson, representing Louisville, to introduce Senate Bill 69 in 1938. The bill, which passed both chambers and was signed into law by Gov. Albert Benjamin "Happy" Chandler on March 12, 1938, repealed the section of statute requiring death sentences for the crime of rape to be conducted by hanging in the county seat where the crime was committed. The legislature only met biennially at the time, which is why it took until 1938 to introduce a bill. Chandler subsequently expressed regret over signing the bill and stated, "Our streets are no longer safe." There were 2 other men hanged for rape in Kentucky after Bethea in 1937 but the trial court judges in both cases ordered the hangings to be conducted privately. (source: sonorannews.com) ARKANSAS: Executions could return to Arkansas after SC ruling----State wants to set lethal injection dates for nine men on death row According to Amnesty International, there were 1,634 recorded executions in the world in 2015, the highest documented by the organization since 1989. The countries most commonly holding the executions were Iran, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia. China was excluded from the list as its executions remain secret, Amnesty International stated on its website, amnesty.org. The United States recorded 28 executions from 6 states in 2015. New execution dates for nine men on death row in Arkansas have yet to be named as of press time, but their attorney plans on filing an appeal petition after the state Supreme Court ruled June 23 that it is constitutional to keep the maker and seller of the lethal injection drugs a secret. "It puts into question how civilized we are, that we would actually kill people as a state - that means the leadership but the people too, we???re agreeing to kill people," Sister Joan Pytlik, DC, minister for religious at the Diocese of Little Rock. "Most of them are either mentally ill, had a terrible childhood, they did (their crime) while they were under the influence of drugs and maybe don't even know they did it. Where is our mercy? Where is our compassion? Yes to the victims, but also to these broken people." Arkansas Attorney General Leslie Rutledge said she will request new dates for the inmates to be executed, saying in a statement on the attorney general website, arkansasag.gov, "I know that victims' families want to see justice carried out." Attorney Jeff Rosenzweig, who represents the inmates, told the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette that his office is working on a "timely rehearing petition." Sister Joan, a member of the Arkansas Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty, said justice means a life sentence. "The 9 who have brought the suit would all say that a life sentence can be more difficult than a death sentence. You figure you have your whole life to live locked up," Sister Joan said. "... The word justice means 'right relationship.' To have some compassion and mercy for broken people is a right relationship. You never find closure through execution." Decision details Court decisions take 18 days to be certified, making it official July 11. Rutledge did not request to expedite formalizing the ruling although one of the state's lethal injection drugs expired on June 30 and the seller will not provide more drugs. However, it is unclear if the state has another drug source. In a June 23 statement, the Arkansas Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty said it is "deeply troubled by the court's departure from established precedent." Currently, 34 men are on death row in Arkansas and the state has not executed anyone since 2005. "Today's ruling announces that the state is no longer bound to agreements that it chooses not to abide by and that our state's Freedom of Information Act can be easily circumvented," ACADP stated. "Under current law, prisoners are strapped with the burden of proving that there is a known and available alternative to the state's current execution protocol, and while this law requires those condemned to death row to basically plan their own executions, the prisoner's identification of 5 alternatives to the state's current of execution was still not sufficient for the court." Rosenzweig filed a lawsuit last year when Act 1096 became law, allowing the sources of the 3-drug lethal cocktail to remain anonymous. Advocates for the law have said companies could face criticism if it were revealed that their drugs assisted in executions. The inmates argued that because state law allowed information about the source of the 3 drugs - midazolam, vecuronium bromide and potassium chloride - to remain a secret, they could not determine whether or not they could be subjected to cruel and unusual punishment. Austin Sarat, a professor of jurisprudence and political science at Amherst College in Massachusetts, stated in his 2014 book, "Gruesome Spectacles: Botched Executions and America's Death Penalty," that from 1890 to 2010, 8,776 people were executed and something went wrong in 276 (or 3.15 %) of executions. Lethal injections were more commonly botched. On Dec. 3, 2015, Pulaski County Circuit Judge Wendell Griffen called the law unconstitutional, which further stayed the executions. The Arkansas Supreme Court voted 4-3 in favor of the law, saying in its ruling that "disclosing the information is actually detrimental to the process." In June 2015, drugs valued at $24,226.40 were purchased for 8 of the executions. Pro-life stance Both Bishop Anthony B. Taylor and Pope Francis, through Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano, apostolic nuncio to the United States, appealed to the state legislature and Gov. Asa Hutchinson last year to stop the executions. "God's gift of life is sacred, regardless of a person's usefulness to society, which means that there is no justification whatsoever to take the lives of people who are locked away and pose no further threat to society," Bishop Taylor said Sept. 4. Hutchinson originally set the executions for October 2015. Hutchinson's spokesman J.R. Davis said in a statement to Arkansas Catholic: "Gov. Hutchinson believes Judge Griffen overstepped his authority and is pleased the Arkansas Supreme Court reversed his ruling upholding the law protecting the confidentiality of the supplier. The governor is now reviewing the decision and is conferring with the attorney general about what are the appropriate next steps to take." ACADP has argued the death penalty is costly and there is "proven racial disparity" in the state's death penalty. In 2015, the ACADP drafted Senate Bill 298 that proposed the abolition of the death penalty. Though it was the 1st time such a bill passed in committee, it was not put before the state Senate. In 2017, the group plans on drafting another bill that replaces the death penalty with a life sentence. According to the Death Penalty Information Center, it costs taxpayers $90,000 more per year to house a death row inmate than an inmate in a regular prison. How you can help "As Catholics we need to pray that the governor, attorney general and legislature will find mercy in their hearts, and respond to Pope Francis' call for an end to the death penalty worldwide," Sister Joan said. "To that end, we can send the postcards supplied by Catholic Charities to give our message to the governor." Catholic Charities of Arkansas printed postcards for ACADP that are available at Christ the King Church and St. John Center in Little Rock and some Central Arkansas parishes, said Karen DiPippa, director of the CCA Westside Free Medical Clinic. (source: Arkansas Catholic) From rhalperi at smu.edu Thu Jul 7 13:26:36 2016 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Thu, 7 Jul 2016 13:26:36 -0500 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----OKLA., NEB., COLO., IDAHO, CALIF., USA Message-ID: July 7 OKLAHOMA----new (NOT SERIOUS) execution date Judge Sets Execution Date For Albert Johnson Flanked by a total of 4 deputies, convicted killer Albert Johnson made his way into the courtroom for his formal sentencing. Just like during the trial, he refused to show any remorse. "When people want to have a conversation about abolishing the death penalty, they need to think about people like this man who are absolutely a danger to anyone they are around any other human being they are around," Oklahoma County District Attorney David Prater said. Johnson and his attorneys refused to comment during his sentencing, but Oklahoma County District Judge Donald Deason told him to take a moment to ???take a breath because it would be the last free breath you'll breathe." He then proceeded to sentence him to a September 16, 2016 execution date. "Because there's no other just verdict in a case like this to deal with an offender like this," said Prater. "I mean a cold-blooded killer who hurts everyone he comes in contact with!" Prater also confirmed deputies found a shank taped behind the sink inside Albert Johnson's jail cell, further proving just how dangerous this man is to the public, and why he should be put to death. Inside the courtroom was the father and sister of Rachel Rogers, the young woman who Johnson is convicted of brutally raping and murdering, all because she answered a distressed friend's call for help. That friend was Albert Johnson's girlfriend at the time. She was also assaulted, but lived, and testified against him at trial. Though Johnson received an execution date, it could be years before he is actually put to death due to appeals and the state's moratorium on executions. Johnson's attorney said his client is sorry for what he did, but no one heard that from Johnson himself. (source: news9.com) NEBRASKA: Young Professionals host anti-death penalty campaign fundraiser The death penalty in Nebraska wasn't exactly high on the list of social conversation topics among young professionals in Lincoln - until May of 2015. That's when the Legislature voted to repeal the death penalty, and then to override a Republican governor's veto of the repeal, in a state known to be conservative and rather set in its ways. And that's when conversations about the death penalty took off. "The issue comes up a lot with my friends and a lot of the people that I hang out with," said Eric Gerrard, a co-host for a young professionals fundraiser Thursday night on behalf of Retain A Just Nebraska, which is working to ensure the death penalty repeal stands. Gerrard, a lobbyist, said he was at the Capitol for all the debate on the death penalty repeal bill (LB268) and the votes. "Because I'm over there quite a bit, my friends will ask me what's going on and (about) the arguments on both sides, and I guess I have a difficult time coming up with too many arguments for the death penalty," he said. They talk about whether death or life sentences are more expensive for the state. And whether the worst punishment for murder is a death sentence or spending a lifetime in prison. His most conservative friend, who disagrees with him on just about everything, agrees with him on this issue, he said. Convincing a state full of voters to retain the repeal will be a task, Gerrard said. "The death penalty's kind of the easy answer and there's a lot of education and thought that has to go into understanding why it isn't the best answer," he said. "That takes a lot of research and deep thinking, and I don't know if that always happens when people go to cast a vote." Chris Peterson is a spokesman for the opposing side, Nebraskans for the Death Penalty, the group that got the issue onto the November ballot. He said supporters of keeping the death penalty in Nebraska cut across all age groups. "Our recent polling indicates there is no statistical difference of opinion about the death penalty for 18-34-year-olds versus all voters," he said. "So whether someone is 25, 45 or 65 years old, they have the same probability of being among the majority of Nebraskans who support repealing LB268 and keeping the death penalty." Lincoln Sen. Kate Bolz, a sponsor of the fundraiser and a member of the Lincoln Young Professionals, said they've had a lot of interest in the death penalty from young people, and they wanted to respond to that interest. "That generation of people is among the most diverse in our country and so the idea that the death penalty is unfairly applied resonates," she said. Liz Ring Carlson, a public relations manager who is a co-host for the event, said Lincoln has a history of young people being politically active and wanting to have a voice in policy making decisions. "But sometimes they're just really not sure how to get involved." So the purpose of Thursday's gathering is, along with raising money for the campaign, to share information and educate people for the November vote, she said. The Legislature brought forward a difficult topic last year, she said. "That increased their interest in really having an honest and authentic dialog around it, not partisan bickering or anything along those lines," Carlson said. They want to know the facts, she said. Does the death penalty work? Is it more expensive? How many people are affected? What percentage of people put to death are actually innocent? And why is there a group going against what our elected officials said? Young people see lot of positive things going on in the state, with job growth, startup businesses, and the interest in attracting more young professionals to the state, she said. And the death penalty plays into that mindset of what Nebraska's all about, especially on the national stage, she said. The fundraiser is bipartisan, Bolz said, and will be held at Fuse Coworking, 151 N. Eighth St., from 5:30-7:30. (source: Lincoln Journal Star) COLORADO: Colorado Supreme Court denies petition over fired judge in death penalty case----1-page order gives no details on decision on Judge Gerald Rafferty The Colorado Supreme Court on Wednesday quickly dismissed a petition asking for a mysteriously fired judge to be reinstated in the long-running death penalty appeal on which he was about to rule. Lawyers for Sir Mario Owens, 1 of 3 men on Colorado's death row, last week asked the state's highest court to put Judge Gerald Rafferty back on the bench and to release more information about why he was dismissed from the case he has presided over for a decade. The petition accused Colorado court officials and the chief justice of the Supreme Court - who also acts as the CEO of the state Judicial Branch - of breaking the law in Rafferty's removal. On Wednesday, the Colorado Supreme Court issued a single-page order denying the petition. The order gave no explanation of the denial. Chief Justice Nancy Rice did not participate in the decision, according to the order. Owens and another man, Robert Ray, were convicted and sentenced to death in separate trials for the killings in Aurora in 2005 of Javad Marshall-Fields and Vivan Wolfe. Marshall-Fields was a witness who was scheduled to testify against Ray in a trial over the shooting death of another man. Rafferty oversaw Owens' trial in Arapahoe County District Court. By law, that means he was also the judge to handle the 1st step of Owens' appeal, which has stretched on for years and involved dozens of weeks of new hearings. January, Rafferty reached mandatory retirement age but struck a deal to resume sitting on the bench on a contract basis in March. In between, though, he worked briefly as a defense attorney in private practice. In April, the State Court Administrator's Office announced that the outside work meant Rafferty had violated his employment contract with the state. He was removed from the bench, and Owens??? appeal was ultimately reassigned to another retired judge, who could have to conduct many of the appellate hearings all over again. At the time of his firing, Rafferty's time sheets indicate he was about to issue his long-awaited final ruling on Owens' appeal. Owens' attorneys say that order would have addressed allegations of prosecutorial misconduct in the case, though prosecutors deny doing anything wrong. In the petition, Owens' lawyers say they weren't told of concerns about Rafferty's outside work, nor have they been told who ultimately made the decision to terminate Rafferty's contract and what sort of procedures were followed. (source: Denver Post) IDAHO: Teacher remembered as 'wonderful' after being shot to death Family members, friends and students are mourning the death of a popular teacher after investigators say she and her unborn child were brutally murdered this week. A family member found the body of Jennifer S. Nalley, 39, in front of her cabin north of Driggs Tuesday morning. A Jackson, Wyoming man was charged in a Teton County, Idaho court yesterday, July 6, for murdering Nalley, who was his girlfriend. Erik Martin Ohlson, 39, was picked up early Tuesday morning by sheriff's deputies near the intersection of Highway 33 and 2500 North in Driggs, Idaho, where he had crashed his truck into a power pole. Ohlson was arrested for driving under the influence and for possessing an open beverage container. He was then transported to the Madison County Jail in Rexburg. During the arrest process, Ohlson observed to a sheriff's deputy that he had "bigger problems than a DUI and crash" to worry about. The next morning, at about 11:20 am, the Teton County Sheriff's Office 911 Dispatch received a call that a relative had found the body of Nalley. Nalley moved to Driggs in November 2015. She was a physics and math teacher in Austin Texas prior. She graduated from Texas State University with Bachelor of Science in 2008. Nalley, who was pregnant, was found with multiple gunshot wounds by sheriff's deputies. The Teton County Fire Department found a Glock model 30 handgun on the north side of the road not far from Nalley's residence. According to the sheriff's office, the gun "was the same caliber used in the shooting." That night, Ohlson, who had remained in custody, was interviewed by investigators. The affidavit of probable cause submitted by the investigators said that Ohlson admitted to being Nalley's boyfriend, and knowing that she was pregnant for weeks. On the night of the incident, Ohlson said he had been drinking and arrived at Nalley's residence that night, "intending to scare" her. He said he arrived at her front door with his loaded handgun in his back pocket. When Nalley came to the door, he said he shot her multiple times, "until his gun ran out of bullets." Ohlson then claimed to leave the scene, "trying to get the courage to kill himself." He told investigators he was unable to shoot himself and "threw the weapon to the side of the road, went back to his truck and drove away." Ohlson claimed he intentionally tried to take his life by driving into the power pole where he was later found and taken into custody. Ohlson appeared in court via video Wednesday afternoon on 2 counts of 1st-degree murder. His next hearing will take place on July 20, 2016. He could face maximum penalties, up to and including the death penalty. Nalley was a member of the Jackson Hole Juggernauts roller derby team and went by the name Pixie Tourette. Her team released the following statement Wednesday evening: "We are mourning the loss of our dear friend Pixie Tourette. She was the most oddly brilliant and wonderful person we've ever met. Fiercely loyal, wonderfully inviting - she lived life like we all should. She had no apologies for the unique, quirky, lovely soul that she was. She always gave 100% to her team, family, students and friends. Roller Derby Queen, physics nerd, punk rock enthusiast - you were lucky to have met her. We are extremely devastated, and our thoughts are with her family, friends, and derby sisters." (source: eastidahonews.com) CALIFORNIA: California's Dangerous Potential New Death Penalty Initiative----At a time when more inmates on death row die from suicide than execution, the Death Penalty Reform and Savings Act could cement California as the new death belt. 31 years ago, Kevin Cooper was sentenced to death by a California court for the brutal murder of 4 people in a ranch house in Chino Hills, a middle-class suburb of Los Angeles. The bodies of Douglas and Peggy Ryen, their 10-year-old daughter Jessica, and a family friend, 11-year-old Chris Hughes, were all found stabbed to death. Josh Ryen, the couple's 8-year-old son, managed to survive the attack. >From the start, Cooper's case has been besieged with controversy: Cooper has steadfastly maintained his innocence; the San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department destroyed and concealed important evidence; and the case was the 1st to make use of then-new DNA testing. One 9th Circuit Judge went so far as to write that Cooper "is either guilty as sin or he was framed by the police." In a scene seemingly taken straight from The Making of a Murderer, there are allegations that the police planted physical evidence implicating Cooper and concealed statements from eyewitnesses who claimed to have seen three white men leaving the crime scene on the night of the murders. While no definitive evidence has been found to confirm Cooper's guilt, he remains on death row. That's because the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 constrains his ability to present new evidence. The AEDPA, passed during Bill Clinton's administration, was one of a number of laws and regulations designed to prevent what were seen as an unending string of appeals afforded to those facing execution, particularly those who were claiming innocence as a result of newly discovered evidence. But even judges involved in Cooper's case have expressed doubt as to his guilt: One judge on the 9th Circuit called the ruling "wholly discomforting." In 2009, the 9th Circuit denied en banc review of Cooper's case, and the powerful dissent, joined by 4 other judges, begins: "The State of California may be about to execute an innocent man." Cooper is 1 of 747 people on California's death row, and 1 of the 16 who have now exhausted all of his appeals. He faces execution if the backers of the (confusingly named) new pro-death penalty initiative, California Death Penalty Reform and Savings Act of 2016, have anything to do with it. Amid declining support for the death penalty across the nation -19 states have eliminated it entirely, and 2015 saw a record low in the number of death sentences and executions doled out - there's been a joint endorsement by the California District Attorneys Association, law enforcement, and a majority of prosecutors across the state to enact the CDPRSA. They argue it will fix the death penalty. That's a potentially major shift in a state where more people on death row die from suicide than have been executed, and where more inmates have died of natural causes (60) than have been executed (13) since 1978. (Visiting San Quentin's death row in 2015, the Los Angeles Times described a harrowing scene of wheelchairs lining the hallways.) Meanwhile, death row has cost California taxpayers $4 billion since it was reinstated in 1978. A Los Angeles Times story describes at least 20 death row inmates who are likely "permanently incompetent" - deemed to be unqualified for execution because of mental illness. While the CDPRSA is being hailed by some as a panacea to prison bloat, there's simply no research to support the notion that speeding up executions will save money - money that could be better used to solve cold cases or fund public defenders. The death penalty in California has been headed toward extinction for a long time. Reinstated in 1978, death sentences, while technically legal, have been trapped in a morass of case law, further exacerbated by the unavailability of the execution drugs and the desperate attempts by the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation to write a new lethal injection protocol that survived the challenges of advocacy groups. As a result, no one has been executed in California since 2006. With the exception of a few outlier counties, death sentences have gone down across the United States. Last year saw the lowest number of death sentences and executions in the last 2 decades. According to the Death Penalty Information Center, there were 49 death sentences issued in the U.S. in 2015, 14 of which were in California, more than any other state. (Texas, long a staple of the "death belt," had only 2.) These 14 death sentences were not evenly distributed throughout the state-Riverside County alone had 8. There's simply no research to support the notion that speeding up executions will save money. Though California hasn't executed anyone in a decade, certain counties in California continue to sentence people to execution at disproportionately high rates. As legal expert and senior researcher at the Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race and Justice's Rob Smith explains, these outlier counties account for almost all of the death sentences in the U.S. It so happens that 5 of these counties are in California-Los Angeles, Riverside, San Bernardino, Orange, and Kern. Kern, Orange, and San Bernardino counties have produced more death sentences than the three most death-loving Texas counties, despite having fewer people. Riverside County, which is home to just 6 % of California's population, has produced over 50 % of last year's death sentences, more than Los Angeles County, which has over 3 times as many people. Most experts argue that these death sentences are the result of overzealous prosecutions, not increased crime. So, is the CDPRSA a ploy to cement Southern California as the new death belt? The immediate risk posed by the CDPRSA is that innocent people will be executed. 3 men have been exonerated from California's death row since its reinstatement. And while the district attorney of San Bernardino, Michael Ramos (who is sponsoring the initiative and is running to replace Kamala Harris as attorney general of California), told me that "California has never executed an innocent person," those who know the Tommy Thompson case might disagree. Thompson, who was convicted in 1984 in Orange County largely on the basis of snitch testimony, went to the execution chamber with many people still asserting his innocence. And, despite evidence to the contrary, Ramos remains similarly convinced of Cooper's guilt. Supporters of the CDPRSA argue it will save money and help victims - namely, by double-celling death row inmates and saving on their health care and other housing expenditures. But there's little evidence to support this argument. In fact, there's reason to think the initiative will cost more money than is currently being spent on death row, because it moves death cases to the front of the docket, pushing out other cases and jamming courts. Further, the $4 billion that has been spent on death row has come at the cost of other public-safety provisions, particularly in the counties that seem to favor executions the most. In 2010, the California Supreme Court held that at least 18 cases in Riverside against people accused of felonies and serious misdemeanors were dismissed because of the "fault or neglect" of the county government; the new death penalty initiative would seem to further strain a system that has already proven insufficient. There is also little to no reason to think that victims' families benefit from a death sentence. Take the case of Scott Dekraai in Orange County - if the prosecutors there gave up the death penalty, the case would be over because no one questions Dekraai's guilt. Instead, the Orange County district attorney's pursuit of a death sentence, in light of substantial police and prosecutorial misconduct, just means the case will be stalled for decades. "Stop the madness. Take the death penalty off the table and end all the appeals, all the court appearances," a victim's sister said in the local press. Rather than creating justice, speeding up the death penalty increases the risk of a dreadful mistake, all to satisfy a handful of prosecutors who should be focused on following the law, not making it. Courts will be blocked up and costs will increase. And while the Supreme Court decided not to take up the issue of whether the death penalty itself violates the 8th Amendment, Justice Stephen Breyer has given hints that he is watching the issue closely. California's showdown on whether the death penalty should be resuscitated will indeed be an interesting battleground to watch. (source: psmag.com) ***************** Loretta Sanchez backs repeal of California's death penalty Decrying California's administration of capital punishment as unfair, inefficient and ineffective, U.S. Senate candidate Loretta Sanchez on Wednesday endorsed a fall ballot initiative to repeal the state's long-dormant death penalty. "Despite decades of research, commentary and judicial review, the death penalty in California remains an ineffective deterrent and does not meet the constitutional standards of due process," Sanchez, a veteran Democratic congresswoman from Orange County, said in a prepared statement announcing the endorsement. The measure, which will appear in the Nov. 8 ballot as Proposition 62, is being advanced by former M*A*S*H star Mike Farrell. It would replace the death penalty with life imprisonment without possibility of parole. While California has not executed a death row inmate since 2006, supporters say the measure is needed to guard against a process they consider costly, inhumane and destined to end the life of people who are wrongly convicted. "When society undertakes to impose the ultimate sentence on its citizens it must meet the most stringent standards of fairness and due process," Sanchez said. The race to succeed departing Democratic U.S. Sen. Barbara Boxer pits Sanchez against California Attorney General Kamala Harris. Harris does not take positions on ballot measures because of her office's role in preparing their titles and summaries. Still, Harris has long opposed the death penalty, a position that nearly sidetracked her rise in California politics when her 2010 opponent, then-Los Angeles County District Attorney Steve Cooley, a Republican, criticized Harris for refusing to seek the death penalty for the 2004 killer of San Francisco police Officer Isaac Espinoza. As attorney general, Harris promised to follow the law, and even defended the death penalty in court. She reiterated her personal opposition in a recent interview with The Sacramento Bee???s editorial board. "Your question asks, 'How will it end?' My answer is, 'With the voters.'" Harris said. "I think, ultimately, the voters of California are going to make the decision." (source: Sacramento Bee) USA: Public defender: Solicitor 'reckless' in quest to try Dylann Roof Charleston's top public defender said in a court filing Wednesday that a state prosecutor's attempt to try Dylann Roof before federal authorities is "reckless and shortsighted." Ninth Circuit Solicitor Scarlett Wilson asked a state judge last month to set Roof's death penalty trial sooner than the Nov. 7 federal proceeding. She cited legal rules calling for the jurisdiction that first charges a defendant to first impose a sentence. But Circuit Public Defender Ashley Pennington called her argument "inaccurate and misleading." Such a shuffle risks violating Roof's due process rights, which could jeopardize the trial's outcome on appeal, and the legal fight over it has created an "unseemly spectacle," he said. The effort "to move the trial even earlier is just the sort of reckless and shortsighted ... tactic that has led to reversals and retrials," Pennington wrote in the document. "Altering the established trial dates ... will serve no interest but her own desire." The filing is the latest salvo amid a conundrum posed by 2 jurisdictions seeking Roof's execution at the same time - a 1st in history. A judge did not immediately rule on whether to adjust the Jan. 17 state trial date. "We stand on our (memo supporting the change) and believe it accurately highlights legitimate issues in this case," Wilson said Wednesday. "The defense's response does not alleviate my concerns." Pennington shed light on how hard state judges also have pushed to try Roof quickly. In June 2015, Roof was accused of fatally shooting 9 black people at Emanuel AME Church. The white supremacist's hatred fueled his crimes, authorities said. Pennington said he learned when Roof appeared for a bond hearing 2 days later that the state's then-chief justice, Jean Toal, had asked a local circuit judge to try the case promptly. The judge, J.C. Nicholson, suggested a March date, only 9 months after the shooting. That was too soon, Pennington protested. The trial was later set for July but eventually postponed to January when Roof's lawyers said they needed time to finish a mental health evaluation. Perturbed by the delay in the state case and the defense team's request for a speedy trial in federal court, where people are less likely to get the death penalty, Wilson asked Nicholson to speed up the process because South Carolina would actually carry out the punishment. The state also has "primary custody" of Roof, Wilson said, meaning that he might have to serve his sentence in that jurisdiction before the federal one. In his pointed response, Pennington said none of the legal precedents cited in Wilson's argument support her theory that the state might not give up custody of Roof for a federal death sentence to be imposed. He called the contention "simply ludicrous." Pennington added that FBI agents were the 1st and only investigators to do a recorded interview with Roof after his arrest in North Carolina. Federal authorities, though, didn't indict him until the next month. Miller Shealy, a local attorney and former federal prosecutor, agreed with Wilson that it would be unusual for a current prisoner to be transferred to serve a sentence in a different jurisdiction. While the issue sounds like a technicality, Shealy said, it could be problematic later on. It's also unusual for the Department of Justice to simultaneously prosecute someone, he said. The agency typically comes in after a state case fails, such as the one that prompted the acquittals of Los Angeles police officers in Rodney King's 1991 beating. "Usually, the feds don't jump in unless there's a miscarriage of justice," he said. "It baffles me as to why this is the case that the DOJ jumped in on. As a result, there are too many cooks in the kitchen." (source: The Post and Courier) From rhalperi at smu.edu Thu Jul 7 13:27:23 2016 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Thu, 7 Jul 2016 13:27:23 -0500 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide Message-ID: July 7 NIGERIA: When Will NIgeria Abolish the Death Penalty? Ugo Aliogo writes that there is a clarion call on Nigeria by Amnesty International to abolish the death penalty. Solomon Prosper was 25 years old, he was arrested for an alleged case of murder of his cousin, a crime he knew nothing about. He was tried in the court and sentenced to death. While in prison, he was subjected to gruesome torture and was also forced to sign several documents that he killed his cousin. Prosper was constantly traumatised as he thought of his imminent death; he was to die by hanging for a crime he was either the prime suspect or accomplice. His heart was drained of joy and happiness. Prosper was in agony, a man with full of life and energy was now hunted by perpetual fear. He knew that the long cherished dream of becoming a professionally certified engineer and lifting his mother from poverty was gradually coming to an unfortunate end. He was put behind bars for 9 years. On May, 2014, the final day of his trial, an eye witness brought before the court a factual evidence of the case. Consequent upon the evidence brought the court, the death sentence was quashed and he was freed. In 2005, Moses Akatugba, a 16 years old young man was arrested for arm robbery, an offence he knew nothing about. Recounting his experience to Amnesty International, Akatugba stated that the police officers beat him repeatedly with machetes and batons, tied him up from the ceiling for several hours, and then used pliers to pull out his toenails and fingernails. He was then forced to sign 2 pre-written confessions. After eight years of being remanded in prison, on November 12, 2013, he was sentenced to death by hanging. On May 28, 2015, the day before his departure from office, the then Delta State Governor, Dr. Emmanuel Uduaghan, granted total pardon to Moses. He also commuted the death sentence of three people to prison terms. Death penalty has been an issue for debate for several years amongst countries and concerned human rights organisations. While some countries have advanced that it should be abolished, others are of the view that it should be retained. The abolitionist countries argue that while the condemned prisoner is in jail, he goes through emotional torture on a daily basis as he awaits his death. They also argue that taking an individual's life for a crime committed does not augur well on the grounds of morality. Therefore, the state should respect the sanity of life which is its statutory responsibility to the citizenry and provide enough security to curb the crime rate especially the most serious crimes. For the retentionists, their argument is that death penalty will help to reduce the crime rates, thereby restoring decency and order in the society. They also contend that death penalty is a stiffer measure of dealing with dangerous crimes and it will serve as a deterrent to others intending to commit similar offences. Amnesty International Global Report The 2015 Amnesty International (AI) global report stated that the total number of countries that were abolitionists for all crimes reached 102 as Congo, Fiji, Madagascar and Suriname repealed the death penalty during the year. The report further stated that the use of death penalty in 2015 revealed 2 divergent developments. First, 4 countries abolished the death penalty, reinforcing the long-term trend towards global abolition. While on the other hand, the executions recorded by AI during the year increased by more than 50 % compared to 2014 and constituted the highest total that AI has reported since 1989, excluding China. In 1977, when AI started campaigning against the abolition of death penalty only 16 countries were interested but today, 102 have abolished death penalty for all crimes. This number is the majority of countries in the world, and this implies that there is a positive trend, as more countries are moving away from the use of the death penalty. In 2015, 1,634 people were executed in 25 countries that is 54 % more than in 2014. The report further stated that Nigeria did not carry out executions in 2015, adding that the last executions took in place in 2013. The AI report referred to information in the Nigeria Prison Service (NPS) which noted that 171 people were sentenced to death in 2015. This was a drop on the 659 death sentences recorded in 2014. The NPS report added that 26 pardons were granted, 41 death row prisoners were exonerated and 1,677 people were on death row, including 5 foreign nationals. During the year of 121 death sentences were commuted. The Advocate and Adviser of AI on Death Penalty, Oluwatosin Popoola, explained that death penalty has not been completely abolished, under international law, adding that the law allows death penalty only for the most serious crimes; the international covenant for civil and political rights provides that countries that have not yet abolished, "should only use the death penalty for the most serious crimes, under international human rights standards, most serious crimes are crimes that involve intentional killings." He noted that though AI opposes the death penalty in all cases, regardless of the characteristics of the offender, the nature of the offence, or the method used by the state to carry out the execution, stressing that they believe the death penalty violates the right to life as contained in the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR). Poopola said: "We have been involved in various actions on the abolishing of death penalty, for instance, we took a leading role in urging United Nations General Assembly, to pass its force resolution on the moratorium on execution in 2007 and since that time, there have been several resolutions passed by the UN General Assembly urging states that still use the death penalty to establish moratorium on executions with a view to abolishing the death penalty. Nigeria continues to use the death penalty, it is a retentionist country. "In Nigeria, the death penalty is mandatory for several crimes, including armed robbery, and murder which means that the judges do not have the discretion on those cases whether to impose the death penalty or not. We have always been calling on the Nigeria government to establish a moratorium on executions, the last executions took place in 2013. However, nothing stops execution from resuming tomorrow because there is no official moratorium in place and we have also been urging Nigeria to use the death penalty for the most serious crimes under international law. "We have also urged Nigeria government in recent times, not to extend the scope of the death, but in the last few months, a number of states have been extending the scope of the death penalty to cover kidnapping. Our argument has always been that kidnapping does not meet the threshold of most serious crimes under international law and standards because it does not involve intentional killing. The law needs to be reformed to provide for the abolition of death penalty. It requires leadership on the part of the government to move for current laws that proposes the amendment of the death penalty, so that it is not only restricted but abolished for all crimes in Nigeria. "Going forward, Amnesty International will continue to campaign for the abolition of the death penalty in Nigeria. In West Africa, five countries have abolished death penalty for all crimes, in sub-Saharan Africa, 18 countries have abolished the death penalty for all crimes, the latest being Madagascar and the Democratic Republic of Congo in 2015. Therefore the trend has been positive in sub- Sahara Africa, the region remains a beacon of hope, Nigeria should take leadership position by joining the ranks of other Africa countries that have abolished the death penalty for all crimes." Death Penalty and the Nigeria Legal system A lawyer and lecturer in the Faculty of Law, University of Lagos, Dr. Simeon Igbinedion, stressed that the Nigeria legal system permits death penalty for a few serious offences such as treason, murder and drug trafficking, noting that these are few cases that the law allocates death penalty as a capital punishment, "the sovereignty of countries will determine what they will do as independent nations." He further stated that in the United States of America, some states that are abolitionists, while others are retentionists, adding that executions are carried out through lethal injection, which in their understanding is a civilised way of eliminating the individual in a gentle manner. Igbinedion noted that: "There are insinuations from the international community that the legal systems of most countries should be properly reformed. They (International Community) view crime as environmentally oriented, which implies that when people commit crime, it is not because they want to commit the crime rather it is due to environmental influence, therefore they should be rehabilitated back to the society instead of been punished. When we consider it from the point of view of the developing countries, you will notice that there is a variation in terms of behavioural patterns between the developed and developing countries. "For instance in Japan, when someone commits an offence, he or she will naturally owe up to committing such a crime, not because of any compulsion, but because of the conscience in him. He will realise that he is guilty so that the process can just be short-circuited. But in developing countries such as Nigeria, people will not owe up to the crime that they have committed. This takes the court through a lot of long processes, and several adjournments. When it comes to committing crimes in this part of the world, people have the tendency to commit greater crimes which show the extent of wickedness and evil intentions in them." On his part, the National President Committee for the Defence of Human Right (CDHR), Malachy Ugwummadu, stated that there are no constitutional provisions for death penalty instead, there are statutory provisions which are other legislations that are independent of the constitution and which introduce capital punishment as a form of punitive sentences on convicted persons, "this can be found both in the criminal and penal code, which has now been harmonised under the administration of Criminal Justice Act 2015. Criminal code operates in the South, while the penal code operates in the North. Both bodies of legislations have now been harmonised." "Those are the laws in which criminal justice are codified to attracting violence for extreme criminal activities such as murder, outright murder, treason, and other criminal activities, while what you see cannot find in the constitution anything pertaining to capital punishment, but it can be found in other laws. "However, if you want to draw an extraneous reference to the constitution, then you talk about the sessions of the constitution that prohibits torture, which is a fundamental right and no person shall be subjected to any form of torture or in human treatment," he noted. Abolishing Death Penalty in Nigeria Igbinedion called on the government not to abolish the death penalty law in Nigeria now, stressing that this would give a particular group of people the impetus to commit certain crimes in order to dare the law and the state, therefore abolishing it would not favour the state. He added: "I would advocate for the use of state policing as a measure to provide security in order to curb crimes which in turn would reduce cases of death penalty, though there are several ill feelings to it. Some see it as undermining the power of the federal government. In state policing, the people are more at home with the local environment. "There should be re-orientation of people because the way people relate with their environment matters a lot, if there is a re-orientation people will be more humane and kind to their neighbours and this would reduce crime." Ugwummadu, remarked that CDHR has been on the forefront of campaigns in the country to abolish death penalty, adding that it has been a long fight with a highly polarised argument, "there are those who argue that you need to also watch the incidents of such crimes in the society in order to deal with such type of crime before you take a position. "But the argument is that whether it is in developed or developing countries, the issues are simple, first you cannot commit the same offence or if you remain at the same level with a person who you are alleging to have taken life. If a man commits murder as it were to what extent will the state justify that the only thing it can think of by way of reprisal is that particular offence the individual committed would be the response of the state. Secondly, you cannot create a life, therefore you cannot be justified to take it despite how gravity of the offence because until you are a victim you may not understand how bad the situation is. "Grievous as they are, the argument is that the state must deal with the social economic conditions that lead to those manners of atrocities in the first place. More importantly, it is to consider the statistics out there which clearly shows that capital punishment do not reduce the incidence of the commission of that particular crime, so if the argument is that it serves as the stiffest deterrent that claim is completely eroded by what empirical statistics are showing, even in the US where capital punishment is been practiced, it is hardly ever shown by empirical evidence that the incidence of crime has reduced in those particular states. "In country where it is being practiced such as Nigeria, you can hardly see any of the governors appending their signatures to death penalty. I think in this present dispensation, it is only the Edo State Governor, Adams Oshimole that did it, so what then is the purpose of it. As long you keep the convict on the death role, (some of them are there for a long period of time) each day of their life they will be thinking of their death. "This is extreme maximum torture inflicted on a human being. The constitution clearly abhors that, the fact that he is a convict does not mean his rights have been taken away from him, what it means is that he is guilty of the offence he has committed. Therefore if you must kill him by hanging, or decide to shot him, you are denying the individual of his rights." (source: This Day) LIBYA: Gaddafi's son Saif, Libya's former heir apparent, released - lawyer The son of former Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, Saif al-Islam, has reportedly been released from prison, more than 4 years after he was caught trying to flee the country by a rebel militia, despite being sentenced to death last year. "He is well and safe and in Libya," his lawyer Karim Khan told France 24, revealing that his client had been set free back on April 12, though the news had not been made public until now. Khan suggested that Gaddafi did not face any future charges, and was let go "in accordance with Libyan law." Gaddafi had been held by an autonomous militia in the inland city of Zintan, following his capture in November 2011, on the way to Niger in the wake of his father's summary execution. In 2015 a court in Tripoli, under control of Libya Dawn, a rival faction to the one holding him, sentenced him to death for ordering troops to fire at civilian targets, recruiting militia units, and inciting rape and murder during the Libyan civil war. The trial was widely condemned by international organizations for slapdash judicial standards, and using confessions obtained under torture. Gaddafi was never handed over by the Zintan militia. The 44-year-old Gaddafi is still wanted by the International Criminal Court in The Hague for a host of crimes against humanity, and war crimes associated with his father's regime. But Khan said that a repeat trial would constitute double jeopardy. "It is prohibited to try an individual twice for the same offense," he insisted. The urbane, London School of Economics-educated Gaddafi was often considered the 2nd-in-command in Tripoli in the latter part of his father's rule, and was touted to become his successor, before the war broke out. (source: rt.com) GREAT BRITAIN: The Death Row Phenomenon: Facing Torture Or Inhuman Treatment Today is the anniversary of a landmark human rights case. 27 years ago, the European Court of Human Rights said that extraditing someone to a country where they would face a real risk of being exposed to torture, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment violates human rights. What happened? Jens Soering (a German national, 18) and his girlfriend Elizabeth Haysom (a Canadian, 20) were students at the University of Virginia in the 1980s. They fled the United States after Haysom's parents were found dead, each with multiple stab and slash wounds to the neck, throat and body. Soering and Haysom were eventually arrested in London. Soering admitted killing Haysom's parents after an argument about his relationship with their daughter. He claimed that his actions were at least partially a result of suffering from a mental abnormality. This was supported by psychiatric evidence. The United States requested that the UK extradite the couple to face trial in Virginia. Haysom was extradited and pleaded guilty as an accessory to murder. She was sentenced to 90 years' imprisonment. There was a risk, however, that if Soering were extradited to the US, he would be sentenced to death. In America, people sentenced to die are often held for many years 'on death row' (that is, in a prison block for people given the death penalty). Why did it matter that the death penalty was an option? The death penalty has been abolished in Britain but was a possible sentence for murder in Virginia. Executions were carried out by electrocution, through the use of an 'electric chair'. English courts cannot (except in certain exceptional circumstances) judge the acts of foreigners abroad, so Soering could not be tried for murder in the UK, but could, under the UK-US Extradition Treaty, be extradited to the US where the death penalty was an option. The UK Government sought an assurance, in accordance with the terms of the Extradition Treaty, that Soering would not be put to death or that the US Government would recommend to the appropriate authorities not to impose or carry out the death sentence. The UK did receive a form of undertaking that representations would be made to the US judge, but this undertaking did not come from the Governor of Virginia. The UK court said that this 'assurance' left "something to be desired". Soering said that, if he were extradited to the US and placed on death row, he would likely suffer from extreme physical violence or sexual abuse. He argued that, if he were extradited, this suffering on death row would violate his right to be free from torture or inhuman and degrading treatment. What did the European Court of Human Rights say? Freedom from torture, inhuman and degrading treatment or punishment is protected under Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights. There are no exceptions - not for criminals, nor even in times of war - to the prohibition on torture or inhuman and degrading treatment or punishment. This reflects "one of the fundamental values of democratic societies". Extraditing someone to a country which still uses the death penalty does not, in itself, constitute a breach of human rights. But the Court said that there were certain conditions on death row in Virginia which meant that Soering was likely to suffer inhumane treatment as a result of the 'death row phenomenon'. The Court noted the very long period of time likely to be spent on death row, under extreme conditions, with the mounting anguish of awaiting execution. It also took into account Soering's age at the time of the crime (18 years old) and his mental state. The Court concluded that Soering's extradition to the US would expose him to a real risk of treatment going beyond the threshold of protection under Article 3. What became of Soering? Eventually, the state of Virginia agreed not to pursue the death penalty and Soering was extradited there. His trial attracted national and international media attention. In the end, Soering was convicted of murder and sentenced to 2 consecutive life terms. Soering has recently started fighting (so far without success) to be repatriated to Germany. A documentary about Soering and Haysom's story - called The Promise - is due to be released in Autumn 2016. Meanwhile, the case has had a very significant effect. The principle that a person cannot be removed to a country where they face a real risk of torture or inhuman and degrading treatment has featured in many cases since. It is a controversial idea, but it has probably saved many lives too. (source: rightsinfo.org) AUSTRALIA: Australia must help fight the death penalty in Asia----Australia needs a consistent and pragmatic national strategy that outlines its policy approaches to consistently addressing the death penalty challenge, writes John Coyne from the Australian Strategic Policy Institute. Last week, 73-year-old Vietnam-born Australian Nguyen Thi Huong was sentenced for trying to smuggle 2.8 kilograms of heroin to Sydney. Despite the fact that more countries than ever are abolishing the death penalty, the number of people being executed each year globally continues to grow. For 2 Australians, Nguyen and Pham Trung Dung, this isn't a statistic, it's the reality of their lives, or rather death: both are likely to be executed in Vietnam by way of lethal injection. Having seen 2 executions via firing squad, one can only hope that Vietnam???s newly developed lethal injection method provides a much more humane death than that experienced at the hand of the firing squad - and far less terrifying during the last fleeting moments of Pham and Nguyen's lives. In July 2014, Pham was sentenced to death by a Ho Chi Minh City court for attempting to smuggle four kilograms of heroin to Australia. Let's be frank, both Pham and Nguyen would have known that their efforts to smuggle heroin to Australia involved committing crimes in both Australia and Vietnam. They had to have known that their actions in Vietnam could, and most likely would, attract the death penalty if they were caught. Arguably, a combination of greed and arrogance can often undermine logic in decision-making - whether you're young or old. But the conscious nature of Pham and Nguyen's decisions shouldn't impact on Australia's support for its citizens, nor its campaign against the death penalty. While Australia stands against capital punishment, our recent potted history of political responses - before and after an execution - at best reveals inconsistency, and at worst xenophobia. When it came to the 2008 execution of the 3 Bali Bombers - Imam Samudra, 38, Amrozi, 47, and Mukhlas, 48 - Australia sat silently. According to Kevin Rudd at the time, "in the case of foreign terrorists we are not in the business of intervening on any of their behalfs". After the executions the Rudd government announced a campaign against the death penalty, but Australia's tacit support for the Bali Bombers' executions displayed our political hypocrisy for all to see. When it came to the Bali 9 ringleaders, Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran, the story was a little different. Various diplomatic and personal efforts were made to prevent the April 2015 execution - to no avail. In the aftermath of these executions few appeared willing to consider that our selective protests to the death penalty could be interpreted as xenophobic attacks on Indonesian sovereignty. Arguably, we left Indonesian leaders with no means to prevent the executions and save face. We shouldn't be too quick to criticise any Indonesian for adopting this perspective. The sentencing of Vietnamese-born Australians Pham and Nguyen to death in Vietnam hasn't attracted much media coverage or public interest. And unfortunately that supports accusations that our objections to the death penalty are selective. Many of Australia's Asian neighbors apply the death penalty broadly - for drugs, terrorism, murder, rape, child exploitation, foreign bribery and corruption - so this problem is not going to go away. Australia needs a consistent and pragmatic national strategy that outlines its policy approaches to consistently addressing the death penalty challenge. Firstly, this document needs to make a clear statement on Australia's long-term commitment to the abolition of the death penalty, while also recognising the sovereignty of nation states. The strategy also needs to provide a clear policy stance on diplomatic responses to cases where Australian's have been sentenced to death. Our diplomats need a clear engagement framework on the death penalty to ensure consistency of effort. Finally, the strategy needs to outline how Australia's law enforcement agencies will continue to collaborate with international partners who apply the death penalty. Australia's success in combating serious and organised crime in Asia can be directly attributed to international police engagement: information sharing, capacity development and joint investigations. While we wait for such a strategy, Australia's consular service staff in missions such as Ho Chi Minh City will continue to visit and assist our citizens facing the death penalty - as they should. In cells in countries such as Vietnam, Australian citizens are likely reflecting why their lives seem to have less value than those of the Bali 9. (source: Dr John Coyne is Head of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute's Border Security Program. Prior to joining ASPI John was head of the Australian Federal Police's Strategic Intelligence Services----crikey.com.au) PHILIPPINES: Death Penalty for treason: Law proposed Death Penalty through lethal injection is being proposed for those who will commit treason. A Filipino who levies war against the Philippines or adheres to her enemies shall be punished by reclusion perpetua to death, and shall pay a fine of up to P100,000, Senator Panfilo Lacson proposes in a bill. "Hence, to reinstate public order and the rule of law, there is an impending need to revisit and re-impose the death penalty on certain heinous crimes which as ratiocinated by R.A. 7659 or the Death Penalty Law, 'is appropriately necessary due to the alarming upsurge of such crimes which has resulted not only in the loss of human lives and wanton destruction of property but also affected the nation's efforts towards sustainable economic development and prosperity while at the same time has undermined the people's faith in the Government and the latter's ability to maintain peace and order in the country,'" Lacson said. In Lacson's proposed law, Qualified piracy, Qualified Bribery, Parricide, Murder, Infanticide, Rape (with some circumstances), Kidnapping and serious illegal detention (with some circumstances), Robbery with violence against or intimidation of persons, Destructive Arson, Plunder, Terrorism, Drug-related cases, Carnapping, Trafficking in persons, Illegal recruitmen (with some circumstances) are also punishable by death penalty. Lacson assured he will listen to arguments for and against the death penalty bill during public hearings in the Senate. If enacted, the death sentence shall be carried out not later than one year after the judgment has become final and executory, but is without prejudice to the exercise by the President of the executive clemency powers at all times. (source: update.ph) ************** Death penalty bill gets House priority Incoming Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez has said that the proposal to restore death penalty in the country will be a priority of the 17th Congress. Alvarez has filed his House Bill No. 1 which seeks to re-impose death penalty on "heinous crimes", such as human trafficking, illegal recruitment, plunder, treason, parricide, infanticide, rape, qualified piracy and bribery, kidnapping and illegal detention, robbery with violence against or intimidation of persons, car theft, destructive arson, terrorism and drug-related cases. "There is evidently a need to reinvigorate the war against criminality by reviving a proven deterrent coupled by its consistent, persistent and determined implementation, and this need is as compelling and critical as any," Alvarez said in his HB No. 1. "The imposition of the death penalty for heinous crimes and the mode of its implementation, both subjects of repealed laws, are crucial components of an effective dispensation of both reformative and retributive justice," the bill stated. Republic Act 7659 or the Death Penalty Law was abolished in 1986 during the term of Former President Corazon Aquino. It was restored by former President Fidel V. Ramos in 1993, and was suspended again in 2006 by then president and Pampanga Rep. Gloria Macapagal Arroyo. President Rodrigo Duterte has said he would want the capital punishment by hanging reimposed. Duterte also vowed to carry out at least 50 executions a month to serve as a strong deterrent against criminality. Alvarez lamented that the rise of criminality in the country has reached at an "alarming proportion??? and so the government must do an "all-out offensive against all forms of felonious acts." Alvarez's bill was co-authored by Capiz Rep. Fredenil Castro which proposes death penalty by lethal injection. "Our criminal justice system has been emasculated in no small measure by the non-deterrent nature of impossible penalties on the most depraved violations of human life, honor and dignity," Alvarez pointed out. "The basic tenets of equity and justice demand that our penal system be one not only of reformation but corresponding retribution," Castro, for his part, said. Earlier, Muntinlupa Rep. Rufino Biazon filed a similar measure even as he expressed concern over the illegal drugs problem as well as the rising criminality in the country. "Our own experience has shown that incarceration does not deter one who is convicted of drug trafficking from committing the same crime. There have been instances where the convicted trafficker continues to deal in the illegal drug trade even behind bars," he added. Biazon stressed that it is provided in the 1987 Constitution on death penalty "under certain circumstances and based on the current wisdom of the times." "This is to put back into the consciousness of those involved in the illegal drugs trade that the ultimate punishment of death awaits them should they continue with their nefarious acts," Biazon said. (source: The Standard) BARBADOS: Better leave death penalty hanging THE VERDICTS ARE IN and 2 men were recently sentenced to death by hanging. Carlton Junior Hall and Jamar Dewayne Bynoe were both found guilty of murder in separate cases. In either case, the jury rejected their defence. The judges pronounced the capital sentence. There were instant shouts of praise, particularly from relatives in Bynoe's case which had attracted national attention given that there were 6 victims in the Campus Trendz tragedy. Some people suggest that the decision would bring closure for relatives of the victims. Yet, for those who seek retribution or vengeance, they may be disappointed. The judges' last sombre words did not bring the story to an end. To the dismay of some, it is very unlikely either Hall or Bynoe will ever swing from the gallows. Capital punishment is more theory in Barbados than practice. It is not just about the decisions of the Privy Council and its landmark case of Pratt & Morgan, but a series of other circumstances. There are hemispheric and international conventions that have virtually outlawed the death penalty, seeing it as cruel and repugnant. Barbados subscribes to most of those conventions and cannot breach them. But, even beyond these conventions, implementing the death penalty will always be a lengthy and unsure actuality. The appeals process can also be costly to the state. Relatives of victims and proponents of the death penalty will argue that this form of justice is neither cruel nor unusual. They can easily pinpoint the savage circumstances inflicted on the deceased and can also argue that this form of punishment had been used over many years, even if with clear biases, especially against the poor. The debate over capital punishment is an emotional and longstanding one, and there is unlikely to be any immediate end, especially following any upsurge in serious violent crimes. That is why we need to face reality based on the internationally available statistics which highlight that capital punishment is not any greater a deterrent to crime than any other forms of punishment. Life without parole may indeed be more excruciating. We cannot ignore that only 25 nations worldwide carried out executions last year, with Iran, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia accounting for almost 90 per cent of known executions. China does not give figures. The global shift on the death penalty is significant. When the United Nations was established in 1945, only 8 countries had abolished the death penalty for all crimes; in 1996, the figure stood at 39. Today, that number has risen to 102, with more planning to follow suit. Regrettably, the debate about the death penalty often comes down to either those seeking reprisal or soft-hearted liberals. So while there may be good reasons to retain the death penalty, there are equally compelling ones to abolish it. (source: Editorial, Nation News) MALAWI: Malawi clergy, politician & lawyer call for death penalty to albino killers Malawian pastor, politician and law practitioner have join hands with the Mulanje South law maker Bon Kalindo to pressurize government to introduce death penalty to albino killers and abductors claiming that it is the only solution to curb the malpractice.Recently, Kalindo staged a half naked protest in Lilongwe against the abductions and killings of people with albinism while asking Malawian leaders to apply death penalty to the perpetrators. According to Pastor Watson Shaba, politician Ken Msonda and one of the renowned legal practitioner Ambukire Salimu, the development will send strong message to the perpetrators. "Even in the Holy book of the Bible especially in Romans chapter 13, advise Christians to respect the laws. Therefore I don't see any problem if the death penalty applied to the albino abductors and killers," said Shaba. In his remarks, Msonda who is also People's Party Publicity Secretary said "As a politician as well as a born again person I become annoyed with the lawyers or human rights defenders who always defend criminals." "Why should someone defend criminals in the name of human rights? What kind of rights do murderers have apart from them losing their life too," argued Msonda. According to Msonda and Shaba "anyone take somebody's life should also die and that this should apply to any perpetrator." However, Salimu said this should be based upon the clear evidence to avoid exoneration. "I would love if one of our leaders signed the execution of albino killers and abduction. I believe he or she will be remembered because this will send strong message to the doers," said Salimu. He said the main challenge the Malawi Police Service had is the forensic lab for examining the bones if they are indeed of albinos. Salimu disclosed that "I am involved in Makhumula inquest but we are struggling to take the sample to Pretoria because of financial problems." Despite 18 albinos losing their lives due to the development, government has been mum on the issue of executing perpetrators. (source: maravipost.com) From rhalperi at smu.edu Fri Jul 8 11:21:00 2016 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Fri, 8 Jul 2016 11:21:00 -0500 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, PENN. GA., FLA., ALA., TENN. Message-ID: July 8 TEXAS: British woman on Texas death row may be spared as new evidence surfaces----A hearing this week for Linda Carty presents her with hope that she might avoid death penalty amid evidence prosecutors coerced false witness testimonies A British woman who has been on death row in Texas for 14 years has been given renewed hope that she might be spared execution by an appeal hearing at which devastating evidence was presented that prosecutors had coerced false testimony from key witnesses. Linda Carty, 57, has a high profile in Texas as one of just 6 women facing execution in the state and as a British citizen by dint of her birth in St Kitts at a time when the Caribbean island was still a British colony. Her case has been highlighted in documentaries and championed by the likes of Bianca Jagger and the British government. Carty has always protested her innocence on charges that in 2001 she commissioned three men to carry out the kidnapping and murder of her neighbor, Joana Rodriguez, in a plot to steal the victim's 3-day old baby. Previous attempts to appeal her death sentence have failed, despite the absence of any forensic evidence against her and the fact that she was represented at trial by a defense lawyer who spent only 2 weeks preparing the case. Close observers say that this week's hearing before a single judge appointed by the Texas court of criminal appeals takes her plea of innocence to another level. The hearing, that is likely to be concluded with the judge's opinion in early September, presents her with the greatest hope yet that she might secure a retrial. Michael Goldberg of the law firm Baker Botts, who has been Carty's lawyer for the past 13 years, said that it was highly unusual that his client had even reached the stage of a post-conviction evidentiary hearing. "We were very happy when the Court of Criminal Appeals granted us this hearing, since it rarely does in Texas," he said. Goldberg added that "now that we've concluded the hearing, the evidence that we were able to present shows even more conclusively that Linda's rights in the 1st trial were abused and that a new trial is required". During this week's hearing, Goldberg spent 8 hours cross-examining Connie Spence, the lead prosecutor in the case who still works as a supervisor for the Harris County district attorney's office in Houston. Part of that cross-examination related to the explosive affidavit given in 2014 by Charles Mathis, a former agent of the Drug Enforcement Administration. In the affidavit, Mathis recounted how he had recruited Carty as a confidential informant who could provide useful information to the DEA on drug dealing in the city given her expertise as a trained pharmacist. He said that when he told Spence that he did not want to testify at trial against Carty, the prosecutor threatened to concoct a story about him having had an affair with the defendant. "I was shocked when Spence said this ... I felt Spence was threatening and blackmailing me into testifying." The judge heard further allegations that the prosecutors had fabricated evidence, destroyed essential case notes and emails that might have helped the defense and withheld several recorded witness statements that should have been handed over to the defense team. Both Spence and another prosecutor on the case who also still works for the DA's office appeared at the hearing, and both denied that they had done anything to coerce evidence from any of the witnesses. According to a report of the hearing by the Houston Chronicle, Spence told the judge: "Defense had access to the evidence any time they wanted to look." Closing arguments in the appeal will be presented on 29 August, and the judge has indicated he will give his opinion within the first 10 days of September. Should the judge recommend a retrial, it will then be up to the full court of criminal appeals to decide whether or not to act upon his advice. (source: The Guardian) PENNSYLVANIA: Death-row inmates can get federal legal help----The Federal Community Defender Office represents 4 out of 12 death row inmates in the York County Court of Common Pleas. Hector Morales got on the witness stand in the York County Court of Common Pleas on Jan. 19, 2011, and told jurors that he didn't kill Ronald "Country" Simmons to prevent him from testifying in a drug case. Instead, Morales testified, the 2 worked out an agreement. He was going to give Simmons, 42, a discount on drugs - and the occasional freebie. The jury didn't buy it. And on March 1, 2011, jurors came back with a punishment for the crime: death. Now, Morales, 33, is asserting that his constitutional rights were violated. He's arguing the prosecution committed misconduct during the trial, and that his previous lawyers were ineffective. "I am innocent of the crimes for which I was found guilty," Morales wrote in court documents filed on Feb. 22. "I need new counsel to follow up on these issues, and identify and develop other valid issues." So he asked for a specific attorney: Tracy Ulstad of the Federal Community Defender Office's Capital Habeas Unit in Philadelphia, which gets more than $16 million from the U.S. government. Right now, the group represents 4 of the 12 people from York County who are on death row in state appeals. Though the federal and state court systems are separate, the Federal Community Defender Office is allowed to get involved in these appeals, and it's helped fill a need for quality representation in Pennsylvania death penalty cases, some legal experts said. The organization has been praised for its expertise, but criticized by some who say its lawyers use unethical tactics because they want to abolish capital punishment in the state. "We get appointed to represent individuals," said Shawn Nolan, the chief of the Federal Community Defender Office's Capital Habeas Unit, who added that people deserve the best representation possible under the Constitution. "And that's what we do." Why are the feds in state court? Nolan has been in the Federal Community Defender Office for 14 years, and has led the Capital Habeas Unit for about 2 1/2. Right now, along with Morales, the organization represents York County death row inmates John Small, Kevin Dowling and Milton Montalvo. Its lawyers typically get appointed to represent someone in a death penalty case once his or her initial appeals are denied, Nolan said. That's because there's a time limit when constitutional issues can be raised in federal court. The Capital Habeas Units were created across the country in 1995 and 1996 to fill a void that was left when the federal government cut off money for death penalty resource centers, which provided training, consulting and representation in capital cases, said Robert Dunham, the executive director at the Death Penalty Information Center. Dunham served as the executive director of the Pennsylvania Capital Case Resource Center from 1994 to 1999. He also spent 10 years in the Federal Community Defender Office's Capital Habeas Unit. Not all of the Capital Habeas Units get involved on the state level, though they might have the flexibility to do so, he said. Pennsylvania is the only place in the United States that does not provide state money to the defense in death penalty cases in which someone cannot afford an attorney. The Federal Community Defender Office got permission to start a pilot program to appear in state court, Dunham said. Typically, when the office gets involved in state appeals, it is not allowed to use the money it gets from the U.S. government. When Benjamin Lerner was on the bench of the Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas, every homicide case in the city would come through his courtroom before trial. He suspects the office became involved with appeals in state court because a lot of the convictions in capital cases or death sentences that were being thrown out happened on the federal level. So, he said, it made sense for a lawyer who already knew the facts and had a relationship with the client to continue working on the case. Pennsylvania also has a "terrible shortage" of qualified attorneys who are willing and able to represent people facing the death penalty, Lerner said. Whenever lawyers from the Federal Community Defender Office were in his courtroom, Lerner knew he was going to work "awfully hard." But every relevant issue would be litigated - and the case would not come back again on a claim of ineffective assistance of counsel, he said. Lerner said he understands the burden that's placed on prosecutors, as they're facing an opponent who has greater resources and handles only capital cases. "But my view about that has always been that's the price you pay if your area is a jurisdiction that elects to have the death penalty - or that's the price you ought to pay," said Lerner, who's now Philadelphia's deputy managing director for criminal justice. "We have no right, I think, as a society to say, 'On the one hand we want to have the death penalty, but on the other hand, we aren't going to provide the resources for a constitutionally-adequate defense for people who we're seeking to put to death.'" Praise and criticism Some in the legal field regard the lawyers in the Federal Community Defender Office's Capital Habeas Unit as the preeminent experts, as they strictly handle death penalty cases. In June, for example, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that a death row inmate's constitutional rights were violated when a judge who was involved in the case as a prosecutor took part in issuing a decision against him. The Federal Community Defender Office represented the prisoner. "Their results cannot be questioned, and any time an underserved community gets competent and effective representation, I think, that's for the best," said Marc Bookman, the director of the Atlantic Center for Capital Representation, a nonprofit death penalty resource center. He views the punishment as a "failed government program." But the office has also been criticized. That happened in the case of Morales. In court documents, the Pennsylvania Attorney General's Office noted that Assistant Federal Defender Billy Nolas filed a motion in 2012 on behalf of Morales. That happened even though the judge had refused to put Nolas on the case, and had already appointed another lawyer, prosecutors said. The motive, prosecutors said, was clear. It was another attempt by the Federal Community Defender Office to "improperly interject themselves into state court proceedings when they were specifically precluded from doing so." But Jeff Conrad, an attorney in Lancaster who was court-appointed on the case, said it was a "win-win" for everyone, because taxpayers in York County did not have to foot the bill. And, he said, "it's the client's business to choose who he wants to defend him." When asked about the effect the Federal Community Defender Office has had on prosecutors who are handling appeals, Kyle King, a spokesman for the York County District Attorney's Office said: "We're certainly not going to make a comment." The Pennsylvania Attorney General's Office also declined to talk about the organization. Retired Pennsylvania Supreme Court Chief Justice Ronald Castille wrote 2 opinions that were highly critical of the group. Both were in response to filings from Mark Spotz, who was sentenced to death for a crime spree that spread across Clearfield, Schuylkill, Cumberland and York counties in 1995, during which he killed 4 people. In an opinion from 2011, Castille wrote that the Federal Community Defender Office's involvement in cases has been "remarkable in its stealth and pervasiveness." He also said the resources the group has are "something one would expect in major litigation involving large law firms," and that the organization bogged down state courts. The group has a global political agenda, he said: "to impede and sabotage the death penalty in Pennsylvania." "A zealous representation of your client - that's fine," Castille said in a recent interview. "But being a zealot is different." The future of the death penalty in Pa. The Federal Community Defender Office's involvement in state court, for the time being, might have a different urgency. Saying the system is "riddled with flaws" and "anything but infallible," Gov. Tom Wolf in February 2015 placed a moratorium on executions.The Pennsylvania Supreme Court later ruled that he acted within his authority. In June 2015, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, which covers Pennsylvania, also held that the Federal Community Defender Office was allowed to appear in state court. Prosecutors in several counties tried the prevent the organization from getting involved in cases. Chief Judge Theodore McKee wrote in a concurring opinion that systemic attempts to disqualify the lawyers from cases was "all the more perplexing and regrettable" in part because of how much has been written about inadequate representation creating a risk for miscarriages of justice. Prosecutors, he said, seemed to be objecting because the office was "providing too much defense to the accused." "I am not quite sure why the same kind of meticulous devotion of resources should not be available to someone who has been condemned to die by the state," McKee wrote, "and who seeks to challenge the legality of that punishment." Who's in death row in York County? Here are the 12 people from York County who are on death row, and the year they were sentenced. People who are represented by the Federal Community Defender Office in the York County Court of Common Pleas are marked with an asterisk. --Paul Gamboa-Taylor (1992): Gamboa-Taylor pleaded guilty to murdering 4 family members with a hammer on May 18, 1991. --Hubert Michael Jr. (1995): Michael pleaded guilty to kidnapping and killing Trista Eng, 16, on July 12, 1993. --Mark Spotz (1996): Spotz killed 4 people during a crime spree in 1995, which spanned Clearfield, Schuylkill, Cumberland and York counties. 6 death warrants have been signed for him, according to the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections. --John Small* (1996): He was convicted of attempted rape and the murder of Cheryl Smith, 17, whose body was found in West Manheim Township in 1981. --Kevin Dowling* (1998): Dowling was sentenced to death for the killing of Jennifer Myers, 44, the owner of an art and frame shop outside Spring Grove, on Oct. 20, 1997. --Milton Montalvo* (2000) and Noel Montalvo (2003) The brothers were condemned to die for the stabbing deaths of Miriam Asencio-Cruz, 44, and Manuel Ramirez-Santana, 37, on April 19, 1998. --Harve Johnson (2009): Johnson is on death row for killing 2-year-old Darisabel Baez in 2008. --Kevin Mattison (2010): Mattison, who previously did time for third-degree murder in Maryland, was convicted of shooting Christian Agosto during a robbery on Dec. 9, 2008. Agosto, 34, died 1 week later. --Hector Morales* (2011): Morales was sentenced for shooting and killing Ronald "Country" Simmons Jr. on July 16, 2009. Simmons was a drug informant who planned to testify against Morales. --Aric Woodard (2013): On Nov. 7, 2011, Woodard beat 2-year-old Jaques Twinn to death. --Timothy Jacoby (2014): Jacoby shot and killed Monica Schmeyer, 55, on March 31, 2010, when he tried to burglarize her home in West Manheim Township. Active death penalty cases in York County: Right now, the York County District Attorney's Office is proceeding with 2 death penalty prosecutions: --Marcus Bordelon, 23, of Wrightsville, is accused of killing his ex-girlfriend, Samantha Young, 21, on April 19, 2015. --Daniel Jacobs, 45, of York, is awaiting retrial on a charge of criminal homicide in the death of his girlfriend, Tammy Lee Mock, 18, on Feb. 16, 1992. His case has been in limbo for more than 10 years. He is already serving a life sentence for the murder of his 7-month-old daughter, Holly. Johnson seeks new trial This fall, Harve Johnson, who was convicted of his killing his girlfriend's 2-year-old daughter, Darisabel Baez, will be back in court for a 3-day hearing. It comes after his lawyer filed - and later revised - a motion that, including exhibits, is more than 1,200 pages and argues that he's entitled to a new trial. The attorney representing Johnson, Michael Wiseman, is the former chief of the Federal Community Defender Office's Capital Habeas Unit in Philadelphia. He is no longer with the organization. (source: York Daily Record) GEORGIA----impending execution Georgia Prepares for 6th Execution of the Year ---- John Wayne Conner's lethal injection would set a record in Georgia, which hasn't executed more than 5 people in a year in the modern era. A man who beat a drinking buddy to death with a stick is set to become Georgia's sixth death-row inmate executed by lethal injection this year. John Wayne Conner is scheduled for execution by lethal injection at 7 p.m. on Thursday, at Georgia Diagnostic and Classification Prison in Jackson. If the execution goes through, it would set a new record for Georgia. The state has never executed more than 5 people in a year in the 40 years since the death penalty was reinstated. 5 death-row inmates were executed in 2015 and 1987. There have been 64 men and 1 woman executed in Georgia since the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976. Conner would be the 43rd put to death by lethal injection. There are presently 63 men under death sentence in Georgia. Conner was sentenced to death in 1982 for the murder of James T. White in Telfair County. According to testimony, Conner, White and Conner's girlfriend had gone to a party in Eastman. After returning to Conner's house, Conner, then 25, and White, 29, walked to a neighbor's home to ask, unsuccessfully, for a ride to a liquor store. While walking back to Conner's house, Conner claims, White made a comment about wanting to have sex with Conner's girlfriend. The men fought, and Conner hit White first with a glass bottle then with a stick he found. After returning home, Conner told his girlfriend he may have killed White, but that they needed to go back and make sure. The girlfriend testified that, when they went back to the scene of the fight, she heard a thud, then Conner returned and told her White was dead. The couple were arrested the next day in Butts County. Conner's attorneys will appear before the state Board of Pardons and Paroles on Wednesday in an attempt to have his execution halted. (source: patch.com) ************************ Slain St. Augustine priest signed "Declaration of Life" document asking that his killer not be put to death Editor's Note: Road to Murder, a Times-Union Special Report, details the slaying of St. Augustine priest Rene Robert. In this preview, Robert is remembered for his work, his compassion and a "Declaration of Life." As the 6 o'clock hour approached and workers spilled onto the streets toward home, Father Rene Robert would stand with others on a corner solemnly waiting. For him and those who stood with him, 6 p.m. was a time of great sadness. It is at that hour on appointed days that Florida typically puts to death its condemned. So on a corner Robert and the others would pray. They prayed for redemption for the killer. They prayed for the victims. They prayed for Florida to join 19 other states and abolish the death penalty. Robert was so opposed to the death penalty that in 1995 he signed a "Declaration of Life" that said, " ... should I die as a result of a violent crime, I request that the person or person found guilty of homicide for my killing not be subject to put in jeopardy of the death penalty under any circumstance, no matter how heinous their crime or how much I have suffered." The notarized declaration is to be given to the prosecutor, the attorney representing the accused, the judge and the recorder of the county where the homicide case will be tried. While the declaration carries little legal weight, its moral significance is real. Robert was killed on April 11 in Burke County, Ga. A deeply troubled 28-year-old, Steven Murray, has said in interviews with the Times-Union that he committed the crime. A Georgia prosecutor is seeking the death penalty. Ashley Wright, the district attorney for the Augusta Judicial District, filed the notice of intent to seek the death penalty on May 19. She didn't seem moved by Robert's wishes, which she learned about after her filing. She said, "The State's decision to seek imposition of the death penalty is based on legal reasons which arise from the unique facts of each case. While many who are affected by a loved one's loss would wish the State to seek the maximum penalty, it is reserved for certain cases based on aggravating circumstances. That's how the decision is made. It's not sought based on public opinion." DIOCESE CONTINUES APPEAL The Diocese of St. Augustine, where Robert served initially as a Franciscan brother then a priest of the diocese, sent Wright the document as well as a letter from the Most Rev. Felipe J. Estevez, bishop of the diocese. Estevez wrote, "While the State has the right to carry out the death penalty in order to protect society, the unnecessary, deliberate taking of any life denies the dignity of all persons, contributes to an ever growing disrespect for the sacredness of human life, and feeds a sense of vengeance rather than justice. Society remains safe when violent criminals are imprisoned for life without parole." A spokeswoman for the diocese said, "Bishop Estevez on behalf of Father Rene Robert and the Diocese of St. Augustine will continue to appeal to the State of Georgia until the death penalty is removed from this case." 'NO EXCEPTIONS' When Robert signed his Declaration of Life 21 years ago, he joined an estimated 1,200 others who had done the same during the anti-death-penalty group's infancy. Modeled after a national group, Catholics Against Capital Punishment, a group of nuns from the Brooklyn (N.Y.) Regional Community of the Sisters of Mercy formed the group Cherish the Life Circle to speak out against capital punishment, offer the Declaration of Life and to provide support to family members of loved ones who have been victims of homicide. At 83, Sister Camille D'Arienzo, a founder, still carries the cause though she readily admits that keeping tally on the number of people who have has signed the declaration has stopped. Still, she was aware that Robert has a Declaration of Life document with her name and his signature on it. "I feel so honored that I was able to provide that," she said. "And while the father can no longer speak for himself, our faith tells us that he is witnessing what is being done in his name. And to take a life, to take the life of his killer would be to dismiss his value, father's value and to dishonor his memory." To Sister Camille, there are no gray areas. "We have a commandment that says Thou shalt not kill," she said. "It doesn't say it's okay because the crime was horrific or because the victim was an innocent child. There are no exceptions. "We don't do anything of value by imitating the very behavior that we condemn. To kill someone who has killed someone because we hate killing is irrational." 'FOLLOWING THE GOSPEL MESSAGE' Robert saw life much in the same way; without gray, when it came to helping the downtrodden, the addicted, the marginalized. "He was deeply committed to the sacredness of life," said Bishop Emeritus John Snyder. "He was just so committed and so concerned about people that he was extraordinary in that sense." That commitment put him in potentially dangerous situations. For years Robert ministered to people in jail. That work wasn't limited to those behind bars. He also ministered and helped those like Murray who bounced in and out of jail. "I was worried about him getting ripped off. He was kind of an easy mark," said St. Johns County Sheriff David Shoar. "He was just very giving and would get close to these people; and I did worry about them, and I did worry about him. "...People that spend time in jail, and I'm not saying all of them, but if they see a particular opportunity to get money, I always worried about that and I'd talk to him about it." Despite the warnings, Robert found goodness in all people, Shoar said. "I think he had a level of naivete because of his faith in people," he said. That faith was remarkable, said Nancy O'Byrne, a long-time friend of Robert. "He felt he was following the gospel message," O'Byrne said. "And that is why he did what he did. He wasn't worried about his safety. ... And that is what you do when you are living the gospel message. You don't worry about your safety. You do what God is calling you to do and more of us need to be doing that and not worrying about personal safety. If we believe in the God that we are going to be with for all of eternity, then why are we so worried about what would happen to us? It's a big disconnect as far as I am concerned and I think he believed that too." O'Byrne said, "He chose to live out of love, not fear." (source: Florida Times-Union) FLORIDA: Mesac Damas murder case remains in legal limbo due to death penalty challenges The 1st-degree murder case of Mesac Damas remains in legal limbo due to ongoing challenges to Florida's death penalty laws. Damas appeared in court Friday morning. During the appearance both his appointed attorney, James Ermacora, and the assistant state attorney expressed frustration that "nothing has happened" for months to untangle the legal knot that is holding up cases throughout the state. "I think every death penalty case in Florida is tied up in a knot like this one," Ermacora said. The Legislature rewrote Florida's death penalty law in March after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the state's previous law was unconstitutional. That law allowed judges to reach a different decision than juries, who had only an advisory role in recommending death. But the new law, which doesn't require a unanimous recommendation of death from the jury - it only requires 10 of the 12 jurors to recommend death - has also been challenged by judges in Miami-Dade and Hillsborough Counties. The Florida Supreme Court will likely have to weigh in, Ermacora said. Damas, 39, is charged with 6 counts of 1st-degree murder in the deaths of his wife and 5 children, who were between the ages of 1 and 9 at the time of the September 2009 killings. Damas has twice confessed to the Daily News that he committed the homicides, and prosecutors are seeking the death penalty. His case also has been delayed by competency issues. Damas is next scheduled to appear in court on Nov. 23. (source: Naples News) ***************** Egypt Robinson back in court The woman charged with 1st degree murder in the death of her three year-old son was back in court Thursday afternoon for a pre-trial hearing. Bay County Sheriff's deputies arrested 27-year-old Egypt Robinson in December after they found the body of her son A.J. Acevedo wrapped in a sheet in a suitcase floating behind a Callaway home she was staying at. Prosecutors said the state will be seeking the death penalty. Robinson's next court date is October 27. (source: WJHG news) ************************ Florida Supreme Court puts rulings on death penalty and gambling on hold, takes summer break The Florida Supreme Court released its final round of rulings for the summer Thursday and issued a rare clarification of its workers' compensation decision of last month, but it also put left unresolved 2 of the most controversial issues to come before the court this year: the death penalty and expansion of slot machines. The court postponed rulings on the constitutionality of the state's death penalty, leaving the state's procedure and the 388 inmates on death row in limbo for potentially several more months. The ruling is expected as part of a series of hearings the court held in May and June over cases challenging the state's death penalty law passed by lawmakers in March, after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Hurst vs. Florida that the state's sentencing scheme was unconstitutional. The court has stayed two executions in the wake of the Hurst ruling, heard arguments in more than a dozen death penalty cases, and has not yet unanswered whether longtime death row inmates should be afforded new sentencing hearings. The court also heard arguments in June about whether a 2010 state gaming law allows counties to expand slot machines without legislative approval. Both decisions could have wide-ranging ramifications and could potentially provoke criticism, controversy and unleash an election-year debate over 2 highly-charged issues. 3 of the 7 sitting justices on the bench are up for a merit-retention vote in November - Chief Justice Jorge Labarga, Justice Charles Canady and Justice Ricky Polston. The death penalty questions before the court were spawned by the January U.S. Supreme Court ruling that declared the state's death sentencing system unconstitutional because it gave too little power to juries. For decades, Florida jurors issued bare majority recommendations, with judges ultimately imposing the death penalty. The opinion evolved from a similar ruling in a 2002 case, Ring vs. Arizona, which held that juries in that state should have the sole authority to decide on aggravating circumstances that made someone eligible for the death penalty. Alabama, Florida and Delaware are the only 3 states in the nation that do not require a unanimous jury to impose the death sentence and Florida officials believed the jury's "advisory" role was sufficiently different to allow the court to differentiate Florida from the Arizona ruling. The decision forced the Legislature to rewrite its death-penalty sentencing law to require juries to unanimously vote for every reason, known as aggravating factors, that a defendant might merit a death sentence. The decision to impose the death sentence requires 10 of 12 jurors. The fact that the court went on its summer recess without issuing an opinion, however, doesn't necessarily mean there won't be one to come before the court issues opinions again in late August. Martin McClain, a lawyer who has represented more than 250 defendants condemned to death and presented arguments before the court in June, said Thursday that in 2009 he was appealing the death sentence of an inmate issued its last opinions before it recessed for the summer one week, and the next week the opinion on his case was issued. "We have no idea what they will do,'' he said in an interview. He noted that there are 2 people on death row in which juries recommended a life sentence but a judge overrode it with a death sentence and the court may be taking its time to consider the impact of those cases. "We now have a statute that says you can't get a death sentence if three or more people voted for life and yet we are still going to execute people who have a life recommendation? It's very difficult to determine what we're going to do. It makes sense to me the court wants to do it right. ... It's also clear from the oral arguments that they are not in agreement." (source: Tampa Bay Times) ALABAMA: Strange facts about Alabama's 200 years of executions Official records from the Alabama Department of Corrections lists the names of more than 200 people executed between 1927, when the state started using the electric chair, through this year when Christopher Brooks died by lethal injection, Alabama's current means of execution. But what of the many decades in which Alabama executed people by hanging or even gunfire? The Death Penalty Information Center's Espy File, which tracked executions nationwide that took place between 1608 and 2002, states Alabama executed 764 people between 1812 and 2002 -- making it the state with the seventh highest number of executions. Alabama has executed another 33 people since 2002, according to state records. The Espy File is a "list of 15,269 executions was compiled by M. Watt Espy and John Ortiz Smykla, and was made available through the Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research," the DPIC site states. Between 1812 and the advent of Alabama's "Big Yellow Mama" in 1927, Alabama executed 555 people, the file states. The earliest record in the file is the Dec. 19, 1812 hanging of Eli Norman for the crime of murder. All but one of the executions between 1812 and 1927 were hangings. On Feb. 6, 1814, a man named John Woods was executed by gunshot. The file lists his crime as "other." Among the interesting items in the file: --While most executions are for murder, 60-year-old Thomas Davis was hanged on Oct. 10, 1822 for counterfeiting. --In 1833, Littleton Prince was hanged for aiding a runaway slave. --Multiple executions in one day was not uncommon in years past. In 1934, the state electrocuted 5 men in 1 night. However, the largest mass execution in Alabama history may have been Nov. 11, 1825. On that day, 6 Native Americans, including Tuscoona Fixico, Dancing Rabbit, Chilancha and 3 others not identified, were hanged for murder. In his book "The Second Creek War," writer John H. Ellison states Tuscoona Fixico led rebel warriors in a series of ambushes intended to isolate Fort Wilson. --Men make up the vast majority of Alabama's executions -- since 1927 only 4 women have been executed here. The earliest known execution of a woman in Alabama came on June 10, 1825 when Patsy Gorman was hanged for murder. In all, the file lists the executions of 15 women in Alabama in the 1800s. --African-Americans made up the vast majority of Alabama executions. However, several Native Americans were also executed in the 19th century. The earliest of these may have been the Dec. 12, 1834 hanging of Poo-sa-la for murder. Another Native American, Eas-ko, was executed here for murder in 1834 but no exact date was listed. (source: al.com) TENNESSEE: State Supreme Court Upholds Conviction, Death Penalty For Washington Co. Murderer The Supreme Court has affirmed the convictions and sentences of death for Howard Hawk Willis for killing two East Tennessee teenagers and dismembering one of them. In 2010, a Washington County jury convicted Willis of two counts of premeditated murder and one count of felony murder in the perpetration of a kidnapping for the 2002 deaths of 17-year-old Adam Chrismer and his 16-year-old wife, Samantha Chrismer, according to a news release. The jury sentenced Willis to death on each conviction. In 2015, the Court of Criminal Appeals affirmed the convictions and the sentences of death. On appeal to the Supreme Court, Willis argued that the trial court should have excluded certain incriminating statements he made to his ex-wife because she was acting as an agent of the government at the time the statements were made. Willis made the statements to his ex-wife during in-person meetings with her at the Washington County jail and at a detention facility in New York, and also during recorded telephone calls from jail, according to the release. He claimed that the admission into evidence of the statements violated his right to counsel under the Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution. The court held that there was no violation of Willis' right to counsel. The court first noted that Willis made some of the incriminating statements to his ex-wife before he was indicted, and he had no constitutional right to counsel at that time. After Willis's indictment, the state discouraged the ex-wife from having any further contact with Willis, and he did not offer proof at trial that the state agreed to have the ex-wife act as its agent or that the state had any control over her actions. Consequently, as to incriminating statements Willis made in person to his ex-wife after his indictment, the proof showed only that the state willingly accepted information from a cooperating witness, according to the release. Willis admitted that every telephone call he made from jail was preceded by a recording that informed him that all calls are subject to monitoring and recording, so he implicitly consented to the monitoring and recording of his telephone conversations with his ex-wife. The court maintained that the admission into evidence of the incriminating statements did not violate Willis' constitutional rights. After a full review of the record and all of the evidence, the court concluded that the proof fully supported the convictions and the sentences of death. Chief Justice Sharon G. Lee filed a separate concurring opinion, in which she agreed that Willis's death sentence is proportionate to the penalties imposed in similar cases but reiterated her disagreement with the manner in which the court conducts proportionality review. (source: Greeneville Sun) From rhalperi at smu.edu Fri Jul 8 11:22:20 2016 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Fri, 8 Jul 2016 11:22:20 -0500 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----S.DAK., NEB., COLO., CALIF., USA Message-ID: July 8 SOUTH DAKOTA: Death penalty upheld in 1992 murder of Rapid City man at doughnut shop The U.S. District Court for South Dakota has upheld the conviction and death sentence for a man convicted in the 1992 murder of a 22-year-old Rapid City man who was stabbed to death at a doughnut shop. According to state Attorney General Marty Jackley, the motions filed by Charles Russell Rhines were denied by the federal court. Rhines had sought a motion for habeas corpus relief and to amend the penalty he received. Rhines was convicted in the murder of 22-year-old Donnivan Schaeffer in Rapid City on March 8, 1992. Rhines, now 59, was charged with fatally stabbing Donnivan Schaeffer, 22, during a burglary at a Rapid City doughnut shop in March 1992. Schaeffer, a part-time employee at the shop, walked in on Rhines while he was robbing the shop. "The Federal Court's ruling affirms that Charles Russell Rhines' murder conviction and capital sentence for the horrific murder of Donnivan Shaeffer are constitutional. My thoughts and prayers are with the Schaeffer family, who have waited 24 years for justice in this case," Jackley said in a news release on Thursday. A Pennington County jury convicted Rhines of 1st degree murder in 1993 and returned a sentence of death. Rhines' conviction and death sentence were affirmed on direct appeal by the South Dakota Supreme Court in 1996. Rhines' conviction and sentence were also affirmed on state habeas proceedings by the state trial court and South Dakota Supreme Court. With the conclusion of his federal trial court habeas corpus proceedings, Rhines can file a notice of appeal within 30 days to the United States Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit and, ultimately, to the United States Supreme Court. Rhines must obtain permission from the federal court to pursue an appeal. (source: Rapid City Journal) NEBRASKA: Nebraska Supreme Court rejects challenge to death penalty petition drive The Nebraska Supreme Court has rejected a legal challenge of a ballot question that asks voters to reinstate the death penalty. Lawyers for death penalty opponents had argued a successful petition drive was legally invalid because organizers failed to list Gov. Pete Ricketts as a sponsor. Ricketts and his family gave $300,000 to the petition drive in 2015 after the Nebraska Legislature overrode the governor's veto of death penalty repeal legislation. "The alleged failure to include his name in the list of sponsors did not make the referendum petition legally insufficient," Judge Lindsey Miller-Lerman wrote in the court's opinion. The high court upheld the decision of Lancaster County District Judge Lori Maret. The legal requirement to list sponsors is intended to let voters know which individuals, organizations or corporations are behind a petition drive before signatures are collected. Friday's ruling paves the way for the ballot question to appear before voters when they go to the polls Nov. 8. (source: Omaha World-Herald) ****************** High court: Ricketts not a 'sponsor' of death penalty referendum Death penalty opponents lost a bid Friday to keep the question of whether the ultimate penalty should return to Nebraska off the ballot in November. Christy and Richard Hargesheimer of Lincoln had sought an injunction to keep Secretary of State John Gale from placing the question on the ballot, saying the petition drive that gathered some 169,000 signatures failed to disclose Gov. Pete Ricketts as a sponsor. But the Nebraska Supreme Court ruled in favor of the state and a pro-death penalty group, which argued that Ricketts wasn't a sponsor, despite the fact that he and his father contributed 1/3 of the $913,000 raised by Nebraskans for the Death Penalty and his close allies took roles to promote it. In Friday's order, Supreme Court Justice Lindsey Miller-Lerman said sponsors are individuals or entities who assume responsibility for the initiative or referendum process, so Ricketts would not be required to be listed as one. Lawmakers didn't define "sponsor" or say what it meant to sponsor a petition in the statute, which left it a question for the court to decide. Attorneys for the Hargesheimers contended it was important for the public to know about Ricketts' contributions, both financial and otherwise. But the state's high court found that the disclosure of financial backers was met by other statutes that require their identification. And the court affirmed Lancaster County District Judge Lori Maret's dismissal of the suit in February. (source: Lincoln Journal Star) COLORADO: Lack of answers in Colorado Supreme Court's firing of judge unacceptable The remarkable removal of a judge from a death-penalty appeal shortly before he was set to make a significant ruling demands public explanation. Lawyers for convicted murderer and death-row inmate Sir Mario Owens are right about that, whatever the value of the remaining claims they made in a legal filing last week with the state Supreme Court. Judge Gerald Rafferty's dismissal from Owens' case in April may in fact have been justified. But who can tell given the secrecy surrounding the process by which the Colorado Supreme Court yanked Rafferty off the case. A press release that said Rafferty "breached the terms of the contract" as a senior judge hardly qualifies as sufficient. "To remove a sitting judge ... at exactly the same moment that he was issuing his final order, which would largely decide Mr. Owens' fate and whether he lives or dies, is literally unprecedented, not only in a Colorado case of this magnitude, but in the annals of law," Owens' lawyers wrote. It is also costly, since it negates much of the lengthy hearings held in Rafferty's courtroom. Evidence will have to be presented anew and witnesses required to repeat their testimony. This may be unavoidable, but it is also extraordinary. What did Rafferty do to merit such treatment? The public interest goes well beyond the extra price tag, too. Owens' attorneys contend that Rafferty was poised to find major flaws in the original prosecution. The dark implication of interference is obvious, and should not be allowed to linger when a straightforward explanation for Rafferty's departure could clear the air. Yet on Wednesday the high court refused to reconsider pulling Rafferty, and it did so with a terse, one-page order that provided no explanation for the denial. Ironically, Owens' appeal involves one of the first tests of what a Denver Post article by John Ingold describes as a "new process for death-penalty appeals in Colorado, which lawmakers hoped would speed up the execution process. Instead, the system has bogged down, mired for years without even clearing the 1st step in the process." But such delays are par for the course in death-penalty cases. Despite 1 attempt after another by diehard proponents of capital punishment to see the penalty enforced, Colorado has had only 2 executions in the past half century, with the most recent occurring nearly 20 years ago. Meanwhile, juries have become reluctant to mandate death even for the likes of heinous mass murderers such as James Holmes and Dexter Lewis. Owens was convicted in 2008 for a crime that occurred 11 years ago, and his case could easily drag on for additional years. If nothing else, this latest strange saga of his appeal should provide more evidence to lawmakers that the death penalty statute is not working and cannot be made to work. It's time that it was repealed. (source: Editorial, Fort Morgan Times) CALIFORNIA: Death penalty is destructive to California In 1978, my family wrote and sponsored the ballot initiative that expanded the death penalty back to California. We worked tirelessly to pass the initiative, putting in long days gathering signatures and late nights stuffing envelopes. Instituting the death penalty, we thought, would save Californians money, bring safety to our communities and provide closure to victims' families. We could not have been more wrong. Though I was once California's biggest proponent of the death penalty, I now feel compelled to admit the policy is destructive to our great state. What we didn't know then is that the death penalty would become an industry that benefits only attorneys and criminals, and no one else. It's an extreme expense to taxpayers, does not make our communities safer and fails to deliver the justice it promised. Since the initiative became law, California taxpayers have unknowingly spent more than $5 billion to maintain a death row that now houses 747 convicted criminals. During this time, only 13 people have been put to death, at an eye-popping price tag of $384 million per execution. Beyond its economic burden, the death penalty in California is a myth. Not a single individual has been executed in the past 10 years because of many problems. An exhaustive appeals process, guaranteed by our Constitution, can drag on for decades. Meanwhile, death row inmates are kept in private cells, don't have to work and are afforded privileges they would not be getting in the general prison population. Because of all this, the death penalty costs taxpayers 18 times more than a sentence of life in prison. So why are Californians paying for an exorbitant capital punishment program that does not accomplish justice? The constitutionally mandated appeals keep the wounds of victims' families open. The death penalty does not make our communities any safer, either. New studies conclusively show that the death penalty is not a deterrent to crime. My family and I believed the death penalty would serve as the ultimate warning to criminals, but nearly 40 years of evidence proves it does not work. Don't get me wrong - I'm still as tough on crime as I've ever been. I firmly believe those who committed the most heinous acts should do the hardest of time and never again see the light of day. But it's time to face facts: the ultimate punishment has become the ultimate failed government program. Fortunately, we now have the chance to deliver real justice. The Justice That Works Act - Proposition 62 on the November ballot - would replace the death penalty with a punishment that brings swift and certain justice: life in prison without the possibility of parole. Instead of paying for endless appeals, we would lock up the worst criminals and throw away the key forever. It would also force inmates to work and pay restitution to their victims' families while saving California taxpayers $150 million annually - money that could go to programs that can prevent crime. Another initiative on the ballot - Proposition 66 - promises to fix the death penalty by hiring more attorneys. But do not be deceived. It's a sloppy initiative that will make things worse. Every attempt to fix the death penalty over the past 40 years has only made it slower and more expensive, wasting resources on criminals, attorneys and a bloated bureaucracy. The only real solution is to replace the death penalty with life in prison without parole. Like my family, California thought expanding the death penalty initiative was the right thing to do in 1978. We were wrong. Now as a state, we have the chance to end the wasteful program and maintain our commitment to tough justice by passing Proposition 62. (source: Opinion; Ron Briggs is a former supervisor of El Dorado County----Sacramento Bee) USA: US Attorney pens letter to Charleston church shooting families Acting U.S. Attorney Beth Drake has written an open letter to the relatives of 9 black parishioners fatally shot in a Charleston church last year and to 3 survivors of the shooting. In a letter posted online Wednesday, Drake told the families that both the federal government and state prosecutors are seeking justice as they prepare to try accused shooter Dylann Roof. The comment is Drake's 1st since taking over the office for Bill Nettles, who resigned last month as South Carolina's top federal prosecutor. Roof's federal death penalty trial is set for Nov. 7. State prosecutors' capital case is scheduled for January, although state Solicitor Scarlett Wilson has said her case should go 1st. In her letter, Drake calls Wilson a "terrific, capable, smart and excellent trial lawyer" who also at one point worked as a federal prosecutor. While it may seem at times state and federal officials disagree, Drake wrote, "at the end of the day, we are all after the same thing -- justice." (source: Associated Press) From rhalperi at smu.edu Fri Jul 8 11:23:00 2016 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Fri, 8 Jul 2016 11:23:00 -0500 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide Message-ID: July 8 IRAQ----executions Isis has executed 5 Sunni tribesman and beheaded 6 of their own militants for spying----The extremists are becoming increasingly paranoid as the borders of their self-proclaimed caliphate shrinks. The Islamic State (Isis) militant group has executed 6 of their own fighters and 5 Sunni tribesmen in Iraq for allegedly spying for their enemies. The jihadists are losing ground in their self-proclaimed caliphate which bridges Syria and Iraq and are becoming increasingly paranoid. Reports have emerged from several news agencies in Iraq that Daesh (Isis) beheaded 6 of their own fighters in Mosul on Wednesday 6 July on charges of 'treason' after accusing them of leaking crucial security information to the US-led coalition operating in northern Iraq. They were said to have been interrogated by senior IS commanders before being handed their sentences by the Mosul Sharia Court. The brutal killings come just 3 days after the US-led coalition renewed airstrikes on IS headquarters in Mosul killing dozens of militants, including top jihadi commanders. Then on 7 July in a new photo report purportedly released by IS militants in Azim, around 80 miles north of Baghdad, 5 Sunni tribesmen were executed. They were accused of assisting the Popular Mobilisation Forces (PMF), which is an Iraqi state-sponsored organisation comprising some 40 militias including Shiite, Yazidi, Christian and some Sunni brigades. The report has not been independently verified by the IBTimes UK but the ARA News network have quoted a media activist named Abdullah al-Malla who cited an IS official saying: "The ISIS leadership suspected that the al-Hisba members were leaking confidential information to the western coalition - whose airstrikes have recently killed top jihadi officials. "After interrogation, the Mosul Sharia Court issued a decision to publicly execute the 6 suspects. The 6 jihadis were beheaded in front of dozens of IS officials in central Mosul," al-Malla added. Amongst the IS leaders who have been reportedly killed in recent US-led coalition bombing was Muhammad Ahmed al-Bajjari, head of IS military operations in northwestern Iraq. He was said to have played a main role in planning attacks against Kurdish Peshmerga forces and the Iraqi army near Mosul. Another air strike reportedly killed the head of the feared al-Hisba police known as Hatim Taleb al-Hamdouni. (source: ibtimes.co.uk) SOMALIA----executions Al Shabaab Publicly Executes 2 Men in Central Somalia The Al Qaeda-affiliated Al Shabaab fighters in central Somalia have publicly executes 2 men by firing squad on Thursday afternoon, for killing unarmed civilians in the past. Sources say a firing squad from Al Shabaab carried out the execution against the men at a square in the coastal city of Harardhere in Mudug province which is controlled by militants. A local court belonging to Al Shabaab has sentenced 2 men whose names have been identified as Abdirahman Dhuhul Abdulle, 22, and Abdi Muse Hayle, 25, to death penalty in vengeance for previous 2 civilian killing. The sources who spoke to Radio Shabelle on condition of anonymity by phone, said hundreds of residents, including women and children have watched to execution of the 2 men. Somalia's central town of Haradhere, formerly a pirate hub is currently serving as the biggest operations and financial core for Al Shabaab fighters in Mudug region situated in the autonomous Galmudug regional state. (source: All Africa News) UGANDA: Gen Sejusa Aides Convicted of Treason 6 aides to Gen David Sejusa, the former coordinator of intelligence services, were yesterday afternoon found guilty of offenses related to plotting to overthrow President Museveni's government. The 6 who were found guilty by the General Court Martial sitting in Makindye include Corporal Grace Nasasira, Corporal Geoffrey Karuhanga, Private Frank Ninsiima, James Karuhanga Nayebare, Moses Kakarugahi Nuwagaba and Abel Twinamtsiko Treason, a charge which they have been found guilty of attracts a maximum penalty of death. The 7-member panel led by chairman of the General Court Martial Lt. Gen Andrew Gutti deferred the sentencing of the convicts until July 18. The court in its verdict relied on evidence showing that the convicts conducted meetings at Sekanyonyi trading centre in Mityana district and asked several soldiers to join their team on the instructions of Gen Sejusa and former presidential candidate Gen Benon Biraaro. The evidence showed that the recruited forces were to contrive a plot to overthrow the government on grounds that they had gathered intelligence information that President Yoweri Museveni had intentions of making his son Maj. Gen Muhoozi Kainerugaba the next president of Uganda. Prosecution further alleged that the convicts, in or around the months of March to May 2014 and while in the areas of Mityana and Kampala, consciously failed to disclose to proper authorities vital information about the recruitment of people to engage into activities intended to overthrow the legitimate government of Uganda. While convicting the 6, Lt. Gen Gutti faulted them for having withheld such critical information from relevant government authorities. During mitigation sessions, Lt. Ambrose Baguma, on behalf of prosecution; asked court to hand the convicts a maximum penalty of death by hanging given the grave charges that they are facing. On the contrary, the convict's lawyer David Mushabe asked court to hand his clients a lenient sentence on grounds that they have since their arrest three years ago been remorseful. (source: The Observer) TANZANIA: Tanzania Told to Halt Executions Tanzania government has once again been ordered by the African Court of Human and People's Rights (AfCHPR) to halt the execution of 2 murder convicts facing death the penalty. In its ruling after 2 applications by the convicts, 11 judges of the judicial organ based in Arusha unanimously orders the government to refrain from executing the death penalty against Amini Juma and Deogratius Nicholas Jeshi. The 2 were convicted of murder charges at different dates and different locations by the High Court of Tanzania and had their convictions upheld by the Court of Appeal of Tanzania, which is the highest Court in the country. "The Court unanimously orders the Respondent (Tanzania) to refrain from executing the death penalty against the Applicants (Mr Juma and Jeshi) pending the determination of the Application," they ruled last week during the Court session. The Respondent was also ordered to report to the Court (AfCHPR) within 60 days from the date of receipt of the Order (June 3rd) on measures taken to implement the Order. Both applicants are currently detained in prisons awaiting execution of the death penalty. Juma, currently detained at Maweni prison in Tanga, was convicted for murder by the High Court of Tanzania at Arusha on September 18, 2008 and sentenced to life imprisonment. His appeal to the Court of Appeal was dismissed on October 17, 2011. (source: The Citizen) IRELAND: Saved from the gallows: story of the reprieved----Judy Murphy talks to author Colm Wallace whose new book tells the story of those who survived death sentences When it came to reporting murder trials in the early days of the Irish State, newspapers didn't hold back on gory details. Plenty of these grisly contemporary reports are contained in a new book, Sentenced to Death: Saved from the Gallows, written by Renvyle man Colm Wallace. It charts the stories of people who were sentenced to hang in Ireland between 1922 and 1990, only to have their sentences commuted by the government. Out of the book's 30 cases, 2 are from Galway. One relates to a murder in Rosmuc in 1928, and the other deals with a 1943 murder in Bushypark in the city. Colm got the idea of writing Sentenced to Death a few years ago when he read an article on the death penalty in Ireland - most people aren't aware that it wasn't abolished until 1990, he says, explaining that by then, it was reserved for those guilty of capital murder, such as killing a Garda or soldier. For other kinds of 'common' murder, it had been abolished in 1964. The last death sentence was passed in 1985, before Colm was born and was for the murder of Garda Sergeant, Patrick Morrissey in Co Louth. Colm, a 28-year-old primary teacher, has always loved history. When he studied for his BA in Education at Mary Immaculate College in Limerick, his 1st-year subjects included history and German. He did Irish alongside education for his degree, because he loves Irish too, he adds. That came from his mother, Anne, who is originally from Baile na nGall in the Kerry Gaeltacht. Colm's dad, Mark Wallace is from Renvyle where he's very involved in GAA. 29 people were hanged in Ireland before the death penalty was abolished in 1964 for 'common' murder, with the last hanging being carried out in 1954, says Colm. He was fascinated by the stories surrounding these executions but a good deal had been written about them, so he turned his gaze elsewhere. "I wondered what it would have been like to be sentenced to death and then told you had been reprieved," he explains. "And there was very little information about that." So Colm, who had long been determined to write a book, decided to tackle that subject. He began writing Sentenced to Death last July, treating the project like a 9-5 job and working every weekday through July and August, then every Saturday once he resumed teaching duties in Athenry. The trial that really inspired him to explore the stories of commuted death sentences was that of Patrick Aylward from Kilkenny, who was sentenced to hang in 1923 for murdering a neighbouring infant, William Holden. There was bad blood between Aylward and the Holdens and Aylward was accused of visiting the Holden house while their parents were away from home, and murdering the toddler by putting him in the fire. He strenuously denied any involvement in the child's dreadful death, but the other Holden children gave graphic evidence to the contrary. (source: Connacht Tribune) From rhalperi at smu.edu Fri Jul 8 16:17:19 2016 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Fri, 8 Jul 2016 16:17:19 -0500 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----N.C., GA., UTAH Message-ID: July 8 NORTH CAROLINA: Tillis notes support for increased federal penalties following Dallas shooting Following a mass shooting in Dallas that took the lives of 5 police officers, U.S. Sen. Thom Tillis, R-NC, emphasized his support for a measure that would punish perpetrators of similar incidents. By Friday afternoon, five police officers were confirmed dead in downtown Dallas shooting that occurred Thursday evening. Seven others, including 2 civilians, were injured. It was unclear on Friday afternoon how many total suspects participated in killing law enforcement officers. The Associated Press reported that police killed 1 suspect by using a robot to deliver a bomb. In a prepared statement issued Friday, Tillis said it's important to support law enforcement officers. He also mentioned a pending piece of legislation called the "Thin Blue Line Act," which would increase penalties for people who kill or attempt to kill first responders. The list of sponsors and cosponsors is entirely composed of Republicans, including Tillis. In his statement, Tillis mentioned the bill as a way to support law enforcement officers. More specifically, the bill supported by Tillis would amend the federal criminal code to make the murder or attempted murder of a law enforcement officer, firefighters or other first responder an aggravating factor for juries that are considering the death penalty. "Brave men and women put their lives on the line every day to keep us safe, and our federal laws should support them and give them the protections they need and deserve," Tillis said. Law enforcement officers are described in the bill as those who are authorized to "engage in or supervise the detention, investigation, prosecution or incarceration of any person for any criminal violation" and those who are authorized to apprehend or arrest anyone for a criminal violation. The aggravating factor would apply when the murder occurs while a first responder is at work or because of the first responder's job status. After it was first introduced in 2015, the bill received support from the National Sheriffs' Association. At the time, the organization noted that the death penalty can be considered when a federal law enforcement officer is murdered. The death penalty cannot be considered for state or local law enforcement officers. "It is an important recognition that the targeting of state and local law enforcement officers and firefighters is equally as abhorrent in the eyes of the law," said Executive Director Jonathan F. Thompson at the time. In his statement that followed the Dallas mass murder, Tillis stressed the vital role of law enforcement in North Carolina's communities. "I am proud of North Carolina's law enforcement community and grateful for the brave men and women in blue who risk their lives every single day to patrol our streets, protect our communities, and keep our families safe," Tillis said. "One of the great privileges I've had as North Carolina's senator is visiting police stations across the state and personally thanking our officers for the selfless risks and sacrifices they make for all North Carolinians. Wearing the blue uniform is one of the toughest and most dangerous jobs in America." (source: Salisbury Post) GEORGIA----impending execution Halt the Execution of John Conner (UA 162/16) John Conner, a 60-year-old man who has been on death row in Georgia for 34 years, is scheduled to be executed on 14 July. Represented at trial by an inexperienced attorney, his jury heard nothing about his abusive childhood, or his possible intellectual disability. 1) Please write immediately in English or your own language: -- Calling for John Conner's execution to be halted and his death sentence commuted; -- Expressing concern that the jury never heard about his abusive childhood or possible intellectual disability, and noting that the parole board now has the chance to consider the mitigating effect of this information; -- Noting the evidence of personal growth that John Conner has achieved on death row after his chaotic and violent upbringing and the positive role he is said to play in prison; -- Explaining that you are not seeking to excuse violent crime or downplay the suffering caused. see: http://www.amnestyusa.org/get-involved/take-action-now/usa-halt-the-execution-of-john-conner-ua-16216 (source: Amnesty International USA) UTAH: Police Identify Man Accused in Deaths of Utah Teen Siblings A Utah man accused of killing a teenage brother and sister in what's being called a senseless slaying over a T-shirt has been arrested on allegations that could become a capital murder case, authorities said Friday. Mario Cervantes-Angel, 28, fired several shots after Jose Izazaga, 16, came out with a knife to defend his sister because she was being pushed around, police said. The fight started after another man accused Abril Izazaga, 15, of taking a shirt late Wednesday, according to Lt. Lex Bell of Salt Lake County's Unified Police Department. The girl died at the apartment complex in the Salt Lake City suburb of Midvale, and her brother died at a hospital shortly after. The group scattered, but several witnesses identified Cervantes-Angel as the person who fired the shots, according to a jail booking statement. He was arrested the day after the shootings. The man who originally started the argument turned himself into to police, but hasn't yet been formally arrested and his name hasn't been released. No attorney was immediately listed Cervantes-Angel in court records, and a search of public records showed no listed phone number. Jail records say he's from Mexico and his also being held on an immigration violation. He's been arrested on suspicion of 2 counts of aggravated murder, a charge that carries the possibility of the death penalty. Prosecutors haven't yet filed formal charges in the case. Members of the Izazaga family say the 2 slain siblings shared a tight bond. They were the youngest of nine siblings and both had birthdays in July. Their older brother Kenny Lopez has said the man who started the confrontation was a longtime friend of Jose Izazaga and spent a lot of time at the house and sometimes stayed there when he didn't have a place to stay. (source: Associated Press) From rhalperi at smu.edu Fri Jul 8 16:18:00 2016 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Fri, 8 Jul 2016 16:18:00 -0500 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide Message-ID: July 8 PHILIPPINES: Senators split on lowering age of criminal liability to 9 Is the Philippines ready to put to death a 9-year old? Senator Paolo "Bam" Aquino IV posed this challenge to critics of the Juvenile Justice and Welfare Act and those calling for the lowering of age of criminal liability. Sen. Panfilo "Ping" Lacson, for his part, said he is willing to support the bill offhand, noting how crime syndicates are exploiting the juvenile delinquency law and that "times have changed." "There are 12 years old who can think like a criminal and is exposed to a world of crime. The workings of his mind are already different. So I suggest that Congress discuss this, but I'm willing to support the move to lower the age of criminal liability," Lacson said. Aquino said he cannot agree to adjust the age of juvenile delinquents that should be made to face the law in view of the possibility of the restoration of the death penalty. "If we allow both of these laws to pass, we would be putting even children as young as nine-year old as candidates on death row," said Aquino, chair of the Senate committee on youth. "So, is this the kind of Philippines that we want?" Aquino asked. The senator was reacting to a resolution filed by presumptive House Speaker and Davao del Norte Representative Pantaleon Alvarez that seeks to lower the minimum age of criminal responsibility from the current 15 years old to 9 years old. Alvarez also sought passage of the bill restoring the death penalty in keeping with President Rodrigo Duterte???s all-out anti-criminality campaign. But the senator said that to give full criminal liability to a nine-year-old would be "too cruel" and is not the appropriate kind of development a child or a youth should need. "If you put the 2 bills that he filed together, the restoration of the death penalty and the lowering of the age of criminal liability to 9 years-old, then we might be faced with a situation subjecting even a 9-year old child to life imprisonment or death penalty," Aquino pointed out. "I don???t know if the proponents of the law realize this but there are cases that drug couriers or drug lords or drug pushers use children and the children are the ones caught," he said. "That child can actually get life imprisonment or death penalty. I don't think that's what we want to do...Is the Philippines ready to kill a 9 year old that was involved in that kind of circumstances? I don't think that's what we want to do, to kill a child," Aquino said. Lacson said Congress should obtain strong empirical data on the number of youth criminals so lawmakers can be guided as to the appropriate age to hold a young offender criminally liable. "I need to see the statistics. We need strong empirical data. We shouldn't guess and then decide. But as far as I'm concerned, lowering the age of criminality, I'm saying this, is a foregone conclusion. We need to lower the age so there could be criminal liability," he said. "Because if a child is 12 or 15 years old but his discernment is that of a 20 or 21 years old, then he cannot be considered a victim. That's what I want to see, and we need to call in resource persons - psychologists, psychiatrists to complete the information we have," Lacson said. Sen. Francis "Kiko" Pangilinan had earlier cautioned lawmakers against rushing to enact laws that would dictate the future of the country's young people who need guidance. Pangilinan, who helped push for the passage of the bill into law in 2006, also objected to authors of the measure who believe juvenile delinquents are "pampered" criminals. "Pampered? Many of the child offenders I've met were not raised in pampered environments. Many of them started as petty thieves who were forced by hunger and poverty to commit such crimes," Pangilinan said. "They gradually escalated to drug use, usually to deaden their hunger because rugby is cheaper than food. Their sense of humanity is also destroyed," he pointed out. "We should be going after the syndicates, and not the children. What happens if you arrest and prosecute the child alone? What do you do with the syndicates who used them in the 1st place?" added the senator. Pangilinan said the provisions in both the original act and the amending law were backed by studies and said that any subsequent amendments to be introduced again should also be supported by hard data. He said RA 9344, as amended is considered a landmark child protection law that establishes a comprehensive and child-sensitive justice system. The law prohibits the detention of children in jails, especially with hardened criminals, and provides for juvenile delinquency prevention and intervention programs, among others. (source: mb.com.ph) From rhalperi at smu.edu Sat Jul 9 18:30:12 2016 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Sat, 9 Jul 2016 18:30:12 -0500 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----MISS., LA., TENN., CALIF., USA Message-ID: July 9 MISSISSIPPI: Inmates take lethal injection drug challenge to Mississippi Supreme Court 2 Mississippi death row inmates have filed fresh challenges to the state's lethal injection procedures with the Mississippi Supreme Court. The move came after the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals told them a state court should determine whether Mississippi was breaking state law by using a new drug. Richard Jordan and Gerald Loden filed their appeals Wednesday, saying the court should rule illegal Mississippi's plan to use midazolam as a sedative because it's not the kind of drug called for by state law. Jordan, now 70, was convicted of kidnapping and killing Edwina Marta in Harrison County on Jan. 13, 1976. Rachael Ring, a spokeswoman for Attorney General Jim Hood, said his office is reviewing the appeals. The court actions are part of a series of continuing legal skirmishes nationwide over lethal injection drugs. In August, U.S. District Judge Henry T. Wingate had issued a preliminary injunction blocking Mississippi from putting anyone to death. The appeals court overruled Wingate in February, but Wingate's injunction remained in place until Tuesday, when the appeals court published its ruling. Since then, Hood's office has been free to ask the state Supreme Court to set execution dates for inmates who have exhausted their other appeals. Hood hasn't yet done so. Jordan's attorney, Jim Craig, predicted state Supreme Court justices wouldn't approve execution dates while challenges to midazolam were pending. He said Hood has been ducking the issue since 2014. "All AG Hood has done is file motions and briefs to evade a court hearing where we can prove that the Mississippi Department of Corrections' procedure will torture prisoners in the death chamber," Craig said. "If he really thinks we can't prove our case, General Hood needs to come out from his hiding place and meet us in court." Mississippi law requires a 3-drug process, specifying an "ultra-short-acting barbiturate" followed by a paralyzing agent and a drug that stops an inmate's heart. But Mississippi and other states have increasingly struggled to obtain such drugs since 2010, as manufacturers refuse to sell them for executions. "Not only is midazolam not an ultra short-acting barbiturate, it is not a barbiturate at all," say both appeals. Lawyers for both men argue that the Mississippi Department of Corrections can't unilaterally change a punishment that the Legislature wrote into law without usurping lawmakers' power. Midazolam doesn't render someone unconscious as quickly as a barbiturate. Craig argues midazolam leaves an inmate at risk of severe pain during execution, violating the Eighth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution's bar on cruel and unusual punishment. The U.S. Supreme Court in 2015 upheld as constitutional Oklahoma's use of midazolam. Jordan's appeal raises an additional argument, arguing that his 40-yearlong wait between a death sentence and execution equals cruel and unusual punishment. Jordan had agreed to serve life without parole after successfully challenging his sentence 3 times, but got the state Supreme Court to rule that Jordan could have only been sentenced to death or life with possibility of parole. A prosecutor then won a death penalty for the 4th time in a 1998 sentencing trial. "These extraordinary circumstances make his execution excessive and disproportionate to the crime and thus in violation of both the federal and state constitutions," the appeal states. Loden pleaded guilty in 2001 to kidnapping, raping and murdering Leesa Marie Gray in Itawamba County. (source: sunherald.com) LOUISIANA: Local attorney to receive national honor The Mid-Atlantic Innocence Project will honor a local attorney with its annual Champion of Justice Award this week. When it came to selecting this year's recipient of the award, Shawn Armbrust, executive director of the organization, found the perfect honoree in Shreveport attorney A.M. "Marty" Stroud III, who has become an outspoken advocate against injustices within the legal system. He will be recognized for his achievements at a Tuesday luncheon at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel in Washington, D.C. "We try each year to bring unusual voices to the event," said Armbrust, who has been with the innocence project for the past 11 years. Armbrust said she looks for honorees who talk about important matters within the legal system, and this year she thought it would be a good idea to honor a prosecutor. "It's really important to give credit to prosecutors who have done the right thing," Armbrust said. "Marty really stood out and - to some degree - Marty's done things that were a lot harder than others." Stroud, who works for the Shreveport firm Barham Warner Stroud Carmouche, was the lead prosecutor in the 1984 first-degree murder trial of Glenn Ford. Ford was sentenced to death for the November 1983 death of Isadore Rozeman, a Shreveport jeweler. In March 2014, Ford was released from prison when the state admitted new evidence that proved Ford was not the killer. Taking full responsibility, Stroud issued a public apology for his role in sending Ford to death row. He has since become an outspoken opponent of the death penalty and proponent of dialogue on the injustices that exist in the state's criminal justice system. "I never thought the letter would go as far as it did - I was just concerned about the Glenn Ford case," said Stroud, who believes the situation has opened up other questions about the criminal justice system, which he is glad to see happen. Stroud believes there are many more problems in the criminal justice system in Louisiana. He said the more people are educated, the better the system can become. With more voices speaking up and more group discussions taking place, he believes things are moving in the right direction. "The compass is turning. I think we are starting to move in the right direction, slowly but surely," Stroud said. The attorney said he was humbled when he heard he was being offered the prestigious recognition from the Mid-Atlantic Innocence Project. "It was surely a shock when I got the call and I hope my comments next week will be of benefit to the group," said Stroud, who will also serve as the keynote speaker during the annual fundraising luncheon. After receiving the award, Stroud hopes to continue helping affect changes in the system that he believes are stacked against defendants - especially the poor. "We should have less people locked up. A lot of reform needs to be taken. It's going to take the citizens of the community to get involved," said Stroud, who believes issues surrounding officer-involved shootings and the high rates of incarceration in the state of Louisiana are issues ripe for conversation in the community. Stroud wants to advocate against the look of hopelessness in the eyes of people who are incarcerated and don't believe they ever have the chance for reprieve or redemption. Armbrust said Stroud stands out in a time when people are less likely to admit fault and take full responsibility for their errors. In the annals of criminal justice and innocence projects.the outcome of the Glenn Ford case will likely prove to be Stroud's most revered legacy. "He did more than just say he was wrong - he apologized, explained what he did wrong, and explains to people how to avoid it," Armbrust said. "It takes real guts and we need to see more of that in our system." (source: Shreveport Times) ******************* Family of Slain Louisiana Man Denounces Dallas Police Deaths The mother of the son of a black man killed by white Louisiana police officers said Friday she grieved with the families of 5 police officers killed in Dallas during a protest over police shootings, adding she was now "walking a mile with them." Quinyetta McMillon described herself as "very hurt" for the officers and their families. "Now, I'm walking a mile with them. We're bearing the same shoes right now," McMillon said in an interview with The Associated Press Friday. The Dallas protest came in response to police shootings, including the one in which 37-year-old Alton Sterling was killed Tuesday in Baton Rouge during a struggle with 2 police officers outside a convenience store where he was selling CDs. Sterling was black; both officers are white. Cellphone video of his shooting was posted online and set off angry protests in Baton Rouge and beyond. The Justice Department has opened a civil rights investigation into Sterling's shooting. Police say Sterling was armed and an eyewitness said he had a gun in his pocket. But McMillon resisted those claims Friday, saying she didn't know Sterling to carry a gun and doesn't believe he had one with him the night he was shot to death. "I do not believe in my heart that there was a gun," she said. McMillon said she believes police said that "to cover up something." The Baton Rouge Police Department didn't respond to the claim. The 2 officers involved in the shooting death, Blane Salamoni and Howie Lake II, are on administrative leave, which is customary, during the investigation. "They should be prosecuted, the both of them. I don't want the death penalty for them. I want them to be in prison," McMillon said, calling the federal investigation a "very positive step." McMillon called Sterling a good father to their son Cameron, 15, who broke down in sobs at a rally outside City Hall earlier this week. She said Cameron Sterling has been devastated by the loss. "I called them the Doublemint twins because they both liked snacks. They both like to eat, so they was always eating something" when they spent time together, which was regularly, McMillon said. Her face lighting up with a slight smile as she talked, McMillon said Alton Sterling was close to their son. She recalled when Cameron Sterling took his first steps, Alton Sterling swooped in to catch his son each time he wobbled, to keep him from hurting himself when he fell. She said it's one of her best memories. "Every second my son goes to stumble, he's breaking his neck to get to him," McMillon said. "And that memory will never be forgotten, because right now I use that same memory in terms of coping with my son and letting him know right now, 'You still pick yourself up.'" Court records show Sterling had pleaded guilty in 2011 to being a felon in possession of a firearm and illegally carrying a weapon and was arrested in May 2009 after an officer confronted him outside another store where he was selling CDs. McMillon focused on Sterling's smile, saying people knew he was a "good, genuine man." Prior cases aren't relevant, she said. "As far as his criminal record, it has nothing to do with right now. That is the past," she said. "Right now, we're focusing on what happened to him." Protesters have gathered for three nights at the Triple S Food Mart where Sterling was shot to death as they tried to make sense of recent events, including a fatal shooting in Minnesota, in which Philando Castile's girlfriend streamed video to Facebook after he was shot by a police officer Wednesday. Castile also was black. Cornell William Brooks, the national head of the NAACP, visited Baton Rouge on Friday and said he is tired of victims of police shootings being treated as "hashtag tragedies" instead of human beings mourned by their families. Asked about how the shootings reflect on race relations across the nation, McMillon said she didn't want Sterling's shooting to "be a race thing." She wouldn't answer questions, however, about whether she believed police would have responded the same way if Alton Sterling had been white. After the shootings of police officers in Dallas, McMillon said she hoped the Baton Rouge protests would remain peaceful. More protests were planned throughout the weekend. Baton Rouge Police Chief Carl Dabadie Jr. said his department has strived to avoid a "military-style response" to the protests. State and local law enforcement officials briefed Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards on Friday about their public safety strategies. Louisiana State Police Col. Mike Edmonson said officials reviewed with the governor what assets were available to law enforcement and how quickly they can be mobilized in an emergency. (sources: ABC news and Associated Press) ***************** The state where targeting a police officer is a hate crime After a Texas sheriff's deputy was murdered at a gas station in suburban Houston last summer, lawmakers across the country cried for action to protect police officers. They've had limited success. In May, Louisiana became the first state in the nation to make it a hate crime to target police officers. The proposal was largely in response to the Texas killing, and it was fairly controversial when Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards, a Democrat, signed the Republican-backed bill into law. Black Lives Matter proponents, who are critical of police brutality, argued it was unnecessary, since many states already have enhanced penalties on the books for assaulting and/or killing police officers - including Texas, where the murder of a police officer can result in a death penalty sentence. And civil rights experts were concerned the measure would weaken hate crime laws. Police officers who had formed Blue Lives Matter - a group formed in direct response to the Black Lives Matter movement - saw the issue of expanding protections to them much differently. "Symbolically it advises that there is a value to the lives of police officers," former police Lt. Randy Sutton of Las Vegas told CNN. "When you give value, it acts as a deterrent in one sense, but it also is a tool to add extra punishment for the assaults and the crimes against them." Despite the controversy, similar legislation was considered this year in California, New Mexico, Maryland and New Jersey. The New Jersey resolution is the only one that is still being considered, according to the nonpartisan National Conference of State Legislatures's Richard Williams. Williams said he's seen an uptick in legislation addressing law enforcement more broadly over the past 2 years. But as state legislatures across the nation wrap up, Louisiana remains the only state with this kind of law on the books. There's been even less movement on this front in Washington. In September, Sen. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.) introduced legislation to make the death penalty an option for someone found guilty of specifically targeting a law enforcement officer, firefighter or public official. It has 23 co-sponsors, all Republican. "I am sick and tired of this narrative across this country that we???re hearing from so many political figures that somehow the police are systemically a bunch of racist rogues," Toomey says in a TV ad promoting the bill. There's a similar bill in the House with 49 co-sponsors, also all Republican. But despite having a significant chunk of support from Republicans in a Republican-led Congress, both pieces of legislation have sat motionless since being introduced. It's unclear exactly why these bills haven't moved in the wake of a national debate about police brutality and police protections. Public opinion polling on police endangerment is scarce, though Americans do seem uncertain about the flip side of the debate, the Black Lives Matter movement. A recent Pew Research Center poll found that 41 % of black people said they support the movement "strongly." An additional 24 % support it "somewhat," for a total of 65 %. Among whites, 40 % support it. Meanwhile, a September PBS/Marist poll found a notable 35 % of Americans see the Black Lives Matter movement advocating violence to make its point. The statistics don't seem to support the idea there's a war on police. As NPR reported in September, police killed in the line of duty is actually on a downward trend: But The Washington Post's database of police shootings finds that there have been more officers shot and killed in the line of duty this year than at this point last year. The Anti-Defamation League has warned expanding hate crimes to police risks "diluting" hate-crime legislation by opening the door to including more groups. (A hate crime is defined as attacking a person specifically because of their identity, like racial or ethnic or religious.) "Working in a profession is not a personal characteristic, and it is not immutable," Allison Padilla-Goodman with the Anti-Defamation League told CNN. In the wake of yet another police killing on Texas soil - the deadliest for law enforcement since 9/11 - we'll have to wait and see whether legislation, whether in Washington or in the states, to expand protections to police officers gains any momentum. (source: Washington post) TENNESSEE: Editorial (Circa 1913): On 'Substituting the Electric Chair for the Hangman's Noose' On Sept. 27, 1913, the 58th General Assembly of Tennessee approved Senate Bill 125, making the electric chair the state's official method of execution. The chair, which Tennessee has used to kill 126 prisoners - the 1st of whom was executed nearly 100 years ago on July 13, 1916 - is the subject of this week's cover story. The bill adopting the electric chair in Tennessee stated that "whenever any person is sentenced to punishment by death, that court shall direct that the body of such person be subjected to shock by a sufficient current of electricity until he is dead." It appropriated $5,000 "or so much thereof as may be necessary" for the construction of a death chamber and electric chair. And while the condemned had previously been hanged to death in the counties where they were convicted, the bill also stated that all executions would thereafter be carried out in Nashville. The legislation passed the Senate by a vote of 27 to 4 and the House by a vote of 64 to 2. In all, 6 men voted against it, and we only have their last names: Cecil, Fitzpatrick, Fulton, Hare, Emmons and Shaw. The bill was signed into law by then-Gov. Ben Hooper. After the jump is the text of a editorial that ran in the Lawrence Democrat almost 2 weeks after the bill was passed. Among other things, it shows that a century later we're still having all the same arguments about the death penalty: We are pleased with the passage of the law substituting the electric chair for the hangman's noose in Tennessee. It is a short step it is true but nevertheless a step in the direction of juster, less horrible, less barbaric penal laws. The killing of men for crime is illogical, and out of harmony with saner instincts of civilization. The only reason to be urged for capital punishment is that the penalty be made thereby so harsh and horrible as to become a preventive force to the commission of crime. The student of history, however, knows that in every age it has failed utterly to accomplish this end. Wherever and whenever punishment has been most harsh and brutish, the very crimes thus sought to be prevented have instead increased. Barbarity does not reform the criminal. Harshness and horror of penalty rather sows the seeds of brutishness and blood-lust in the minds of those of inherent weakness or crime-tendency, which grows into a sanguinary harvest. There is even in the mind of the ignorant, a sense of proportion, a conception of justice, which revolts at the idea of the state committing the very man-killing for which it condemns the individual to death. And while electrocution preserves this ancient horror, and perpetuates barbarity, yet it seeks to diminish its horror, and hide it away from publicity. Of course this is a contradiction in legal standard, a rank and palpable inconsistency to seek to take away the horror it may create. Electrocution shows a tendency in the public ideals toward a humaner, and a saner system, and will help bring man to a realization of the futility and hurtfulness of the age-old error of killing to punish killing. And as it has such a tendency we are pleased because of the passage of the law in Tennessee. One wonders what the editorial board of the Lawrence Democrat thinks of the fact that 100 years later, this "age-old error" persists, slowed only by logistical concerns like the availability of drugs for lethal injection - the next execution method, adopted in the hopes that it was "a step in the direction of juster, less horrible, less barbaric penal laws." (source: Nashville Scene) CALIFORNIA: Sierra LaMar: Trial nears for missing teen's accused killer Missing teen Sierra LaMar's accused killer was back in court Friday afternoon as a judge weighed various motions concerning his upcoming capital murder trial. Prosecutors are seeking a death sentence against Antonin Garcia-Torres, 22, for LaMar's alleged Morgan Hill-area murder. The 15-year-old girl vanished on her way to a school bus stop near Morgan Hill on the morning of March 16, 2012. Garcia-Torres, who wore a suit and sat passively during Friday's hour-long hearing, has pleaded not guilty to the murder charge and also to attempted kidnappings of other women. Among issues Santa Clara County Superior Court Judge Vanessa A. Zecher must decide is whether to allow television, photography and the use of electronic devices to tweet or blog from court throughout the trial, as requested by major networks and other news organizations, including this newspaper. Also at issue is a motion by Garcia-Torres' court-appointed lawyers, currently under conditional court seal, to suppress evidence, as well as the schedule for upcoming motions to sever the kidnapping charges and to move the trial to another county where the case has received less publicity. One of Garcia-Torres' lawyers, Brian Matthews, argued Friday against allowing the media to photograph, film or electronically broadcast any of the upcoming proceedings. He also expressed concerns about the impact of cameras. "What happens is, witnesses change, their demeanor and sometimes their testimony," Matthews said. "It affects lawyers and everyone, subconsciously. Our position is, it's all prejudicial, especially considering his life is at stake." Prosecutor David Boyd said the District Attorney's Office had no position on the matter. The judge said she would issue a written ruling in a few days. The trial could begin in September with jury selection, the judge said. However, Matthews suggested the defense may not be ready by then. "It's too fast," Matthews said of the deadline. But Zecher disagreed. "It's been 4 years, right?" she said, referring to the 2012 crime. It is unclear how long the trial will last. Prosecutor David Boyd estimated the evidence portion would take 10 weeks. But at a previous hearing, Garcia-Torres' other attorney, Al Lopez, said it could last a year. Zecher is expected to rule later this month or in August on a host of other issues, including whether to keep the defense's evidence-suppression motion under seal, to suppress any evidence they requested be excluded from trial and to hold a separate trial for the kidnapping charges. She will also rule on Garcia-Torres' motion to move the trial out of the county. His lawyers have filed for a change of venue, claiming that massive media coverage of the case has made it impossible to find impartial jurors. However, Matthews lost a similar motion concerning the release of the grand jury transcript in the case after lawyers for this news organization argued that the coverage was unlikely to contaminate the jury pool, particularly since Santa Clara County has a large population of 1.8 million. Motions for a change of venue in much bigger cases, including the trial of Michael Jackson in much smaller Santa Barbara County, have been denied. The last time a change of venue was granted in Santa Clara County was in 1980, when the county population -- and thus the jury pool -- was smaller. That's when the so-called San Jose Cheese Company murder trial involving the local Mafia was moved to Los Angeles County. Regardless of where the trial is held, one of the biggest challenges will be finding 12 jurors and up to 6 alternates willing and able to serve during the whole trial, which could last 6 months. In addition, jury selection alone could take an extra 2 to 3 months, largely because this is a death penalty case, and jurors must be open to the possibility of imposing the ultimate punishment. Garcia-Torres' trial had been scheduled to start last spring. Over his lawyers' objections, Garcia-Torres in April asserted his constitutional right to a speedy trial within 60 days, which would have begun in June. He dropped his request after the judge explained that any new lawyer would have to spend months reviewing evidence, including 20,000 pages of documents, 600 compact discs and about 1,000 hours of recordings. (source: Mmercury News) **************** Defense: AT&T not providing subpoenaed records in McStay family murder case Defense attorneys for McStay family murder suspect Charles "Chase" Merritt filed a motion Friday in San Bernardino Superior Court requesting that AT&T be compelled to produce records in connection with the case. The motion, filed under seal, was discussed during a pretrial hearing for Merritt, 59, of Homeland, who faces the death penalty in connection with the February 2010 beating deaths of Joseph McStay, 40, his wife, Summer, 43, and their 2 sons, Gianni, 4, and Joseph Jr., 3, in their Fallbrook home in San Diego County. Merritt's attorney, Rajan Maline, said he and defense attorney James E. McGee II have issued 3 subpoenaes to AT&T since April requesting the records, but the communications company has not complied with the requests. "They're essentially not complying. They cited reasons, but we don't think those reasons are adequate," said Maline. Judge Michael A. Smith set the next hearing for July 19, in which representatives or attorneys from At&T are expected to be present to explain their position. Representatives for AT&T couldn't be reached for comment Friday. The McStay family's Feb. 4, 2010 disappearance mystified the public and stumped police, who suspected foul play from the get-go. In November 2013, a man riding his dirt bike discovered skeletal remains west of the 15 Freeway and north of Stoddard Wells Roads, on the outskirts of Victorville, and called police. Crime scene investigators unearthed the remains of 2 adults and 2 children in 2 shallow graves. The remains were later identified as those of the McStay family. Merritt, Joseph McStay's former business associate, was arrested a year later and charged with 1st degree murder. He faces the death penalty if convicted. Prosecutors believe greed motivated Merritt to beat the McStay family to death in their home with a 3-pound sledgehammer before transporting their bodies 100 miles away, where he allegedly buried them. During his preliminary hearing, Merritt was described as a debt-ridden gambling addict who wrote multiple checks totaling more $21,000 on Joseph McStay's online QuickBooks account within a week of the family's disappearance. The checks were deleted from McStay's computer once they were printed, according to court testimony. Merritt then went on a gambling spree, withdrawing thousands of dollars in cash from ATM machines at Indian casinos in Temecula and San Bernardino and the Commerce Casino near Los Angeles, according to court records and testimony from Merritt's preliminary hearing. Maline said he isn't sure whether the records he and McGee are requesting from AT&T will even be used in Merritt's defense, which is why the motion was filed under seal and why they are requesting prosecutors are not made privy to the information as of yet. Several new members either joined or are positioned to join Merritt's defense team and were present during Friday's court proceedings. Suzy Israel, a former deputy public defender of 16 years in San Bernardino County, is pending appointment to Merritt's defense team. Forensics expert Randolph Beasley has also joined Merritt's team, as has media advisor Robert Wallace. Gary Robertson, a retired homicide sergeant for the San Bernardino Police Department, is now Merritt???s assigned private investigator. (source: San Bernardino Sun) USA: 4 plead not guilty in couple's shooting death at Lake Wylie 4 of the men charged in the 2014 shooting deaths of a couple at their South Carolina home are requesting a jury trial. The Charlotte Observer reports (http://bit.ly/29DAyf0 ) the 4 pleaded not guilty Friday. Prosecutors say Doug and Debbie London were killed in their Lake Wylie home in October 2014 to prevent their testimony against three United Blood Nation members who attempted to rob their mattress store in Pineville. 12 people were indicted in their deaths. Prosecutors say all are gang members. The 4 in court Friday were Nana Adoma, Randall Hankins, Malcom Hartley and Jamell Cureton. Cureton is accused of participating in the robbery and ordering the Londons killed. Hartley is accused of firing the gun. The U.S. Department of Justice hasn't decided whether to seek the death penalty in their cases. (source: Associated Press) ******** Federal judge to hear death penalty challenge A Vermont man facing a 2nd federal death penalty trial for the abduction and murder of a supermarket worker almost 16 years ago is asking the federal judge hearing the case to declare the death penalty unconstitutional. In a 2-week hearing scheduled to begin Monday in Rutland, Vermont, the attorneys for Donald Fell plan to outline why they feel the federal death penalty violates the Eighth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution that prohibits cruel and unusual punishment. Attorneys across the country representing people facing death penalty trials, and those appealing already imposed death sentences, are making similar arguments, but the Fell case will be the 1st to make it before a federal judge, said Robert Dunham, the executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center. "All the indicators are that the public is turning away from the death penalty," said Dunham, who is listed as a possible witness by Fell's defense team. Dunham said seven states have abolished the death penalty since 2000 and prosecutors across the country are seeking the death penalty less frequently. Juries are imposing it less frequently, fewer executions are being carried out and there is evidence the death penalty is carried out more frequently in some parts of the country than others, he added. Vermont U.S. Attorney Eric Miller declined comment, but a list of government witnesses expected to be called will testify the death penalty is still favored by a majority of Americans and it does have a deterrent effect on future crime. Kent Scheidegger, the legal director of the California-based Criminal Justice Legal Foundation, which describes itself as supporting victims of crime, said he felt Fell's attorneys and death penalty opponents in general were making a mistake by asking a judge to rule on the constitutionality of the death penalty. "By bringing this motion, they are going to actually have to submit this stuff as evidence and have an adversary hearing," Scheidegger said. "I hope that the government will pull out all he stops and show that these supposed facts are nonsense." Fell, now 36, was arrested in 2000 and charged with abducting and later killing Terry King, a 53-year-old North Clarendon grandmother, as she arrived for work at a Rutland supermarket. Vermont has no state death penalty. Fell was charged under federal law. In 2002, the judge then hearing the case, William Sessions, declared the federal death penalty unconstitutional. 2 years later, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals overturned the decision, allowing the trial to go forward. Fell was convicted in 2005 and sentenced to death. His conviction was overturned in 2014 because of juror misconduct. He is due to go on trial again early next year. But as part of their appeal, Fell's defense attorneys asked U.S. District Court Judge Geoffrey Crawford to consider the constitutionality of the death penalty. In February, Crawford ruled there was "strong disagreement" in "judicial and scholarly" circles about the legality of the death penalty. He set the 2-week hearing to take evidence on the issue and ultimately issue a ruling. No matter what Crawford decides, the losing team of attorneys will appeal that decision. It's hoped that the Fell case, or perhaps another, will eventually make it to the U.S. Supreme Court where the justices will be asked to rule on the constitutionality of the death penalty, Dunham said. "We don't know whether there are sufficient votes in the United States court to declare the death penalty unconstitutional," Dunham said. "The court might not even know." (source: Associated Press) ******************* New lawyers in North Dakota death penalty case almost ready New lawyers handling the appeal for a man sentenced to death for killing a University of North Dakota student say they should complete the transition in 3 months. Alfonso Rodriguez Jr., of Crookston, Minnesota, was convicted in 2005 of kidnapping and killing Dru Sjodin, of Pequot Lakes, Minnesota. The case resulted in tougher laws for sex offenders on the state and federal levels. A judge earlier this year agreed to shift Rodriguez's legal representation from a federal public defender's office in Minnesota to an office in Pennsylvania that specializes in death penalty cases. Court documents show that the new legal team has met with Rodriguez and expects to take over the case on a full-time basis in October. Rodriguez sits on death row in an Indiana federal prison. (source: Associated Press) ********************* Police will be on high alert in some areas, and one U.S. Rep. wants to make cop-killing punishable by the death penalty. Officials across New Jersey expressed condolences, and police departments said Friday that they would be on high alert, following overnight shootings in Dallas that left five police officers dead. "Mary Pat and I are sick and heartbroken, as our thoughts and prayers are with the officers killed and injured in yesterday's vicious shootings, along with their family and friends," Gov. Chris Christie said in a statement posted online. "The people of New Jersey mourn with the City of Dallas and the Dallas law enforcement community. Brave police officers all across this country who protect us on a daily basis deserve to be supported by all Americans. We must unite as a country and recommit ourselves to law and order, safety for our citizens and respect for each other and reject the hatred and violence behind these attacks." Newark Public Safety Director Anthony Ambrose told NJ.com that police will be "more vigilant" at protests planned in the city this weekend. "We are going to ensure that people have their First Amendment rights," he told the website. "But, we have to make sure security (is in place) in case of any copycats." State Acting Attorney General Christopher S. Porrino encouraged residents to hold peaceful demonstrations. He stressed the need for cooperation between citizens and law enforcement officers. "Law enforcement and community leaders from across New Jersey have resolved to continue to work together to ensure that people have the opportunity to demonstrate in a peaceful and productive manner, reducing tensions rather than raising them, following the shootings of police officers in Texas, as well as the officer-involved shootings in Minnesota and Louisiana, Porrino said in a statement. "Now is the time to use the bonds we have built to unite and ensure that these tragedies are not compounded in our communities." U.S. Rep. Tom MacArthur said he wants to see Congress act on a bill that would make anyone who kills or attempts to kill a law enforcement officer, firefighter or other first responder an aggravating factor in death penalty determinations. The bill, HR 814, known as the Thin Blue Line Act, is awaiting action by the House Judiciary Committee's Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, Homeland Security, and Investigations. "We need to do this to deter this kind of event," MacArthur said, referring to the Dallas shootings, which he called "a clear assassination." "Our men and women deserve protection," he said. "This kind of tragedy (the Dallas shootings) can happen anywhere." (source: patch.com) From rhalperi at smu.edu Sat Jul 9 18:31:12 2016 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Sat, 9 Jul 2016 18:31:12 -0500 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide Message-ID: July 9 MALAYSIA: Gov't should not wait to amend law, say anti-death penalty groups The government must stop dragging its feet in amending the death penalty law, following the recent announcement that a review of capital punishment in Malaysia has been completed. Anti-death penalty groups have urged for prompt reform, saying that proposed changes to capital punishment sentences were overdue. "The attorney-general has said he is not objecting (to reform of mandatory death sentences) last November. (Minister in Prime Minister's Department) Nancy Shukri has already said she will table the amendments in March 2016. The study was commissioned quite some time ago. "The government should table the proposed amendments speedily. Delay in amending the law is 'torturous' for those still under the death sentence by reason of the existence of the mandatory death penalty provisions in law," Malaysians Against Death Penalty and Torture (Madpet) coordinator Charles Hector told Malaysiakini. Meanwhile, regional grouping Anti-Death Penalty Asia Network (Adpan) cited Malaysia's response at the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) report in front of UN member countries in late 2013. "The Malaysian government has, time and again, announced that this study was underway, in response to the UPR review, as well as in response to calls by NGOs for it to abolish the death penalty," said Adpan executive member Ngeow Chow Ying. While waiting for change to happen, they called for all executions to be halted and sentences commuted. "The government should announce a moratorium on executions now until the amended laws come into force. "The government should ensure that those facing the mandatory death penalty will have their sentences commuted to imprisonment," said Hector. Nancy announced the completion of the study on capital punishment in Malaysia at the Sixth World Congress Against the Death Penalty in Oslo, Norway, last month. "There are positive signs in Malaysia, and a steady momentum towards possible change in the death penalty legislation," Nancy said in a brief statement during a panel to kick off the international meeting. Executions continue Commissioned by the Malaysian government and carried out by the International Centre for Law and Legal Studies (I-Cells), the study, however, took more than 3 years to complete. Regional grouping Anti-Death Penalty Asia Network (Adpan) said it was disappointed with the lack of significance of the minister's speech. "I expected a more substantial speech - at the very least, a summary of the report which had taken more than 3 years to complete. "I am skeptical of the pace of reform, considering the state of Malaysia's human rights record and the political environment at present," said Ngeow. Amnesty International Malaysia executive director Shamini Darshni Kaliemuthu pointed out that despite the government's reform promise, executions were carried out even during the review period. "While studies on death penalty reforms were conducted, Malaysia continued to execute death row inmates, with the last known executions being the triple executions on 25 March, 2016," Shamini told Malaysiakini. She said according to Amnesty International's Death Sentences & Executions 2015 report, Malaysia was among 25 countries which executed people in 2015 and 1 of 61 countries that handed out death sentences last year. The proposed reforms are a "positive step forward" for Malaysia but the NGO, which opposes both mandatory and discretionary death sentences, said the amendments may not be as progressive as hoped for by civil society. "From what we understand, these reforms may be restricted to the mandatory death penalty for drug-related offences," said Shamini. Hector echoed similar concerns. "Now, the talk is about abolishing mandatory death penalty when earlier, it was about abolishing death penalty," he said. (source: malaysiakioni.com) THAILAND: PM orders sentence review Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha has ordered the Justice Ministry to review the sentence-remission process for rapists and murderers after the latest upsurge of these crimes. According to Prayut, Thai laws are quite strong in these cases with severe punishments, including the option for the death penalty for both offences. But he said a major weakness might lie in the process of granting pardons to many of those convicted in such cases, resulting in much shorter jail terms than the original punishments ordered by courts. Prayut said justice and related authorities would have to be more strict when examining whether to reduce penalties for people convicted of these crimes, while society should brainstorm for new measures to tackle this problem. The prime minister, who earlier rejected calls for capital punishment for all rape and murder cases, added that Thailand's legal actions should be consistent with universal values. His remarks followed the case of Chularat Towanna, a provincial schoolteacher brutally murdered in a rape attempt in Saraburi province. The crime took place at the victim's apartment in Kaeng Khoi district on July 1. Chatri Ruamsoonnerm, who lived in the same apartment, was arrested and admitted to stabbing her to death after he attempted to rape her. (source: nationmultimedia.com) From rhalperi at smu.edu Sun Jul 10 14:51:41 2016 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Sun, 10 Jul 2016 14:51:41 -0500 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----OKLA. Message-ID: July 10 OKLAHOMA: Broken Arrow brothers' arraignment delayed again as defense builds case against possible death penalty ---- The Bevers' defense is said to be building a case against the death penalty for the elder teenager. 2 teenage brothers who allegedly stabbed to death 5 family members in their Broken Arrow home last summer have been granted another court delay, which postpones a decision on whether the older brother could be sentenced to death if he's convicted. The district court arraignment for Robert and Michael Bever, at which they will announce how they plead to 5 counts of 1st-degree murder and a count of assault and battery with intent to kill, was scheduled for Monday but is now set for Sept. 7. Both brothers are expected to announce at the arraignment whether they want to contest their charges with a jury trial or waive that right and plead guilty or no contest. District Attorney Steve Kunzweiler said Friday he has not decided whether his office will pursue the death penalty for 19-year-old Robert Bever. Michael Bever's age - 16 at the time he allegedly participated in the stabbings - makes him ineligible for capital punishment. District Judge Sharon Holmes granted the delay after a private hearing with the attorneys on Thursday, according to court minutes. This marks the 2nd time the defense teams have asked for the arraignment to be postponed as they seek information that could dissuade a jury or judge from imposing - or prosecutors from seeking - the maximum punishment. If prosecutors don't pursue the death penalty, the maximum punishment for both brothers if they are convicted would be to spend the rest of their lives in prison. The lesser punishment if they are convicted of 1st-degree murder is to be granted the option of being released on parole after serving 85 % of a life sentence, which is typically calculated at 45 years. Kunzweiler said his decision on whether to pursue the death penalty will be announced before the arraignment. \"I'm holding back on making that decision because the defense has requested an opportunity to present to me and my death penalty review team information they say they have that they believe would be important for me to take into consideration before we make a decision," Kunzweiler told the Tulsa World on Friday. "So I am respecting their desire to give me that information, and apparently they've had some difficulty gathering that information to present to me." Part of the reason the defense has needed additional time is because information about the Bevers has been difficult to obtain, since the family seemed to have mostly kept to itself, Chief Public Defender Rob Nigh, who is representing Michael Bever, confirmed Friday. Kunzweiler would not comment further about what kind of information the defense might be trying to obtain, and Nigh also declined to comment Friday. Michael, who is now 17, and Robert are charged with murder in the July 22 deaths of their parents - David Bever, 52; and April Bever, 44 - as well as 3 younger siblings - Daniel, 12; Christopher, 7; and Victoria 5. Their assault charges pertain to their 13-year-old sister, who was critically wounded in the attack. The only other surviving member of their immediate family is their 2-year-old sister, who was found uninjured inside the home. The surviving sisters have been placed in foster care, and the older sister is back in school, Kunzweiler said. Details about the brutal killings were revealed in February at the brothers' preliminary hearing, where Broken Arrow police detectives testified that the brothers confessed to police they attacked their family to inaugurate a mass killing spree. Detectives said the brothers told them they wanted to top other mass killers who have captured headlines and described their upbringing as somewhat isolated, growing up home-schooled with little social interaction outside the home and few known relatives beyond their immediate family. The brothers have been held in the Tulsa Jail's medical unit, which has segregated cells, and an incident report recently revealed that Robert Bever attempted to commit suicide in his cell on June 17. (source: Tulsa World) From rhalperi at smu.edu Sun Jul 10 14:53:54 2016 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Sun, 10 Jul 2016 14:53:54 -0500 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----OKLA. Message-ID: July 10 OKLAHOMA: Broken Arrow brothers' arraignment delayed again as defense builds case against possible death penalty ---- The Bevers' defense is said to be building a case against the death penalty for the elder teenager. 2 teenage brothers who allegedly stabbed to death 5 family members in their Broken Arrow home last summer have been granted another court delay, which postpones a decision on whether the older brother could be sentenced to death if he's convicted. The district court arraignment for Robert and Michael Bever, at which they will announce how they plead to 5 counts of 1st-degree murder and a count of assault and battery with intent to kill, was scheduled for Monday but is now set for Sept. 7. Both brothers are expected to announce at the arraignment whether they want to contest their charges with a jury trial or waive that right and plead guilty or no contest. District Attorney Steve Kunzweiler said Friday he has not decided whether his office will pursue the death penalty for 19-year-old Robert Bever. Michael Bever's age - 16 at the time he allegedly participated in the stabbings - makes him ineligible for capital punishment. District Judge Sharon Holmes granted the delay after a private hearing with the attorneys on Thursday, according to court minutes. This marks the 2nd time the defense teams have asked for the arraignment to be postponed as they seek information that could dissuade a jury or judge from imposing - or prosecutors from seeking - the maximum punishment. If prosecutors don't pursue the death penalty, the maximum punishment for both brothers if they are convicted would be to spend the rest of their lives in prison. The lesser punishment if they are convicted of 1st-degree murder is to be granted the option of being released on parole after serving 85 % of a life sentence, which is typically calculated at 45 years. Kunzweiler said his decision on whether to pursue the death penalty will be announced before the arraignment. \"I'm holding back on making that decision because the defense has requested an opportunity to present to me and my death penalty review team information they say they have that they believe would be important for me to take into consideration before we make a decision," Kunzweiler told the Tulsa World on Friday. "So I am respecting their desire to give me that information, and apparently they've had some difficulty gathering that information to present to me." Part of the reason the defense has needed additional time is because information about the Bevers has been difficult to obtain, since the family seemed to have mostly kept to itself, Chief Public Defender Rob Nigh, who is representing Michael Bever, confirmed Friday. Kunzweiler would not comment further about what kind of information the defense might be trying to obtain, and Nigh also declined to comment Friday. Michael, who is now 17, and Robert are charged with murder in the July 22 deaths of their parents - David Bever, 52; and April Bever, 44 - as well as 3 younger siblings - Daniel, 12; Christopher, 7; and Victoria 5. Their assault charges pertain to their 13-year-old sister, who was critically wounded in the attack. The only other surviving member of their immediate family is their 2-year-old sister, who was found uninjured inside the home. The surviving sisters have been placed in foster care, and the older sister is back in school, Kunzweiler said. Details about the brutal killings were revealed in February at the brothers' preliminary hearing, where Broken Arrow police detectives testified that the brothers confessed to police they attacked their family to inaugurate a mass killing spree. Detectives said the brothers told them they wanted to top other mass killers who have captured headlines and described their upbringing as somewhat isolated, growing up home-schooled with little social interaction outside the home and few known relatives beyond their immediate family. The brothers have been held in the Tulsa Jail's medical unit, which has segregated cells, and an incident report recently revealed that Robert Bever attempted to commit suicide in his cell on June 17. (source: Tulsa World) From rhalperi at smu.edu Sun Jul 10 14:54:40 2016 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Sun, 10 Jul 2016 14:54:40 -0500 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide Message-ID: July 10 CANADA: Americans To Support Death Penalty: Poll Canadians are more forward-thinking than Americans on a vast range of social issues - with 1 surprising exception, a new poll suggests. Abortion, pornography, and sex-same relationships are significantly more accepted in Canada than the United States, according to results published Saturday by Abacus Data. But our feelings on the death penalty are about the same. The poll suggests a majority of respondents in both countries support the death penalty, with 58 % of Canadians and 59 % of Americans labeling the practice "morally right." But when it comes to abortion, assisted dying and same-sex relationships, attitudes between Canada and the U.S. are more than 20 % points apart. The numbers "confirm a more progressive, secular and libertarian predisposition in Canada," Abacus Data chairman Bruce Anderson said in a release, even though the trend didn't apply to views on capital punishment. Abacus Data asked 1,500 Canadians whether they thought things like abortion, same-sex relationships, and capital punishment are morally acceptable. Results were then compared to American data sets released by Gallup. The online survey, conducted between June 14 to 16, has a margin of error of 2.6 % points, 19 times out of 20. Last Canadian inmates hanged in 1962 The death penalty was officially abolished in Canada in 1976 by then-prime minister Pierre Trudeau. No one had been executed for 14 years in Canada when the death penalty was scrapped. However, the death penalty remains legal in 31 U.S. states. Use of the practice remains wildly uneven across the country. In 2015, for instance, 6 states executed 28 inmates. 93 % of those executions took place in Texas, Missouri, Georgia, and Florida. (source: Huffington Post Canada) MALDIVES: Maldives to have first execution in 60 years in order to showcase 'Islamic credentials' Beleaguered Maldives President Abdulla Yameen is adamant that the 1st execution of a convict in 60 years will take place under his watch as a reiteration of Maldives' Islamic credentials. The politically isolated president, who is shunned by colleagues and family, is refusing to intervene despite several scholars calling the proposed execution un-Islamic.He has also ignored appeals of human rights groups and even the United Nations to stay the execution. 22-year-old Hussain Humaam Ahamed was condemned to death by the Maldives Supreme Court in 2014 for the murder of a Member of Parliament, Afrasheem Ali, in 2012. The verdict was based on a confession that was obtained when he was in custody, which he retracted later. The Supreme Court, over which President Yameen has a stranglehold, disregarded the claim that Humaam has a mental disability and the request for an independent psychiatric evaluation. If the death sentence is carried out, it will be the 1st execution in the Maldives since 1953. The voices of protest have been crushed in the Maldives due to strict curbs, but renowned Islamic scholar at the University of Oxford, Tariq Ramadan, in a letter to President Yameen, has listed out reasons why the proposed execution is un-Islamic. Citing extensively from the Hudud - the Islamic Penal Code, Ramadan has argued that 22-year-old Humaam's death penalty contravened many basic prescriptions in the Shariah. Stating that Humaam's 'confession' was forcefully obtained, undermining fairness of his trial at a basic level, Ramadan has pointed out that pleas made by Humaam's family that he was suffering from mental disability, has been totally disregarded by the court. This, Ramadan argues, is also against Islamic law and jurisprudence as any doubt about the mental health of a murderer should play in his or her favour. The heavy conditions found in the Islamic legislation have as a raison d'etre ('illah) to avoid any doubt; if there is the slightest doubt, then the punishment should be suspended. Ramadan also emphasises that it was un-Islamic on the part of President Yameen to ignore requests of the victim's father and brother, who have stated that they do not wish the death sentence to be implemented. This call to spare Humaam's life by 2 members of the victim's family cannot be ignored under Sharia law. According to the principles of qisas, if the family of the victim asks for the sentence not to be implemented at any time before the execution (for the majority of the 'ulama'), the latter should be suspended whatever the public authority might decide. If Yameen were to respect Shariah conditions, it is imperative for him to listen to the family's position, says the scholar. Ramadan adds that the above and beyond all of this, Rahmah (compassion) is an absolute necessity and an essential principle even if there is no element of doubt and conditions are met. Tariq Ramadan has categorically stated in his letter to President Yameen that Humaam's execution would contravene the fundamental principles of Islamic law and urged the latter to take all possible actions to prevent the execution. Tariq Ramadan has got support from human rights groups around the world who have appealed to the Maldivian president that International law prohibits the use of death penalty against people with mental disabilities. But President Yameen, who has reintroduced capital punishment after a moratorium of 60 years, seems determined to not just stop the arbitrary deprivation of life but also break the tenets of Islamic law. Ever since President Yameen reintroduced the death penalty in Maldives, execution facilities have been constructed at the Maldives' Maafushi Prison. The age of criminal responsibility is 10 in the Maldives which means that even juvelines could potentially face execution. (source: siasat.com) KENYA: It's time to implement the death penalty The debate over the death penalty has for some time been relegated to the backburner for reasons best known to authorities. Proponents and opponents of the same are divided down the middle. The opponents allege that death penalty is against the Bill of Rights which gives each and every individual the right to life. They also argue this sentence does not have a deterrent effect, does not rehabilitate and that it's savage, beastly and inhuman. Proponents on the other hand argue that the principle of just desserts compels a life to repay with another, an eye for an eye a tooth for a tooth school. They also argue that death penalty will incapacitate permanently these psychos some of whom are responsible for multiple murders. The Kenyan Penal Code Section 25 outlines death as one of the sentences that may be passed for capital offences. It states, "(1)Where any person is sentenced to death, the form of the sentence shall be to the effect only that he is to suffer death in the manner authorized by law. (2)Sentence of death shall not be pronounced on or recorded against any person convicted of an offence if it appears to the court that at the time when the offence was committed he was under the age of eighteen years, but in lieu thereof the court shall sentence such person to be detained during the President's pleasure, and if so sentenced he shall be liable to be detained in such place and under such conditions as the President may direct, and whilst so detained shall be deemed to be in legal custody." Since 1987, Kenya has not carried out a single execution despite savagery and beastly crimes committed since. We instead put these psychos in condemned cells, over feed them, commute their sentences to life imprisonment and eventually release them back to the society to mock their victims. The hangmen in our prisons are idle and have now become rusty, the dexterity of tightening a noose having deserted them after years of inaction. It's time we let them earn their pay. The tax payer is being shortchanged. In America, a liberal democracy, 31 states still practice the death penalty only 21 have abolished it. The US government and military are among those which carry out the death penalty. Although methods vary from state to state from lethal injection or gas to firing squad, hanging or electrocution. To imagine that you will treat a felon who commits larceny the same as the one who cuts out the tongues of his victims, crushes their testicles, and gouges their eyes out and proceeds to dismember the bodies is absurd and unfair. This is a creature who won???t find company even among the most savage of beasts. He/she is a misfit, a testament of creation gone wrong who should be exterminated with speed to ensure he does not pollute the human race. Anyone who does not value the life of another does not also value his own life. Why should we value his? It will be a welcome break if we make grand corruption (theft of over 1 billion shillings) a capital offence. Ask China how they deal with the corrupt. (soruce: Kungu Wanjiru, standardmedia.co.ke) PHILIPPINES: Death penalty a priority, Duterte tells lawmakers President Rodrigo Duterte told lawmakers visiting Davao City Saturday night that he wants the reimposition of the death penalty as a priority measure once Congress convenes on July 25. "He [said] so many officials are involved. It's like treason to him because they should be the ones who protect the people [from illegal drugs] yet they are the cause of its rampant spread in the country," Senator Juan Edgardo Angara, one of the lawmakers, said. "He's very serious about it [the death penalty]. He believes it should be brought back," Angara added. 2 senators, 2 governors, and 12 congressmen from the incoming majority bloc flew to Davao City for a 5-hour meeting with the President. Among those present were Senator Alan Peter Cayetano, Angara, Citizens' Battle Against Corruption Rep. Sherwin Tugna, Marinduque Rep. Lord Allan Jay Velasco, Palawan 1st District Rep. Franz Josef Alvarez, and Masbate 3rd District Rep. Scott Davies Lanete. Also present were Tarlac Gov. Susan Yap and Bataan Gov. Albert Raymond Garcia. The lawmakers assured Duterte they would support whatever measure he submits to Congress. "We are open to that [reinstating the death penalty)]" Angara said. "We will listen to the arguments." The senator added, however, that in the final vote, each lawmaker would have to vote his or her conscience. Tugna said Duterte did not specifically request for new anti-drug laws to be passed as existing measures are already in place. "I believe he [Duterte] has a good track record of implementing them," he added. Before he took his oath of office, Duterte told House leaders that he prefers to publicly hang criminals instead of killing them with a lethal injection. After the 5-hour discussion at the After Dark Resto Bar, the President gave his guests a tour of the Central 911 headquarters. They parted ways at around 3:30 a.m. Both Angara and Tugna agreed that Duterte seemed different when he is in Davao City. "He's in his comfort zone in Davao. It's better to see him in Davao," Angara said. "He's more relaxed here," Tugna added. Lawmakers said they are glad that Duterte made time to meet informally with them. His predecessor, President Benigno Aquino III, had been criticized for not making good use of the Legislative Executive Development Advisory Council. Buhay party-list Rep. Lito Atienza, who opposes the death penalty, said reinstating capital punishment would undermine efforts by the Philippines to save the lives of Filipinos working overseas who are on death row. "One of the many ramifications [of the return of the death penalty] is that the Philippine government would be deprived of the moral high ground when it comes to our official appeals for clemency - for foreign governments to spare the lives of our citizens who are facing execution," Atienza said. "Should Congress reinstate the cruel and inhuman punishment, it would be extremely problematic for us to plead with other governments for compassion, if we ourselves are killing own convicts here - if we ourselves do not respect the value of human life," Atienza added. At least 88 Filipinos are facing the death penalty abroad, mostly in Malaysia and China, for various felonies, the Department of Foreign Affairs says. The 88 includes Mary Jane Veloso, the 31-year-old Filipino woman who was set to be executed by firing squad in Indonesia last year, but who obtained a last-minute reprieve after Manila asked Jakarta that she be first allowed to provide testimonial evidence against her alleged human trafficker in a criminal case in the Philippines. 8 of the top 10 foreign destinations of Filipino workers overseas "are on record as subscribing to capital punishment and aggressively carrying out executions," Atienza said. Of the 10, Atienza said, only Canada and Hong Kong have abolished the death penalty, while the rest are actively killing convicts. (source: The Standard) ******* Death penalty restoration may doom 88 OFWs on death row Mary Jane Veloso and 87 other overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) languishing in death row in overseas prisons will be deprived of a chance of absolution as soon as the capital punishment is restored in the Philippines, Buhay Party-list Rep. Lito Atienza warned. Meantime, the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) is expected to come out with a statement on death penalty anytime soon. LOSING MORAL HIGH GROUND Atienza stressed that the Philippine government's efforts to save the lives of OFWs in death prisons overseas will effectively be counteracted by the death penalty bill being pushed by the Duterte administration. "One of the many ramifications (of the return of the death penalty) is that the Philippine government would be deprived of the moral high ground when it comes to our official appeals for clemency - for foreign governments to spare the lives of our citizens who are facing execution," said Atienza, who is pushing for a pro-life legislative agenda. "Should Congress reinstate the cruel and inhuman punishment, it would be extremely problematic for us to plead with other governments for compassion, if we ourselves are killing own convicts here - if we ourselves do not respect the value of human life," Atienza added. SAVING MARY JANE With the help of former Vice President Jejomar C. Binay, now Senator Manny Pacquiao and the Aquino administration, Veloso, a drug convict in Indonesia, was granted a temporary reprieve last year. She was saved from the series of executions carried out on April 29, 2015 by the Indonesian government. Executed that day in Nusa Kambangan were Australians Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran; Brazilian Rodrigo Gularte, 4 Nigerians and an Indonesian. Citing a report from the Department of Foreign Affairs, Atienza said at least 87 other OFWs are confronted with the death sentence abroad, most of them in Malaysia and China. CHURCH'S STAND A Church source said it was CBCP president Lingayen Dagupan Archbishop Socrates Villegas who told him of the plan to release a statement. However, it was not clear if the statement will be released at the end of the bishops' Plenary Assembly which started Saturday at the Pope Pius XII Catholic Center in Manila. The CBCP usually issue a collective statement on pastoral and social issues after their 3-day gathering. But a check with Manila Auxiliary Bishop Broderick Pabillo revealed that the bishops have yet to discuss the issue as ofSunday morning. But a number of Catholic prelates earlier already expressed their opposition to the idea of reviving death penalty saying it's against moral law. "Death penalty by hanging is against moral law. Human life is sacred because it comes from God, the Creator. No one, not even the State, may take a human life, even of hardened criminals," said Malolos Bishop Jose Oliveros. (source: Manila Bulletin) From rhalperi at smu.edu Mon Jul 11 14:13:44 2016 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Mon, 11 Jul 2016 14:13:44 -0500 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----PENN., N.C., GA. LA., USA Message-ID: July 11 PENNSYLVANIA: Parents Torture 3-Year-Old Son To Death For One Simple Reason Gruesome details have emerged about the death of 3-year-old Scott McMillan. Last week he was found unresponsive in his family's trailer, covered in cuts, bruises and puncture wounds. McMillian's mother Jillian Tait, her boyfriend Gary Fellenbaum and his wife Amber Fellenbaum were arrested in connection with the death. Jillian and Gary have been charged with murdering McMillian and Amber was charged with child endangerment. "Little Scotty McMillan is dead. Over a 3 day period ... he was systematically tortured and beaten to death. He was punched in the face and in the stomach. He was scourged with a homemade whip. He was lashed with a metal rod. He was tied to a chair and beaten. He was tied upside down by his feet and beaten. His head was smashed through a wall," said Chester County District Attorney Tom Hogan. Authorities said they;d never seen a child abuse murder like this.The brutal torture and murder of Scott McMillan began when he refused to eat his breakfast. Gary and Jillian confessed to the murder during police questioning. They beat the boy to death using a homemade whip, a curtain rod, and an aluminum strip. Scott was hit with both sharp and blunt objects, taped to a chair with electrical tape and beaten, hung up by his feet and beaten, which led to his death. Scott's life was a short and violent one, according to his mother. Scott and his 6-year-old brother, who is now safely in the custody of a family member, were routinely beaten with closed fists. On one occasion, Gary tied the boys up by their feet and beat them while Jillian and his wife Amber laughed as they watched. Hogan announced that the district attorney's office will be seeking the death penalty for Jillian and Gary. (source: opposingviews.com) NORTH CAROLINA: Buncombe DA will seek death penalty for man charged in triple murder of Johnson, Diz, King News 13 has learned Buncombe county District Attorney Todd Williams will seek the death penalty for Pierre Griffin, the man charged in the triple murder of Uhon Johnson, Alexandra King, and Tatianna Diz. Griffin will appear in superior court Monday at 2 p.m. for what's called a Rule 24 hearing. This hearing is where the DA puts it on record if he intends to file for the death penalty in the case. Griffin's attorney Keith Hanson confirmed to News 13 that he has been in communication with the DA's office, and believes that is what will happen Monday. "Mr. Williams' office has kept the lines of communication open with us, and we greatly appreciate that," said Hanson. Danny Meehan, Tatiana Diz's father, said the family was aware the DA was going to file for the death penalty. "My family is all for it," said Meehan by phone from Baltimore, where he lives. "When it goes to trial, we will all be there." Meehan confirmed the Rule 24 hearing was supposed to take place in February but was delayed. Attorney Keith Hanson, who represents Griffin, said he had a triple murder case in Catawba county, and had requested the delay several months ago. Griffin is accused of killing Uhon Johnson, Alexandra King and Tatianna Diz on October 27 of last year. Johnson's body was found inside his apartment that night. Later that evening, several law enforcement agencies captured Griffin after a car chase. Investigators believe he also killed King and Diz that same night, and dumped their bodies into the French Broad River. (source: WLOS news) GEORGIA----impending execution Georgia set to execute 6th inmate this year An execution scheduled for Thursday would be the 6th in Georgia this year. That would be the most executions the state has carried out in a calendar year since the death penalty was reinstated 4 decades ago. John Wayne Conner is scheduled to die at the state prison in Jackson. He was convicted of beating his friend, J.T. White, to death 34 years ago in Dodge County during an argument after a night of drinking and marijuana use. Conner is now 60. Georgia has executed 5 people in a calendar year twice -- last year and in 1987 -- since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976. There have been a total of 14 executions nationwide this year, s6 in Texas, 5 in Georgia and 1 each in Alabama, Florida and Missouri. (source: news4jax.com) LOUISIANA: Case against New Orleans mother accused of killing her 2 small children in 2012 remains in limbo Accused child killer Chelsea Thornton sat quietly last week in the jury box of an Orleans Parish courtroom, where nothing happened with her case. It's been like that for nearly 2 years. Thornton faces a pair of 1st-degree murder charges for killing her 2 young children in their rat- and roach-infested Gert Town apartment on Oct. 17, 2012. The death penalty remains on the table, a spokesman for District Attorney Leon Cannizzaro's office said. Yet nobody appears in any rush to see Thornton tried for the double killing, which she admitted to police in a chilling taped confession, describing it as a mercy killing. "I did the best I could for them, but I just, I didn't want them to go from pillar to post their whole life like I did," she told police. "It's not right." In grim detail, Thornton described talking to her frightened children before she shot 3-year-old Kendall, then drowned him and 4-year-old Kelsey in the tub when the gun jammed. "So I just gave them a hug and a kiss, and I said, 'I love y'all very much.'" The tape was played in court in October 2014, a month after 2 mental health experts hired by the defense found that Thornton was legally insane at the time of the killings. Cannizzaro's office then hired a different expert to conduct his own review. Dr. Michael Blue, a forensic psychiatrist, interviewed Thornton twice, in July and August of last year, court records show. But he has yet to submit his report, leaving the case in legal limbo, with no trial date set. The case is on its 3rd set of prosecutors. It is now assigned to Laura Cannizzaro Rodrigue and Tiffany Tucker. Christopher Bowman, the spokesman for Cannizzaro's office, declined to discuss the delay or Blue's pending report, citing office policy. Blue did not return messages about the case. Thornton's attorney, former district attorney candidate Lionel "Lon" Burns, said he fears his client is "going to end up back in a mental hospital." "Only so many times I can tell her we're waiting on a report," Burns said. "Ms. Thornton is still in Orleans Parish Prison. She's been sitting back there, and the case is going nowhere fast." Thornton has entered dual pleas of not guilty and not guilty by reason of insanity. Burns said he needs Blue's report to prepare for a trial in which a jury would ultimately decide her insanity claim. A verdict of not guilty by reason of insanity would send Thornton to a state hospital for as long as Criminal District Court Judge Robin Pittman or a successor would see fit. Burns said he presumes Blue's report will say Thornton was sane - that she knew right from wrong - when she killed her children. Thornton was arrested within hours after a relative discovered the 2 small bodies in the tub, and she quickly admitted to the killings. She has a lengthy history of mental illness, having been diagnosed at various times with bipolar disorder and schizophrenia with psychotic episodes, as well as depression. Hospital records showed she had been off her medication for several months before the killings. Her relatives and advocates have described the children's deaths as a grisly reminder of wide fissures in the city's mental health care framework. Forensic psychiatrists Dr. Sarah Deland and Dr. James McConville found Thornton was legally insane when she picked up Kendall and Kelsey from school, fed them, told them she loved them and killed them, according to her own account. Thornton was "almost getting catatonic on that day," Deland testified. "She feared for their future and thought going to heaven was the best thing for them." Within a few months of Thornton's January 2013 indictment, Pittman ordered her to a state hospital despite having found her competent to stand trial, which is a separate determination from the question of her sanity at the time of the killings. The Louisiana Department of Health appealed, and a 4th Circuit Court of Appeal panel ordered Thornton back to Orleans Parish in July 2013, finding Pittman had no authority to order her hospitalization. "This is not to say that should Ms. Thornton decompensate on multiple occasions while in the sheriff???s custody, making her again unfit for trial, that it may not at some point in the future be appropriate to direct that she remain in the treatment facility until her trial," the appeals panel wrote. The next hearing in the case is scheduled for Aug. 16. (source: The Advocate) USA: Practically Speaking, The Death Penalty Is Disappearing In The United States----Although nearly 3,000 people are on death row in America, there has not been an execution in the country for 2 months - and few executions are expected in the coming months. It has been 2 months since any state in the United States has carried out an execution. This marks the longest time between executions in the U.S. since the Supreme Court effectively halted them in the fall of 2007 through spring 2008 while considering a case about the constitutionality of lethal injection. This time, the situation is very different. Although there are pending court cases about the death penalty's application, the source of the 2-month stoppage in executions isn't the Supreme Court. It's a variety of state-specific issues, ranging from the aftermath of Supreme Court rulings that come down earlier this year to drug availability to fallout from botched executions. The pause on executions - since it is state-specific - won't last forever. The stoppage could end as soon as Thursday if an execution scheduled for Georgia goes ahead as planned. It isn't, however, only that there have been no executions in the past 2 months. This year, there have been fewer executions overall - just 14 in the first half of the year - than in years past. It's extremely unlikely, moreover, that the number will be higher in the 2nd half of the year. There are, in fact, only 3 states - Georgia, Missouri, and Texas - that have executed anyone since January of this year. What's more, these states appear to be the only ones that could hold an execution today - despite the nearly 3,000 people on death row across the country. The only other state where executions still seem to be a possibility this year is Arkansas, and that is only so if the state obtains a new supply of execution drugs - which is by no means a sure thing. Before the 2007-08 gap in executions, the next most recent time when there was such a gap was nearly 25 years ago, when there were no executions held between Nov. 12, 1991, and Jan. 22, 1992. Even then, the stoppage is not entirely comparable to the current one because there often have been shorter periods with no executions surrounding the holiday season. Gaps prior to then were more common, but they were due to the fact the states were still passing and implementing their execution process in the wake of the Supreme Court's 1976 decision approving execution statutes after a nationwide ruling against the death penalty laws 4 years earlier. In short, this is an unprecedented moment in the modern era of the death penalty. Why, in the absence of any overarching federal prohibition on executions, is this so? The death penalty itself remains constitutional - and the justices recently declined to hear a handful of death-row inmates' cases asking the justices to revisit that question. In the vast majority of states, executions just aren't a practical reality today - either because the death penalty itself is barred or because functional issues prevent states from carrying out executions. Executions are either banned by law, halted by executive action, barred from happening by court oversight, or unable to happen because the state lacks the drugs to conduct executions. In some states, an overlapping number of these apply. Georgia, which last held an execution in April, is the next state slated to hold an execution in the U.S. John Connor, who killed a man in a drunken brawl more than 30 years ago, is scheduled to be executed on Thursday. He would be the state's 6th execution of the year. The state put executions on hold in March 2015 following the scheduled execution of Kelly Gissendaner was canceled after the state discovered problems with drugs intended for use later that day. But, after reviewing what happened in March with the drugs, Georgia resumed executions at the end of September by carrying out Gissendaner's execution. Since then, it has held executions regularly. Even if Connor's execution goes forward, however, it is not clear whether the state will hold other executions this year. Texas, living up to its reputation, remains the most active death penalty state. Nonetheless, this past week, even Texas announced an execution delay. The state will not be executing Perry Williams this week after lab results regarding the purity of the drugs to be used in his execution were not obtained in enough time to proceed with the execution. "Perry Williams and another death row offender filed a lawsuit regarding lethal injection. The Attorney General's Office agreed to have the particular dose that was to be used on him tested shortly before his execution," Texas Department of Criminal Justice spokesperson Jason Clark told BuzzFeed News. "Because the testing results were not completed in time, the state district court withdrew the execution order." Clark told the Houston Chronicle, however, that the state has a sufficient supply of execution drugs for several upcoming executions that already have been scheduled. Missouri, which has been a very active death penalty state in recent years, has conducted only one execution this year - the most recent execution in the U.S. - when it executed Earl Forrest on May 11. It has a simple reason for having slowed down its rate of executions: It has executed the people whose cases were in a posture that they could be executed. Although the state still has about 2 dozen people on death row, most are early enough in the post-conviction process or have other reasons to believe that execution dates will not be set for them in the near future. It has no scheduled executions on the books at this time. Florida and Alabama are the only other 2 states that have conducted an execution in 2016 - each executed 1 person in January of this year. For now, however, their executions are on hold as they deal with the Supreme Court's decision striking down Florida's death sentencing law. The court held in the January decision in Hurst v. Florida that Florida's death sentencing scheme was unconstitutional because the state relied on "a judge's fact-finding" and not "a jury's verdict" to sentence a person to death. The court returned Hurst's case to the Florida courts and the state's supreme court is considering his and several other cases raising issues about the effect of the ruling. Although Alabama officials have maintained that their system is distinct from Florida's system, the overlap in the death sentencing laws was enough that the Supreme Court remanded a handful of Alabama cases to the Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals, asking that court to reconsider the death sentences in light of Hurst. In Arizona, Ohio, and Oklahoma, botched executions - or, in Oklahoma's case, a botched execution, followed by an execution performed using a wrong drug, followed by a 2nd scheduled execution in which the wrong drug would have been used but for a doctor catching the issue at the last minute - have halted new executions. In addition, both Ohio and Arizona have had difficulties obtaining new execution drugs. After the botched execution of Clayton Lockett in Oklahoma in 2014, inmates, including Richard Glossip, took a case about the state's execution method all the way to the Supreme Court. And while the court upheld Oklahoma's 3-drug execution protocol including the use of the sedative midazolam, the state has moved on to a different protocol. When the state attempted to execute Glossip under that protocol, the doctor overseeing the execution determined the state had received the wrong drug and the execution, eventually, was called off. Later, the state revealed they had used the wrong drug in an execution earlier in the year. A damning grand jury report was released in May about the state's handling of executions, and while there were no criminal charges resulting from the investigation, it is clear that there will be no executions in the state for some time. Arizona has not held an execution for the past 2 years, when it took the state nearly two hours to execute Joseph Wood. Earlier this year, when it obtained some necessary drugs to conduct executions again, it attempted to get court permission to do so before the drugs were due to expire, but a federal judge denied their request. The state, along with Texas, also attempted to import illegal execution drugs from India last year, but the FDA has detained the drugs. In June, the state acknowledged that its inability to secure additional execution drugs means it has no intention to conduct any executions for the time being. Ohio has not held an execution since it executed Dennis McGuire in January 2014, during which a witness said he "struggled and gasped audibly for air." The state, BuzzFeed News has previously reported, has considered importing drugs from India, but does not appear to have done so and the state has repeatedly moved execution dates back. At this point, the state's next scheduled execution is on Jan. 12, 2017, but there could be further delays. 3 other states have either attempted to move forward with executions or have conducted an execution recently. The 2 that tried - Arkansas and Mississippi - have been unsuccessful at doing so thus far, and the 1 that conducted an execution - Virginia - has no plans to proceed with another in the near future. At the end of June, Arkansas won a court ruling that would have allowed it to proceed with executions for the 1st time in more than a decade, but its supply of execution drugs expired before the court ruling went into effect. It is not clear whether the state will be able to obtain more execution drugs or whether it will set additional execution dates. Mississippi, which has not held an execution since 2012, had been attempting to begin executions again, but a stay of execution had been in place for several months through February of this year. Although the stay was lifted, lawsuits challenging the state's execution protocol continue in several courts and lawyers for death-row inmates don't expect any execution dates to be set by the state's supreme court while the litigation is pending. Virginia has executed 3 people over the past 5 years. The state's 1 execution in the past 3 years was conducted with drugs it was provided by Texas. It has seven people remaining on death row, and no apparent plans to set execution dates at this time. In the remaining states, executions are few and - especially in recent years - far between. Depending on where the follow-up litigation goes relating to Hurst goes, three additional states - Delaware, Nebraska, and Montana - could find their way into the middle of post-Hurst fallout. Along with Florida and Alabama, they are the only states remaining that allow a non-unanimous jury to sentence a person to death. The issue was discussed at oral argument in Hurst, but it did not play a part in the ruling. In addition to all of this, Delaware's supreme court is already considering the continued constitutionality of its statute in state court in light of Hurst. Nebraska, meanwhile, is in the midst of a referendum campaign after the legislature repealed the death penalty over the governor's veto in 2015. The governor, who is backing the referendum effort, nonetheless has agreed not to proceed with attempting any executions until after the referendum vote. Montana's most recent execution was nearly a decade ago, and only 2 people remain on the state's death row. Last fall, in a case challenging the state's intended use of pentobarbital in its 3-drug execution protocol, a state court judge issued a stay on executions that remains in effect. Several other states with large death-row populations are not active, for varying reasons, in carrying out executions. California has, by far, the largest death-row population in the country at 743 people as of Jan. 1, but there is no court-approved execution protocol and key statewide officials oppose capital punishment as a policy - although they maintain they will enforce the law as is. The state is in the process of considering a new execution protocol, but no executions are likely in the near future. Pennsylvania's death row stood at 180 people as of Jan. 1, but its governor, Tom Wolf, has, in effect, issued a moratorium on executions by granting continual reprieves to death-row inmates. In 2015, North Carolina passed the Restoring Proper Justice Act in an attempt to help restart executions in a state that has not held an execution in nearly a decade and had more than 150 people on death row as of Jan. 1 of this year. Despite the new law, most involved in the process there say that ongoing litigation means they don't expect executions to resume in the state any time soon. Louisiana has only conducted two executions in the past 15 years, and while it has more than 80 people on death row, it has no executions scheduled and the next court update in ongoing litigation is not scheduled to take place until January 2018. In addition to Pennsylvania, Colorado, Oregon, and Washington also have governor-imposed moratoriums on executions. The remaining states with a death penalty law on the books are Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, New Hampshire, Nevada, South Carolina, Tennessee, Utah, and Wyoming. None of these states have conducted an execution in the past 4 years. The most recent 2 executions from these states were both in Idaho - in November 2011 and June 2012. 2 of the states - Kansas and New Hampshire - have not carried out a single execution since the death penalty was reauthorized in 1976. There is, of course, a federal death penalty - and more than 60 people are on the federal death row - but the federal government has only carried out three executions in the modern era of the death penalty and will not be carrying out another one any time soon. New Mexico's death penalty was abolished in 2009, but 2 people remain on death row from sentences handed down prior to then. Even before abolition, the state had only conducted one execution since 1976. The 18 remaining states and Washington, D.C., do not have the death penalty. (source: Chris Geidner is the legal editor for BuzzFeed News and is based in Washington, D.C) ************ The 40th anniversary of the modern death penalty This month marks the 40th anniversary of the return of the death penalty. From 1972 to 1976 America was without capital punishment. In 1972, the U.S. Supreme Court decided Furman v. Georgia. The court ruled that the death penalty was unconstitutional, violating the Eighth Amendment ban against cruel and unusual punishment. At the time, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart wrote, "These death sentences are cruel and unusual in the same way that being struck by lightning is cruel and unusual." A year earlier, the justices had upheld the constitutionality of the death penalty under the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. According to The Marshall Project, Furman seemed headed in the same direction until Stewart struck a deal with Justice Byron White, who'd been on the fence about the death penalty. Stewart agreed to abandon his moral statement against the death penalty and would instead say that the problem with capital punishment was excessive arbitrariness. The deal resulted in a surprising 5-4 decision overturning the death penalty. The decision forced state legislatures to review the death penalty and eliminate the arbitrary, capricious and racially discriminatory aspects of capital punishment. The Court suggested that states establish criteria to direct and limit the circumstances in which the death penalty would apply and to overhaul the sentencing process. In July 1976, the U.S. Supreme Court in Gregg v. Georgia, found that 3 of 5 states that amended their death penalty statute - Georgia, Florida and Texas - did conform to the directives of Furman. The death penalty was back. The 1st man executed after Gregg was Gary Gilmore of Utah. Gilmore wanted to be executed, and the state of Utah granted his wish. He was executed by firing squad on January 17, 1977. Since Gilmore, more than 1,400 men and women have been executed nationwide. Texas alone is responsible for more than 1/3 of those executions. Executions steadily increased through the 1990s and then began to recede again to the present. Public support for the death penalty reached its lowest point in 1966, when only 42 % of Americans supported the death penalty. During the 1990s as crime rates soared, support for the death penalty rose to as high as 80 percent. Since then, support for the death penalty has remained steady just above 60 %, according to Gallup. Executions are at the lowest level in decades. In the 1st half of 2016 there were 14 executions. Those executions occurred in Texas (6), Georgia (5), Alabama (1), Florida (1) and Missouri (1). There are 7 executions planned for the rest of the year, all in Texas according to the Death Penalty Information Center. 21 executions would be the fewest since 1992 when there were 14 executions and a fraction of the 98 executions carried out in 1999. Between 1973 and 2013, only 16.1 % of people sentenced to death were ultimately executed. In other words, the chance of being executed - among defendants sentenced to death - is only about 1 in 6. The probability of receiving the death penalty in the U.S. is miniscule. The Centers for Disease Control reported 16,121 homicides in 2013. There were 39 executions - an execution rate of approximately a quarter of one percent. The decision in Gregg failed in limiting the circumstances in which the penalty may be applied. A California study found that 87 % of murders are potentially eligible for the death penalty under the state's definitions. In Colorado, the rate is 91.1 %. My book, "The Executioner's Toll 2010: The Crimes, Arrests, Trials, Appeals, Last Meals, Final Words and Executions of 46 Persons in the United States," examined every execution in 2010. My research led to the conclusion that the death penalty was once again arbitrary. Arbitrary - as it was in 1972 - in the manner in which it is imposed. And today, arbitrary in the manner in which it is carried out. 21, or fewer, executions in a single year out of a pool of nearly 3,000 men and women on death row is certainly arbitrary and capricious. (source: Matthew T. Mangino is of counsel with Luxenberg, Garbett, Kelly & George P.C. His book, "The Executioner's Toll, 2010," was recently released by McFarland Publishing----Pekin Daily Times) From rhalperi at smu.edu Mon Jul 11 14:14:40 2016 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Mon, 11 Jul 2016 14:14:40 -0500 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide Message-ID: July 11 BOTSWANA: Death row 'hit men' plead for justice ---- 2 death row inmates have pleaded with the Court of Appeal (CoA) to overturn their fate with their maker arguing that they were never the masterminds behind the killing of an innocent old man in 2008. In an emotionally charged court appearance yesterday the duo, Daniel Semi (30) and Gaolatlhe Thusang (35) through their respective lawyers called on the bench to consider the circumstances leading to the killing of 1 Motlhanka Motukwa in what was described as a motive for financial stimulus. The duo, who hail from Ntlhantlhe in the Southern District, were condemned to death in 2010 by Lobatse High Court Judge Michael Leburu despite pronouncement by Judge Tshepo Motswagole that the death penalty was unconstitutional. Leburu had squashed the declaration by Motswagole and proceeded to sentence the 2 to death and according to evidence that was before court, they were hired as hitmen by their co-accused at the time, Agisanyang Motukwa. Agisanyang was said to have hired the 2 to kill his father after believing he was bewitching him. They had pleaded not guilty to the charge of murder. Semi's lawyer Dumezweni Mthimkhulu in his submissions said he was not happy that his client received the harshest sentence while the principal mastermind behind the killing walked away with murder. He said the court should serve justice by ordering a retrial or at least meting a lesser sentence to the duo because they were never the masterminds from the beginning to the end when they murdered the old man. With emotions running high and often reminded by the bench to calm down, Mthimkhulu explained there was extensive planning from the mastermind Agisanyang and accomplice witness, Modise Sekai to murder the old man at a particular time and that his client was only roped in to do the dirty work following their recruitment by Sekai. "The principal masterminds should have been the ones receiving the harshest punishment, it is not fair that they had a custodial sentence while those who did not even plan to kill were given death sentences; a retrial would at least allow the convicts to be satisfied that they had been given a fair trial," he argued. He submitted that there was no evidence that his client benefited from the money they were promised as hitmen but only that they were made to believe that the old man was bewitching his son. "Motukwa as the principal mastermind had such an influence on them and had made them believe that his father was bewitching him. With the little education that they had, they believed and looked up to him, that's when even when they were recruited they never asked any questions. There is no evidence that they benefited from the criminal act," Mthimkhulu said. On the evidence of the accomplice witness that was used to convict the 2, Mthimkhulu said the court erred in holding that he was a credible witness as the evidence demonstrated that he was an unreliable witness and a liar in many respects. He said the accomplice had even admitted to court to have lied on other issues but nonetheless the court formed the opinion that he gave evidence in a simple and in a straightforward manner. "The trial court never dealt with the contradictory evidence of the accomplice witness even though he had admitted to have made up certain things. What else did he lie about? Yet his testimony was used to convict our clients," he submitted. Thusang's lawyer Moses Kayde who appeared emotionally charged and often clashed with the judges in his submissions called for a lesser sentence saying even the cause of death was unascertained by the pathologist therefore making the conviction of the two not safe. He submitted that since the pathologist has explained in findings and given 2 scenarios about the body, the court should not have blindly accepted his evidence but should have decided for itself. Kayde argued that there were also extenuating circumstances that the two were brainwashed to believe that the old man was bewitching his son since they too believed in witchcraft. "The first appellant was the instigating force behind and he even brainwashed the 2 to completely believe in him and believe that he was being bewitched; they only acted on that basis," he maintained. State lawyer, Rahim Khan had a tough time pleasing the judges about Agisanyang's lucky escape of 25 years while he was the mastermind behind the killing of his father. After failing to convince the judge and trying to justify the duo's death sentence, Khan said it was all up the judges to decide the suitable punishment for the 2. "Even though I maintain that the 2 are guilty and have acted to kill the old man, its all up to Your Lordships to interfere with the sentence and decide what is best," he said. Meanwhile Agisanyang (34) who is said to have hired the 2 hitmen for insurance money also appeared in person as he tried to overturn his conviction and sentence. Having submitted a lengthy heads of argument the court only allowed him a minimal time in which he asked the court to take into account that at the time he was said to have confessed to killing his father, he was not under the right state of mind. He asked the bench to take into consideration the evidence of the traditional doctor that at the time he looked to have been mentally unstable. "The traditional doctor should be taken as a person of authority and that his evidence should be taken into account as at the time he was my doctor and I had confessed to him," he said. (source: Mmegi.bw) INDIA: Teenager seeks death penalty for mother in India----Woman accused of hiring killers to murder husband A teenager in Bihar has sought the death penalty for his mother after she was accused of hiring a contract killer to kill her husband, officials said on Monday. The accused woman, along with the contract killers, are being held in custody. The man was allegedly killed over an extramarital affair his wife had with a youth. "My father loved us a lot but my mother got him killed. I will never forgive her. I want death for my mother," the teenager, identified as Sunny Kumar, said on Monday. It was left to the young man to performed the last rites of his father Ashok Kumar Singh, a painter. He said he would die rather than stay with his mother. At present, he has moved in with his uncle. "My father was a kind-hearted person," Kumar said. Singh's killing at the weekend led to strong protests in the area. Even his wife Rani Devi had joined the villagers' protests, crying hysterically and seeking the arrest of the culprits, which made police suspicious. Investigations into the case later found it was the victim's wife, 40, who had hatched the conspiracy along with her boyfriend to murder her husband. According to the police, she had hired the killers for Rs50,000 (Dh2,734). She was handing over the 1st instalment of a Rs20,000 cheque to the killers, using funds she had been provided by the local administration as ex-gratia money, when the accused persons were arrested by the police. "The murder case has been solved now. The murder of the victim was planned by his wife who had an extramarital affair with her boyfriend," the local district superintendent of police Rakesh Kumar said. (source: Gulf News) *************** Delhi gangrape: Supreme Court to fast-track appeals filed by 4 convicts challenging death penalty----A special bench of the apex court decided to hear their plea from 2 pm to 6 pm every day, July 18 onwards. Supreme Court to fast-track appeals filed by 4 convicts challenging death penalty The Supreme Court on Monday decided to work extra hours to fast-track a hearing in the December 16, 2012 Delhi gangrape and murder case. The 4 convicts in the case - Mukesh Singh, Akshay Thakur, Pawan Gupta and Vinay Sharma - challenged the death sentence awarded to them by the Delhi High Court. A special bench will hear their plea from 2 pm to 6 pm every day, July 18 onwards, ANI reported. 6 individuals had gangraped a 23-year-old woman in a moving bus in Delhi on December 16, 2012. The victim, whom they had brutally abused, had succumbed to her injuries on December 29 the same year at a hospital in Singapore. The incident had triggered countrywide protests and demands to ensure better safety for women in India. The outrage had forced the government to introduce new laws on rape. The prime accused in the case, Ram Singh, committed suicide in Tihar Jail on March 11, 2013, while the 6th convict - a juvenile - was released on December 20 last year after serving a 3-year sentence under the Juvenile Justice Act. (soruce: scroll.in) MALDIVES: The 1st execution in 60 years - help stop this The Maldives are preparing to resume executions, and Hussain Humaam Ahmed will be the 1st death row inmate to be killed in over 60 years. There are serious concerns about the fairness of the murder trial, and without your help Humaam could be hung within 30 days. Call on the authorities in the Maldives to halt the execution before it's too late. 23 year old Humaam was sentenced to death after he was found guilty of murdering MP Afrasheem Ali. The Maldives President pledged to hang death row inmates within 30 days of the Supreme Court upholding a guilty verdict, which means Humaam's days are now numbered. A key piece of evidence in the trial was Humaam's 'confession' which he later explained was extracted by force after authorities threatened the safety of his family. Humaam and his family also maintain that he suffers from a mental disability which was not assessed or considered during the trial. If carried out, this execution will be the 1st in more than 60 years. There are 17 other prisoners on death row that could be next, at least 5 of which are juvenile offenders. (source: Amnesty Internatnional) INDONESIA: Indonesia to ramp up number of executions - including foreigners killed by firing squads - in war on drugs Indonesia is to increase the number of prisoners executed by firing squad in its war on drugs. The country's attorney general Muhammad Prasetyo has said at least 2 convicts will be lined up and shot soon for their crimes. Among those facing the death penalty are foreigners, he said, but he did not elaborate upon the crimes of which they are convicted. Prasetyo said: 'The implementation of the executions will be carried out after the (Eid al-Fitr) holiday period that has just ended. 'There are more than 2 people, and there are foreigners. There are protests but we will still carry out the executions.' Indonesia last year executed 14 people, mostly foreign drug traffickers, and has vowed to ramp up that number despite international condemnation. Prasetyo previously said 16 prisoners would be executed this year at a minimum and more than double that number next year. At least 121 people are on death row in Indonesia, including 35 foreigners, mostly convicted of drug-related crimes, according to the Justice Ministry. They include Mary Jane Veloso from the Philippines, Lindsay Sandiford from Britain and Frenchman Serge Atlaoui. British grandmother Lindsay Sandiford from Redcar on Teesside, has been on death row since December 2012 after attempting to smuggle cocaine into Bali after arriving on a flight from Bangkok. The 59-year-old admitted smuggling 4.8kg (10.6lb) of the drug but said she was pressured by a smuggling gang. However, Miss Sandiford sounded philosophical when she was interviewed by the Mail on Sunday last year. She said: I'm nearly 60 and a lot of people don't live to be this age. Being lined up and shot isn't the ending I'd pick, but everyone has to go somehow.' (source: Daily Mail) *************** Indonesia Prepares for Another Round of Executions----It is a case of domestic considerations trumping international image. If you want to point at one incident that transformed Indonesian President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo from an inspiring, hopeful candidate to the oft-criticized, ineffective head of a unruly cabinet, it happened early last year, when his administration, to the surprise of both international observers and those in Indonesia's human rights community, who mostly supported Jokowi's election, executed 14 people, including 12 foreign nationals, for drug crimes. It was, amazingly, the largest single-use of the death penalty since Indonesia became a democracy at the turn of the millennium. "It was a surprise moment," said Ricky Gunawan, a lawyer with the non-profit legal aid organization LBH Masyarakat who defends those charged with drug crimes in Indonesia. "We in the Indonesian human rights community thought he would bring positive change." The executions were widely criticized by foreign governments and civil society groups, both internationally and within Indonesia. Initially, the uproar seemed to give way to a surprising calm. For much of the past year there was barely any mention of executions from the central government, leading many to think that Jokowi had changed his position. Then, suddenly and seemingly out of nowhere, Jokowi doubled-down on the war on drugs as one of the centerpieces of his administration, amazingly even calling it Indonesia's number 1 problem in a speech a few months ago. Now, using drugs as a justification, Indonesia aims to resume executions, with a yet-unnamed 16 Indonesian and foreign nationals to face a firing squad, apparently soon. This will likely lead to another international diplomatic uproar and, once again, damage both Jokowi, and Indonesia's reputation globally. But for Jokowi and those around him, the benefits outweigh the costs, at least where it matters - domestically. Domestic Priorities Perhaps it should not have been such a surprise that Jokowi - who, before ascending to the presidency was the governor of 2 Indonesian cities and had absolutely no foreign policy experience - has had a domestic focus during his presidency. This is one of the biggest shifts from his predecessor, the image-conscious, globe-trotting Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono. "From 2012-2014, there were no executions," said Gunawan. "[Yudhoyono] was a president who really cared about his international reputation and knew it would be damaged if they massively execute people." Jokowi, conversely, just does not care much about his international reputation. While last year's executions may have hurt the rose-tinted global image many internationally still had of him, within Indonesia, Jokowi's honeymoon was long over by January 2015. In fact, the initial round of executions were one of the first decisive actions by the new president, and were strongly supported among Indonesians. Whatever prestige he may have lost abroad was more than made up by what he gained domestically. Popular Distraction By saying drugs are Indonesia's top problem, Jokowi is diverting attention from the other challenges he has, thus far, failed to address. His nearly 2-year long presidency has been rife with challenges, many of which are out of his control. Last year's devastating fires, the neutering of the country's corruption institution, and the slow progress on improving the country's infrastructure have all tainted his image as someone who gets things done, and left many Indonesians disillusioned. In the face of this, drugs are an easy target - a threatening, foreign menace that is destroying the fabric of Indonesian society and can be tackled by force. The figures he states are quite astounding - 4.5 million addicts, 40-50 young people dying each day from drug use. Stats that, according to Andreas Harsono, Indonesia Researcher with Human Rights Watch (HRW), are faulty. "The figures quoted by Jokowi and parroted by national officials and media outlets are based on studies with questionable methods and vague measures," said Harsono. They seem to be created more to support an existing narrative, rather than present information about a problem. Moreover, the use of the death penalty is still supported by most Indonesians. This creates a rare instance where Jokowi can show decisiveness. "The death penalty [has] more than 80 % support," said Harsono, adding that the role of Islamic groups, who support its use, makes it harder for the opposition to gain momentum. This is worrisome to HRW as the focus on the death penalty and the war on drugs is taking attention away from Indonesia's festering human rights challenges. "The Jokowi administration ... has not solved most widely-cited human rights problems in Indonesia, for example. religious freedom, discrimination against women in the name of the Sharia, and Papua's longstanding rights abuses," said Harsono. Here, rhetoric has failed to match reality. "For example, Jokowi asked all political prisoners to be released, but so far only 6 prisoners were released. There are nearly 70 others are still jailed." The other question is - how much of this policy can be attributed to Jokowi himself? His cabinet has been noted for its contradictory policies and lack of cohesion, something most visible in the way in which certain members, such as Minister of Maritime Affairs and Fisheries Susi Pudjiastuti, seem to act on their own, independent of Jokowi. "A narrative that people have is that it's really interests within the judiciary and police who want to carry out the executions," said Tom Pepinsky an Indonesia expert at Cornell University's Southeast Asia Program. "Jokowi does not have the political capital to stop it, or, perhaps, doesn't think it's such a big deal." According to Gunawan, the idea of executions seems to come up whenever a political leader is facing a potential scandal or political pressure. "Executions are used as a tool to avoid certain issues," said Gunawan, citing an example of how the Jakarta High Prosecutor's office had the Attorney General issue news about the next round of executions - days after his office was searched the Corruption Eradication Commission. Limited Impact Perhaps Jokowi is right to ignore any international furor. While the rhetoric from Australia, Brazil, and other nations was fierce last year, and did hurt Jokowi's image globally, there was little other substantive impact. Every country quickly returned to having normal relations with Jakarta, and none took any actions beyond symbolic statements, such as temporarily recalling their ambassadors. Chances are, no matter what country's citizens end up on the list, the situation will be the same this time. "For better or worse, executing criminals for drug crimes, is [not very] likely to shape bilateral relations with any of Indonesia's neighbors," said Pepinsky. In fact, any international outrage might be counterproductive, making it only harder for Jokowi, if he wanted to, to stand up to those within his administration, or in parliament, who support this policy. But it will impact his standing among Indonesians. "There's a sense that Jokowi showing decisiveness and independence is great for his domestic position," said Pepinsky. "It would be very easy for a competitor to criticize him for giving into foreign pressures." Thus, the best hope for a shift in policy comes domestically, from the voices of the minority of Indonesians opposed to the death penalty. They've had some success - it was local civil society, last year, who were key saving 1 woman, Filipino citizen Mary Jane Veloso, from being executed, and they are gearing up to fight again. Also notably, popular former President BJ Habibie has come out against the death penalty and the executions. Still, it will be tough for the opposition to win. This round of executions is expected to be followed by another round, as the administration expands the war on drugs and regularizes capital punishment. It is a big change from the Indonesia of the 2000s, when executions were rare, and progress on human rights and justice was measured in strides. Who would have thought when Jokowi was elected that we???d look back on the 2000s with such nostalgia, so soon? (source: Nithin Coca, The Diplomat) PHILIPPINES: Negros solon backs death penalty Rep. Melecio Yap (Neg. Occ., 1 st District) yesterday said he is supporting the move to restore the death penalty. Yap said he supports the restoration of death penalty for drug-related cases and heinous crimes. Yap, former mayor of Escalante City, is a member of the Nationalist People's Coalition. Incoming Speaker of the House, Rep. Pantaleon Alvarez (Davao del Norte), and Rep. Frednil Castro (Capiz, 2 nd District) earlier filed House Bill No.1 re-imposing the death penalty on certain heinous crimes by lethal injection. Senator Manny Pacquiao has filed a counterpart bill in the Senate, which he said was in support of President Rodrigo Duterte's campaign against drugs. House Bill No. 01 seeks the death penalty for human trafficking, illegal recruitment, plunder, treason, parricide, infanticide, rape, qualified piracy and bribery, kidnapping and illegal detention, robbery with violence against or intimidation of persons, car theft, destructive arson, terrorism and drug-related cases, among others. "There is evidently a need to reinvigorate the war against criminality by reviving a proven deterrent coupled by its consistent, persistent and determined implementation, and this need is as compelling and critical as any," HB No. 01 says. Meanwhile, Presidential Spokesperson Ernesto Abella said Malaca???ang favors mandatory drug testing for government employees to regain the trust of the public. "It is a very powerful symbolic act that would show that we in government are proper and are worthy of trust," he said. (soruce: The Visayan Daily Star) ****************** PH death penalty bad for Veloso Indonesian penitentiary death row prisoner Mary Jane Veloso and 87 other similarly situated Filipino overseas workers will be deprived of a chance of absolution as soon as the capital punishment is restored in the country. Pro-life Rep. Lito Atienza issued this warning as he stressed that the Philippine government's efforts to save the lives of OFW languishing in death prisons overseas will effectively be counteracted by the death penalty bill being pushed by the Duterte government. "One of the many ramifications (of the return of the death penalty) is that the Philippine government would be deprived of the moral high ground when it comes to our official appeals for clemency - for foreign governments to spare the lives of our citizens who are facing execution," said Atienza who represents Buhay party-list which is pushing for a pro-life legislative agenda. Backed by the huge El Shaddai Catholic Charismatic group, Buhay has been leading party-list polls in nearly 2 decades now, partly because of its hardline pro-life stance. "Should Congress reinstate the cruel and inhuman punishment, it would be extremely problematic for us to plead with other governments for compassion, if we ourselves are killing own convicts here - if we ourselves do not respect the value of human life," Atienza said. (source: tempo.com.ph) ****************** Restoring death penalty may affect OFWs on death row The Philippine government's efforts to save overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) on death row abroad may be hurt with the reimposition of death penalty in the country , a lawmaker has said. Buhay Representative Lito Atienza reportedly said that reviving capital punishment in the Philippines could affect the country's appeals for clemency for OFWs who are facing execution abroad. "Should Congress reinstate the cruel and inhuman punishment, it would be extremely problematic for us to plead with other governments for compassion, if we ourselves are killing own convicts here - if we ourselves do not respect the value of human life," Atienza was quoted as saying by Rappler. In 2015, OFW Mary Jane Veloso was about to be executed in Indonesia for drug trafficking, but was granted an 11th hour reprieve due to appeals from the government and civil society groups, the report said. Atienza reportedly said that based on data from the Department of Foreign Affairs, there are currently at least 88 Filipinos facing the death penalty abroad - mostly in Malaysia and China - for various crimes. Malaysia is one of the top 10 destinations of OFWs, based on data from the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration. Other top OFW destinations include Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Singapore, Qatar, Hong Kong, Kuwait, Taiwan, Bahrain and Canada, said the news portal. Of these 10, only Canada and Hong Kong have abolished the death penalty. "Right now, without the death penalty for a long time already, the Philippine government has great moral authority to invoke humanitarian grounds and implore foreign governments for them to show mercy to Filipino citizens who are about to be put to death," Atienza reportedly said. After winning the May 9 elections, President Rodrigo Duterte vowed to reintroduce capital punishment in the country by hanging. Duterte has even met his allies in Congress on Saturday, July 9, and asked them to revive the death penalty, reported Rappler. (source: The Filipino Times) MALAYSIA: Govt urged to speed track abolishment of death penalty: Batu Kawan MP A Penang parliamentarian has urged the federal government not to drag its feet in abolishing the death penalty. Batu Kawan MP P. Kasthuri said amendments to the law on such matters should be tabled in the coming October Parliament sitting in a display of commitment to uphold the right to life. She said the burden lies with Minister in the Prime Minister's Department Nancy Shukri, the de facto law minister, to bring the matter up to the Cabinet and called upon the federal government not to shift the goal posts anymore on the issue. Kasthuri said the first shift happened in a March 2014 written reply to Puchong MP Gobind Singh where the issue of abolishing the death penalty by the government was non-existent. She said the reply said this was because the State Pardons Board headed by the Yang di-Pertuan Agong had full authority to abolish the death penalty for offenses committed in the Federal Territories and the other states. Kasthuri said the second shift occurs when the government cites that public opinion was in favour of the death penalty but pointed out a Feb 2016 Gerakan poll which showed more than half of the 1,523 respondents calling for an end to the death penalty. "The third shift of goal posts is not granting discretionary powers to the judges to hand down different forms of punishment apart from the death penalty," she added in a statement today. (source: The Sun Daily) From rhalperi at smu.edu Tue Jul 12 09:43:24 2016 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Tue, 12 Jul 2016 09:43:24 -0500 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, N.C., GA., FLA., LA. Message-ID: July 12 TEXAS: Jury selection date set in capital murder case The case of a man charged with capital murder in the death of a 5-year-old child has been scheduled for jury selection almost exactly 2 years after the girl's death. Isidro Miguel Delacruz, 26, of San Angelo went before 119th District Judge Ben Woodward for a hearing Monday, his 9th appearance at the Tom Green County courthouse since December 2014. 2 more pretrial hearings are scheduled on August 2 and 22 before jury selection on August 29. No trial date has been set. State prosecutors and the defense counsel both asked the court for time to acquire personal files of Delacruz's family from Child Protective Services and to analyze records recently released by the Texas Department of Public Safety, which might be used as evidence or to prepare for trial. Delacruz is accused of cutting the throat of Naiya Bermea on Sept. 2, 2014, at her home in the 2700 block Houston Street. 51st District Attorney Allison Palmer intends to seek the death penalty. Delacruz's attorney is Robert Cowie. Delacruz has been in jail since September 2014. (source: gosanangelolive.com) ************ Defense for Alleged Murderer Isidro Delacruz Attempts to Quash Death Penalty Alleged capital murderer Isidro Miguel Delacruz, 25, attended Judge Ben Woodward's 119th district court once again for a pre-trial today. The court further addressed accusations that claim Delacruz slit the throat of his ex-girlfriend's 5 year-old daughter, Naiya Villegas. Delacruz has had at least 5 pre-trials for this case since the crime occurred on September 2, 2014. Defense attorneys Robert R. Cowie and William P.H. Boyles of Lubbock represented Delacruz in court today. Much of today's pretrial addressed motions from the defense to preclude the death penalty. The motions claim that the jurors are not informed of certain rules, that 'death qualification' inherently selects 'guilt-prone' jurors," and the statutory definition of mitigating evidence is not satisfactory. Additionally, certain legislation involving the death penalty is unconstitutional, among other claims. As the motions were presented, the attorneys for the state, District Attorney Allison Palmer and Assistant D.A. Megan White, gave their rebuttals. Eventually, the defense decided to address some of the motions out of court with the State. After hearing the defense's motions, Woodward scheduled another pre-trial for August 2 at 1:30 p.m. He said the additional pretrial "might be helpful" for the case. The court will also meet again for a previously scheduled pre-trial on August 22. Further in the future, the jury panel is scheduled to report on August 29 at 9:00 a.m. Furthermore, the jurors will be individually examined on September 12. Finally, the trial will begin on October 31, and is estimated to go on for a week. If Delacruz is found guilty, testimonies concerning Delacruz's punishment are expected to last 2 1/2 weeks before Thanksgiving begins. (source: sanangelolive.com) NORTH CAROLINA: Death penalty sought in NC killings of 2 young women and man The Buncombe County district attorney says he is seeking the death penalty against a man in the deaths of 2 young women and a man in late 2015. The prosecution against Pierre Lamont Griffin was declared a capital case on Monday, officials said. Griffin, 23, is accused of murdering of Alexander King, Tatianna Diz and Uhon Johnson in Buncombe County. He is also charged with attempted robbery with a dangerous weapon in Henderson County. Prosecutors say Pierre Lamont Griffin's new charges come from events that began in Buncombe County and ended with an attempted armed robbery and law enforcement then shooting Griffin in Henderson County, North Carolina on Oct. 27, 2015. Tatiana Diz, 20, and Alexandra King, 22, were both found dead in the French Broad River in early Nov. 2015 after disappearing days earlier. The women had been missing since the night of Oct. 27, 2015, when they left their home and gave a man a ride to apartments nearby. A shooting happened in or around a Volkswagen Jetta owned by Alexandra King, Asheville Police said. The man who was given a ride by the women is charged with fatally shooting a man that same night - the 3rd victim, Uhon Johnson. The abandoned VW Jetta was found bloodied and with a gunshot hole in the passenger headrest. Officials say North Carolina law provides that when acts that constitute part of the commission of a crime occur in more than 1 county, each county has concurrent venue, and jurisdiction, of the charges. "In that the most serious events in this tragic sequence occurred in Buncombe County where the family, friends, and loved ones of the victims reside, I want to thank DA Newman for deferring to us here in Buncombe County so that we may seek justice for the victims and their families locally without putting them through 2 separate trials in 2 separate counties," Buncombe County District Attorney Todd Williams said. A Buncombe County Grand Jury had already indicted Griffin on 3 counts of 1st-degree murder, 2 counts of destroying a body or remains concealing an unnatural death, 2 counts of robbery with a dangerous weapon, misdemeanor flee to elude arrest, and reckless driving to endanger for crimes alleged to have occurred within Buncombe County. Police say he killed Uhon Johnson in Buncombe County, stole a car, and led deputies on a chase. (source: WNCN news) GEORGIA----impending execution Lawyers argue for clemency for John Wayne Conner Lawyers for convicted killer John Wayne Conner argue his childhood was a product of "violence, incest, poverty, depression, academic failure and mental impairment." The state Board of Pardons and Paroles on Tuesday released the clemency petition for Conner, who is scheduled to die Thursday night. He was convicted in 1982 of killing a friend, J. T. White, in Telfair County, after a night of drinking and marijuana smoking. His lawyers argue that Conner's case is "a relic of a bygone era," when death-penalty defendants were often poorly defended. His original trial lawyer, they say, had no previous death-penalty experience and presented no evidece at trial. His pro-bono appeal lawyer, according to the petition, was granted "zero resources" to investigate the case and defend him. They say jurors and judges never heard the "shocking and tragic story," of Conner's childhood in Milan, including sexual abuse. In prison, his lawyers write, Conner has become a "valuable, productive & peaceful" member of prison community & found relationship with God. His lawyers argue that Conner's childhood, which included sexual abuse does not excuse his crime. But they say it explains how he became so steeped in drugs, alcohol and violence "that he drunkenly beat a friend to death in reaction to a lewd comment." The state parole board has scheduled a clemency hearing for 9 a.m. Wednesday in Atlanta. He is scheduled to die by lethal injection Thursday night at the state's death-row prison in Jackson. (source: WMAZ news) FLORIDA: Florida's pending death penalty cases in limbo Dozens of death cases across Florida remain in limbo after 3 judges have declared the state's new sentencing scheme unconstitutional. The question keeping some from going forward is whether or not a 10-2 jury death recommendation is constitutional. Florida, Alabama, and Delaware are the only death penalty states that don't require unanimous jury verdicts to sentence someone to die. "There are 3 states who are outliers," said Florida Supreme Court Chief Justice Jorge LaBarga from the bench last month while it considered a death sentence declared unconstitutional in Osceola County. 3 circuit judges have ruled the law unconstitutional. But the Florida Supreme Court has gone on break for the rest of the summer without deciding whether the judges were right or wrong. "My name is Ted Bundy." Prosecutors invoked the serial killer's name during the spring legislative session to argue against unanimous verdicts. Bundy went to the electric chair on a 10-2 vote. Prosecutors repeatedly told lawmakers that requiring unanimity put too much power in 1 juror's hands. ???"1 person with total veto power, that's a bad thing," says Second Judicial Circuit State Attorney Willie Meggs. The State Senate originally held out for a unanimous decision to sentence someone to death, then it compromised, says Senate President Andy Gardiner (R-Orlando). "The alternative is, you have no guidance to give to state attorneys when it comes to these cases in the future if we hadn't gotten something done," Gardiner said. "Or there would be no death penalty?" we asked. "Exactly," Gardiner told us. Each of the state's 20 prosecutors is dealing with the uncertainty differently. Some are moving full speed ahead, but others, like Meggs, are not. "Until they clarify it and make a decision and rule, we're kinda gonna be in this limbo land," Meggs said. And 100 or more pending death cases could be impacted by what the state supreme court eventually decides. Prosecutors say there are 13 pending death cases in Pensacola, 23 in Jacksonville, and 7 or 8 in Tallahassee. Other state attorneys did not respond to our email. While prosecutors pointed to Ted Bundy as a reason not to require unanimous jury verdicts, 2 other serial killers, Aileen Wuornos and Danny Rolling, both went to their deaths with unanimous jury recommendations. (source: WCTC news) LOUISIANA: Change of venue granted in Kevin Daigle jury selection Judge Guy Bradberry granted a change of venue for Kevin Daigle due to extensive publicity, but only for jury selection. Daigle is charged with the 1st-degree murder of State Trooper Steven Vincent and the 2nd-degree murder of Blake Brewer, but the cases will be severed - or tried separately. The Vincent 1st-degree murder trial will be 1st. The jury will be picked in Benton La., which is in Bossier Parish - the 26th Judicial District - and then brought to Calcasieu Parish for the evidence part of the trial. The judge also heard arguments from both sides on whether the September 19th trial date should be continued to a later date. The state is seeking the death penalty if Daigle is convicted of 1st degree murder. Because executions are irreversible, death penalty cases require the most exhaustive defense preparation - investigation, hiring of expert witnesses and research. Subsequent appeals usually last for years. One issue likely to be probed is Daigle's mental health. And even if he does not use an insanity defense, his attorneys say mental issues could potentially prevent Daigle from receiving the death penalty. However, prosecutor Rick Bryant argued the case is moving at a "dead snail's pace" and said the case needs to go forward. He also brought out that the the state agreed to the change of venue. Bryant characterized it as the "I'll let you know when I'm ready to go" defense. After hearing both sides, Bradberry reiterated his belief that "justice delayed is justice denied." But he admitted a September trial date may have been overly ambitious and continued Daigle's trial to March 13, 2017. Still, the judge indicated he will require that both sides move forward efficiently without undue delay. Vincent was killed Aug. 23, 2015. Brewer was killed prior to Vincent - on or about that date. (source: KPLC TV news) ************** Man accused in killing wife with baseball bat enters not guilty plea by reason of insanity David Johnson Sr., who is facing a 1st-degree murder charge in the beating death of his wife in the backyard of the couple's Geismar home in August, pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity on Monday. Johnson, wearing an orange jail-issued jumpsuit and handcuffs, entered the plea before state Judge Thomas Kliebert Jr., of the 23rd Judicial District, at the parish courthouse in Gonzales. Johnson, along with Rusty Messer, 1 of his attorneys, and Assistant District Attorney Shawn Bush, met with the judge behind closed doors. After the private meeting, the judge, Johnson and the lawyers returned to the courtroom, where Johnson entered his plea. Messer said after the hearing that the defense was given 60 days to have Johnson "evaluated and make a report regarding his mental capacity at the time of the crime." The state will have 60 days to file a response, he said. Johnson, 38, is accused of beating his estranged wife, Monica Butler Johnson, 45, with a baseball bat Aug. 9 and injuring the arm of her 18-year-old son when he tried to defend his mother. David Johnson was under a restraining order to stay away from his wife when he allegedly killed her and left her body in the backyard of the family's home on Canterbury Park Drive in Geismar, police have said. David Johnson previously had been arrested in December 2014 on a count of domestic abuse strangulation, an incident considered to be a strong predictor that the victim of domestic violence ultimately will be killed by the abuser, police and victim advocates say. Monica Johnson, however, later requested the count be dropped against her estranged husband but then sought another protective order 6 months later, saying he was stalking her. The temporary restraining order issued was extended and a hearing had been scheduled for Aug. 24 - 2 weeks after Monica Johnson was killed - to consider extending it again. David Johnson was booked into Ascension Parish Jail on counts of 1st-degree murder, attempted 1st-degree murder, aggravated burglary with a weapon and violation of protective orders. An Ascension Parish grand jury in October indicted David Johnson on 1st-degree murder and violation of a protective order. Bush said at the time the case would move forward as a capital case, meaning his office was considering seeking the death penalty. David Johnson is being held at the Ascension Parish Jail without bail. (source: The Advocate) From rhalperi at smu.edu Tue Jul 12 09:44:34 2016 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Tue, 12 Jul 2016 09:44:34 -0500 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----NEV., CALIF., USA Message-ID: July 12 NEVADA: Death row's James Biela pushes for new trial James Biela was convicted for the 2008 murder of 19 year old Brianna Denison. It was one of the most sensational crimes in Northern Nevada at the time because for a time, there was no suspect or motive. Brianna Denison's body was not immediately found. She was eventually found February 15, 2008 approximately 4 weeks after disappearing. An autopsy would show she had been strangled and raped. In the spring of 2010 Biela was convicted of killing Denison and raping 2 other women. For that he received the death penalty plus multiple life sentences. His 2 new attorneys Edward Reed and Chris Oram gave several instances in court on July 11 2016, in which they say the Washoe County Public Defender's Office dropped the ball. They say the defense attorneys should have pressed harder for a change of venue considering all of the pre-trial publicity. One of Biela's public defender's at the time, Maizie Pusich, testified in court Monday. Saying, as a native, she was hard pressed to find a case more shocking - naming Darrin Mack, Cathy Woods, and Tamir Hamilton as trails that so fully captured the public's attention. Oram played a tape in court where he says Reno Police gave his client improper Miranda Rights. Oram says it was not only cause for an appeal but also a reason to request Biela's statements to police be thrown out. Biela's current defense team says the Washoe County Public Defender's Office should have pursued their own psychological evaluation of one of Biela's rape victims. The woman identified as Amanda C in court records, did not go to police immediately after her attack. There was no physical evidence available by the time she went to authorities. She identified James Biela as her attacker only after he was named a suspect in the Denison case. She claimed she was infected with herpes by Biela. In court it was shown that was not true. Oram also said in court the tipster who called Secret Witness about the case, which led to the conviction of Biela, should have been identified and compelled to testify during trial. Some of these issues have already been commented on by The Nevada Supreme Court when it upheld Biela's death sentence. Justices said there was nothing in the record that showed juror's decisions were a result of passion or prejudice. The court said Amanda C's testimony, where she identified Biela during trial as "the man who haunts my dreams," was sufficient to support his conviction. Biela's original trial lasted 3 1/2 weeks, there were 60 witnesses and the jury deliberated for 9 hours. His new attorneys may call several of the original players to the stand in this case. Which is why the court calendar has been marked off for 2 weeks. (source: KOLO TV news) CALIFORNIA: State Supreme Court overturns death penalty over judge's error The state Supreme Court upheld a Stockton man's conviction for a 1999 murder and robbery Monday but overturned his death sentence because the trial judge removed a prospective juror who said she was morally opposed to the death penalty but believed she could set her views aside. Although all jurors in capital cases must be willing to vote for a death sentence, "a prospective juror's conscientious objection to capital punishment is not by itself a sufficient basis for excluding that person from jury service," Justice Mariano-Florentino Cuellar said in the 7-0 ruling. The ruling entitles the defendant, Louis Zaragoza, to a penalty retrial in which a new jury would decide whether he should be sentenced to death or life in prison without parole. The victim, David Gaines, 36, was fatally shot while chasing a man who had grabbed a paper bag from the hands of Gaines' father, William, in front of their Stockton home in February 1999. The bag usually contained the day's receipts from the Gaines' liquor store, but on this day it held only a Pyrex bottle, the court said. Witnesses identified the thief as Zaragoza's brother, David, who was ruled mentally incompetent to stand trial. A San Joaquin County jury found that Louis Zaragoza was waiting nearby and shot David Gaines as he chased the thief with a canister of Mace. The state's high court unanimously rejected defense challenges to Zaragoza's convictions but said Superior Court Judge Thomas Teaford had wrongly removed a prospective juror, based solely on her answers to a pretrial questionnaire. Asked whether she had any religious or other personal convictions that would interfere with her ability to take part in a capital case, the woman said she did, and explained, "Don't feel I have the right to decide if a person is to die." Asked later whether her beliefs would have a substantial impact on her decision as a juror, she wrote, "Somewhat." But later in the questionnaire, she wrote that she would not automatically vote to acquit Zaragoza or sentence him to life in prison in order to avoid a death sentence. Asked if she could set her feelings aside and follow the law as the judge explained it, she said she could. Over a defense lawyer's objections, Teaford granted the prosecutor's request to dismiss the juror "for cause," saying her written answers showed "a substantial impairment" in her "ability to be neutral." But Cuellar said her answers, considered together, did not clearly show that she was unwilling or unable to follow the law. Under established court precedents, Cuellar said, a trial judge must allow such a juror to remain on the panel and answer questions that might clarify her views. If she showed a willingness to follow the judge's instructions, the prosecution could then use one of its limited number of challenges to remove her. The case is People vs. Zaragoza, S097886. (source: San Francisco Chronicle) USA: Feds' death-sentence appeal against cop-killer Ronell Wilson in limbo The government says a U.S. Supreme Court ruling in a Texas death-penalty case could impact its decision whether to challenge a federal judge's ruling sparing convicted cop-killer Ronell Wilson's life. The U.S. Justice Department needs more time to mull an appeal of Brooklyn federal court Judge Nicholas G. Garaufis' ruling earlier this year vacating the death sentence due to Wilson's intellectual disability, according to a motion filed Friday at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in Manhattan. The Texas case, involving a death-sentence imposed on Bobby James Moore in 1980 for slaying a 70-year-old Houston grocery clerk during a robbery, will come up for hearing and ruling during the high court's next term, starting in October. "The court's decision in Moore ... will likely implicate any determination of whether to appeal and, if any appeal were pursued, in resolving that appeal," wrote Assistant U.S. Attorney Amy Busa. In March, Brooklyn federal prosecutors filed a notice of appeal to preserve their right to formally contest Garaufis' ruling that spared Wilson's life. The U.S Justice Department has yet to decide whether to move forward with the appeal. In imposing a series of consecutive sentences of life without parole against Wilson, Garaufis said the U.S. Constitution "forbids the execution of intellectually disabled persons." Wilson, 34, was sentenced to death in 2013 in a penalty-phase retrial after Garaufis previously ruled the former Stapleton gang member was not mentally incapacitated. The defendant was convicted of murdering Detectives Rodney J. Andrews, 34, and James V. Nemorin, 36, during an undercover gun buy-and-bust operation in Tompkinsville on March 10, 2003. A prior Brooklyn federal court jury had sentenced Wilson to death in 2007. 3 years later, an appeals court tossed out the sentence due to prosecutorial errors during the original penalty phase of the trial. The convictions stood, and Wilson was retried for the penalty phase only. Jurors again voted for death. Wilson appealed, and in July 2014, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals ordered Garaufis to reconsider Wilson's claim of intellectual disability in light of a U.S. Supreme Court ruling in a Florida case. The country's highest court found that Florida had adopted a too-rigid cutoff for IQ test results in deciding who could be spared the death penalty due to intellectual disabilities. In his March ruling, Garaufis said Wilson had demonstrated "significant defects in adaptive functioning" which met the legal standard for proving intellectual disability. Garaufis also said those issues, dealing with a broad array of abilities, skills and behavior, manifested themselves before Wilson turned 18. In the Texas case, courts in that state relied on a 1992 definition of intellectual disability to deem Moore eligible for the death penalty. His lawyers argue the professional psychiatric community now finds such standards outdated. (source: silive.com) ******************* Defense confirms plan to show mental defect in Dylann Roof trial Defense lawyers plan to provide evidence of a mental condition when a federal jury discusses Dylann Roof's fate, court filings stated Monday. Roof, who is white, would face the death penalty if convicted of certain charges in the June 2015 shooting deaths of 9 black worshippers at Emanuel AME Church in Charleston. In hopes of getting a lifetime prison sentence for the 22-year-old, his defense team can show the jurors evidence of mitigating factors. Monday's filing confirmed that the attorneys plan to present testimony and documentation of a "mental disease or defect or any other mental condition." The development was expected. Lawyers defending Roof from a separate murder case in state court already have said that experts are doing a mental health evaluation. That trial, set to start in January, had been delayed so the examination could be finished. In U.S. District Court, Roof was indicted on 33 charges, including hate crimes and religion rights violations. The Nov. 7 proceeding could last 6 weeks. The penalty phase alone could take 2 weeks. Prosecutors on Monday also responded to the lawyers' request for a "bill of particulars," or detailed statement of the accusations. They asked Judge Richard Gergel to order the filing because, they argued in part, Roof's indictment didn't fully explain how the crime was connected with interstate commerce, a component that would make the shooting a federal case. In the response, Assistant U.S. Attorney Nathan Williams said the indictment already mentioned Roof's use of the internet, along with the gun and ammunition he bought for the crime. The extra requirement would give the defense a "script" of the prosecution's case well ahead of the trial, he wrote. The judge did not immediately rule on the issue. (soruce: The Post and Corrier) ************** Donald Fell's defense team asks court to rule death penalty unconstitutional----Federal judge opens 2 weeks of hearings in Rutland Lawyers for Donald Fell, a Vermont man accused of capital murder, are asking a federal judge to strike down the death penalty, which prosecutors plan to seek in Fell's upcoming re-trial. Judge Geoffrey Crawford opened what is expected to be two weeks of hearings on the question of whether the death penalty violates the U.S. Constitution's prohibition on "cruel and unusual punishment." Fell has been down this road before. He was convicted of the 2000 kidnapping and murder of Rutland grandmother Terry King and later sentenced to death. Later, during an appeal, the judge determined the misconduct of a lone juror in the case required him to toss out the conviction and order a new trial. The 2nd trial is not expected before next year. Fell was not in the courtroom as the death penalty hearing got underway Monday though several of King's family members are attending. The 1st witness was a University of California psychologist, Craig Haney, who said inmates held for long periods in solitary confinement and on death row suffer stress and psychological harm. Lori Hibbard, King's daughter, was unsympathetic. "It seems like a waste of time," Hibbard said outside the courthouse, noting a federal appeals court has previously approved imposition of the death penalty in Fell's case. "He should've already been executed long ago. He did get the death penalty and I don't think we should be doing this all over again, but, we are, and I'm going to be here every day," Hibbard said. (source: WPTZ news) ******************* Expert: death penalty inhumane Keeping federal death row inmates in solitary confinement for years and sometimes decades, deprived of human interaction and touch, is inhumane, according to the 1st defense witness in a federal hearing in Rutland on Monday. "According to the National Commission on Correctional Health Care, anything greater than 15 days is inhumane, cruel and degrading treatment," said Dr. Craig Haney, a professor in the University of California Santa Cruz psychology department. The 1st day in a 10-day hearing regarding the constitutionality of the death penalty in Donald Fell's capital case began in Rutland federal court Monday morning. Judge Geoffrey W. Crawford, who is presiding over Fell's 2nd death penalty trial in the carjacking and kidnapping death of a North Clarendon woman, said argument about the death penalty serves as a sort of symbolic language. "Both sides argue about right and wrong, nature and nurture, determinism and free will, and the consequences of our actions," Crawford said in his opening remarks. In framing the importance of the hearing that will run from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. each day until July 22, Crawford said this is an opportunity to hear from the scholars themselves, and question them. "And create a rich, factual record for higher courts with broader authority to rule on the big questions," he said. According to Haney, public opposition to the death penalty is increasing and courts are recognizing its flaws, citing unreliable and cruel outcomes. Haney described what he called a social death among inmates in prolonged solitary confinement. "They experience a deep joylessness and have lost the capacity to regain it. ... The self begins to recede," he said. Fell, 36, was convicted by a federal jury in 2005 and sentenced to death in 2006 for carjacking and kidnapping which resulted in the death of Terry King, 53, in 2000. But claims of juror misconduct got his conviction and sentence overturned and he was granted a new trial, scheduled to begin on Feb. 27, 2017. If convicted a 2nd time, Fell could be sentenced to death again. He currently remains lodged at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn. Vermont U.S. Attorney Eric Miller said the death penalty is justified in Fell's case. "The defendant, Donald Fell, committed the offenses in an especially heinous, cruel, and depraved manner in that it involved torture and serious abuse of the victim," Miller wrote. "Donald Fell abducted and murdered, or participated in the abduction and murder of Teresa King who was particularly vulnerable. ... (Fell) is likely to commit criminal acts of violence in the future." In Monday's hearing, Haney testified all day. In a series of photographs, Haney walked Crawford and those in the courtroom through the U.S. Penitentiary at Terre Haute, Indiana, where Fell was previously lodged in the Special Confinement Unit. As part of his testimony, Haney showed images of Fell's cell with a bunk, shower, commode, chair, desk and television. "It's one of the neatest cells I've seen," Haney said. While housed in the SCU, Fell used a 9-inch handmade "metal shank" to stab a fellow inmate in the neck, according to Federal Bureau of Prison records. "On February 24, 2012, inmate Donald Fell assaulted inmate Roane (James Roane Jr.) with a homemade sharpened weapon," according to a memorandum from Warden Charles L. Lockett. "Based on this information, for mutual safety, I recommend that ... Donald Fell be separated from inmate James Roane." As part of his testimony, Haney also showed a picture of Roane's room, which was littered with books, papers, food and towels, a stark contrast to Fell's cell. Haney said the image of Roane's room was taken after the stabbing and its disheveled state could have been a result of the stabbing. Court documents report that immediately after the stabbing, Fell was escorted to the door of the Lower B Range of the SCU by an inmate and he still had the shank in his hand. According to Haney's testimony, death-row inmates are housed in either Range A, B, or C, and he detailed, with images, the living conditions on each level. He showed cages used for inmate exercise, and church services. Inmates never see the outside and, despite having windows in their cells, the windows are opaque and let in light, but nothing can be seen, Haney said. "This is severe," he said. Assistant U.S. Attorney Sonia Jimenez asked Haney detailed questions about a Colorado study that found adverse reactions could not be attributed to solitary confinement. "I believe the flaws in the study were fatal," he said. The defense will continue presenting witnesses this week. (source: Barre Montpelier Times Argus) From rhalperi at smu.edu Tue Jul 12 09:45:15 2016 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Tue, 12 Jul 2016 09:45:15 -0500 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide Message-ID: July 12 IRAN: A Prisoner Scheduled to Be Executed Within 3 Days Mehdi Pakgoftar, from Ilam is scheduled to be executed on drug related charges within 3 days. His elderly parents have sit in front of the Head of Judiciary's Office since 2 months ago and insist on their son's innocence. They say the Supreme Leader's representative has also asked the authorities to pardon him but it was rejected and he will be executed on Wednesday. According to the report of Human Rights Activists News Agency in Iran (HRANA), Mehdi Pakgoftar, 34, from Fatemieh village of Ilam city is going to be executed on drug related charges in the Central Prison of Ilam on Wednesday. A close source to his family told HRANA's reporter: "Mehdi has been imprisoned since 2010 in Central Prison of Ilam. His family say the Supreme Leader's representative has also asked the authorities to pardon him but it was rejected and he will be executed on Wednesday." "He has been charged with smuggling 10 kg of crystal which was discovered from a friend of him. The friend has confessed that the drugs belonged to Mehdi. Though it was not so." The source said about his charges. "His parents are 70 and 68 years old. He mother suffers from MS. They have have sit in front of the Head of Judiciary's Office since 2 months ago and insist on their son's innocence." The source stated in the end. (source: HRA News Agency) ************** More Than 12 Prisoners Scheduled For Execution The Coming Days After a short break on the ocassion of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, the executions have resumed in Iran. At least 12 prisoners are scheduled to be executed in 3 different Iranian prisons in the coming days. According to Iran Human Rights' (IHR) sources 10-13 prisoners of Rajaishahr prison (Karaj, west of Tehran) have been transferred to solitary confinement in preparation for execution. The prisoners who are all convicted of murder were transferred to solitary confinement on Sunday July 10 and are scheduled to be executed on Wednesday (12-13 July). 6 of the prisoners are identified as: Saeed Javad, Hassan Ghadimi and Mohammad Akbari from Ward 1, Faribors Azizpour, Hassan Mahdilou and Seyed Mohammad Taheri from hall 3 of Section 10 of Rajaishahr prison. According to information received by IHR one prison identified as "Hadi Pashaei" has been transferred to solitary confinement in the prison of Maragheh (Northwestern Iran) in preparation of execution in the coming days. He is allegedly convicted of drug-related charges and was arrested 6 years ago. Four other prisoners from the same prison, identified as "Vali Samani" and "Mehdi Samani" (brothers), "Mehdi Baziari" and "Masoud Ghasemzadeh" are scheduled to be executed in near future. Also these prisoners are convicted of drug-related charges. Website of the "Human Rights Activists News Agency" (HRANA) reported yesterday that one prisoner identified as "Mehdi Pak Goftar" is scheduled to be executed in the prison of Ilam (western Iran). The prisoner is convicted of drug-related charges and the execution is scheduled for this week, said the report. (source: Iran Human Rights) NIGERIA: Death penalty: Group hails Delta govt A group, the Citizens United for the Rehabilitation of Errants (CURE-Nigeria), has praised the decision of the Delta State House of Assembly to abolish death penalty for convicted kidnappers in the state. The group's Executive Director, Sylvester Uhaa, who described CURE-Nigeria as "a justice/prison reforms and human rights organisation," called on the Senate and House of Representatives to take a cue from the state and drop the proposed legislation to impose capital punishment on kidnappers in the country. Uhaa, in a statement in Abuja, noted that available data and lessons from other jurisdiction show that the death penalty does not deter crime. "The death penalty is only an emotional and violent response to crime, which does not really solve crime, but perpetuate more violence and create more victims," Uhaa, an advocate for the universal abolishment of the death penalty and a Commonwealth Scholar in International Human Rights Law at the University of Oxford, United Kingdom, said. Uhaa urged the Federal Government to expunge capital punishment from it laws in line with the call of the Secretary General of the United Nations (UN), Ban Ki-moon on all countries to abolish the death penalty. He called on stakeholders to address the causes of crime, such as unemployment, corruption, and exclusion of people as some of the ways to reduce the high rate of kidnapping and other crimes in the country. (source: thenationonlineng.net) INDONESIA: The Perversity of Death Penalty In 1 of the first scenes of Krzysztof Kieslowski's 1987 "A Short Film About Killing," a young lawyer paraphrases the words of Karl Marx: "Since the days of Cain, no punishment has ameliorated the world nor intimidated it from committing crimes." Several years ago we showed it with friends from the Freedom Institute in Jakarta. The screening was a special one to me as it brought my thoughts back to Poland, where in the 1980s the reception of this film had generated the movement for the abolition of capital punishment. It became almost instantly an artistic commentary to the political reality. In Jakarta, the film was just an excuse to discuss death penalty as such. We did not need to relate to politics, as back then Indonesia had de facto abolished capital punishment and none of us would expect that the moratorium would end in the process of democratisation in the country. This has recently been proven wrong. We are all familiar with a variety of arguments against capital punishment: it fails to deter crimes, it sets vengeance as the priority of justice, it puts innocent lives at risk, it violates the right to live and much more. To each of these a counterargument will be found, the most powerful of which employs the word "retribution." Retribution is the means to restore fairness and balance between burdens and benefits, whereby unfair advantage gained by the person who disrupted the balance would be taken away. That there is justice in retribution we might have to accept with common sense. But with common sense we would inevitably accept that handing down death sentence in retentionist countries for a range of crimes, not just for murder, is by no means a retributive measure. Can the same be said about murder then? It is not, unless serial murderers would, for each of their crimes, be tortured till near-death experience before the actual execution. But this is too cruel, isn't it? Would we do that? By our own hands? No? By whose hands then? All of the methods of execution are obviously likely to cause enormous suffering. Even if at some point in history several of these methods had been considered "humane." And years after that they had proven to be exceptionally cruel. Thus, quite naturally the debates over capital punishment usually turn to the application of the death penalty. Most of us, abolitionist or not, stand against cruel treatments, not only of people but generally of all sentient beings. What we do about it is another thing, yet by principle we are against it. And so was the 18th century physician Joseph-Ignace Guillotin, who proposed the use of a machine later named after him, as a humanitarian way of putting an end to lives of people sentenced to death. He believed that the "simple mechanics" of guillotine lessened the cruelty of execution and saved the convicts from excruciating pain. It was a philanthropic machine aimed to serve the dignity of man. Today the use of this once considered benevolent and progressive instrument is generally acknowledged a crime against humanity. Medical examinations upon which Albert Camus based his essay "Reflections on the Guillotine" (1957) have shown that death by decapitation is a slow process accompanied by unfathomable agony that lasts several minutes or even hours. Death is not immediate: intestines ripple, heart produces incomplete movements, muscles fibrillate, and eyes in the severed head remain clear. The report that Camus quoted is much longer and, as he said, one cannot read it without blanching. Yet, while probably reinforcing our distaste against the application of the capital punishment, it does not touch the perversity of the death penalty itself. And neither did Camus in his other works, despite the acutely insightful abolitionist discourse he upheld since the publication of The Stranger (1942). It took another great Frenchman to approach the death sentence in terms of a paradoxical finality. In 1999 to 2000 and 2000 to 2001 Jacques Derrida's seminars at Ecole des hautes Etudes en sciences sociales (EHESS) in Paris were devoted to the subject of death penalty. Since last year the 1st part of these seminars has been available in English as The Death Penalty, Volume I: The Seminars of Jacques Derrida. Derrida sees death penalty as the only example of death whose instant is calculable by a machine, by all sorts of machines: the law, the penal code, the anonymous 3rd party, the calendar, the clock, the gallows, the syringe, the guillotine or other apparatus which puts an end to life. The calculated decision by which life ends, paradoxically, is putting an end to finitude that belongs to life by its very nature. My life is finite but I do not know, I cannot know and I would rather not want to know when I am going to die. Death penalty, the mechanically calculated moment of death, deprives one of life, but also of the experience of finitude, it takes control over time and future. Only a finite living being can have a future, be exposed to its uncertainty and incalculability. In one of the last scenes of Kieslowski's Short Film About Killing, a prison guard interrupts the last conversation between the convict and his lawyer, "Sir, the prosecutor is asking if you are finished now." The lawyer stands up, approaches the guard and says, "Please tell the prosecutor that I will never say: now." The perversity lies not in the execution of a death penalty, but in its very principle that claims mechanical and, thus, inhuman control over something essentially human. (source: Commmentary; Natalia Laskowska is a PhD candidate from Leiden University and Jakarta Globe staff) TAIWAN: INTERVIEW: Fighting for the Innocent on Death Row in Taiwan Edward White is an International Editor with The News Lens International. Lin Hsin-yi, executive director the Taiwan Alliance to End the Death Penalty (TAEDP), believes that at least 3 people who are currently on death row in Taiwan are innocent. The organization and the lawyers it works with have reviewed all of the judgments in which the death penalty has been handed down over the past 15 years. In addition to the 3 cases identified so far, Lin says there is reason to believe there have been many more miscarriages of justice. In an interview with The News Lens International at TAEDP's Taipei office, Lin discusses the difficulties activists and lawyers have in gaining access to case records, why pressure from local activists and international diplomats has failed to change government policy, and details TAEDP's new strategy for influencing the government. The News Lens International (TNLI): To start with, how many people in Taiwan currently face the death penalty? Lin Hsin-yi: Right now there are 41 death row inmates, where the death sentence was confirmed. If the Minister of Justice signs the execution order, they can be executed at any time. TNLI: What is the process that the Minister of Justice takes, after a final Supreme Court decision, before signing an execution order? L.H-Y: There is no law to say that he or she has to sign the execution order. The only rule is if he or she signs the order, the execution must take place within 3 days. There is no law that says once the sentence is finalized then the execution must happen. The Minister of Justice, he or she can decide not to sign the execution order. TNLI: I would like to come back to the current Minister of Justice later on, but first can you talk about how Taiwan uses the death penalty in comparison to other countries in Asia? L.H-Y: We just went to Oslo for the 6th World Congress Against the Death Penalty - the biggest congress for abolitionists. People think that in Taiwan the situation is not so bad compared to Southeast Asia or even Japan, because the execution number is not increasing - maybe it's decreasing a little - and we don't use the death penalty for drugs and terrorism. TNLI: Just to clarify, that is because under international law, the death penalty should only be for the most serious harmful crimes, and drugs aren't considered part of that? L.H-Y: Yes, that is right. Transparency in Asia is not good - not only in Japan and Taiwan, but also Southeast Asian countries. We don't know much about the death row inmates. For example, in Taiwan and Japan, the government will not tell the family or the lawyer when the execution will happen. In Southeast Asia, it is very difficult for them to meet with death row inmates. For us, we have had a moratorium for 4 years. You can see that from 2000 - when power switched for the 1st time from KMT to DPP - the president, Chen Shui-bian, first announced Taiwan is going to abolish the death penalty gradually. The moratorium started in 2006. In 2008, Ma Ying jeou said that Taiwan would follow the international human rights standards. In 2009, we passed the 2 [international] covenants, so that it become our domestic law. >From that trend, Taiwan was going towards abolishing the death penalty. According to the [International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights], if a country ratifies the ICCPR it means that you are going towards abolishing the death penalty. Currently, in Taiwan, the politicians will say 'the ICCPR says we can only use the death penalty for the most serious crimes, but it did not say we could not execute people.' It is very ironic. We have already had a moratorium and signed the ICCPR. The government had given a commitment. But then, after that, the executions reopened in 2010. TLNI: Obviously, the public sentiment over crime was a factor when the executions restarted. What is your view on why the majority of Taiwanese support capital punishment? L.H-Y: Actually, we did a public opinion survey in 2014. You can see that there is a problem with the surveys; mostly, they make a phone call and ask one or 2 questions about whether you support the death penalty. Usually, this kind of survey takes place after some serious crime. Of course, most people will say 'I support the death penalty.' We decided to survey with [Academia Sinica]. We interviewed more than 2,000 people, with a very long questionnaire. The major finding is: if people have more information about the death penalty, they will be more against it. My view on: 'Why does the public want the death penalty so badly?' It is because the government did not provide more information. The government says, 'We cannot abolish the death penalty because of public opinion.' But from my view, the public opinion is not 'we want the death penalty.' If you analyze the survey very carefully, you will understand that public opinion is more complicated. The government should do the research and give an alternative to the public. They haven't tried to have a strategy, a policy, a real alternative. TNLI: Following the release of your survey results, has there been growth in support for the death penalty abolition movement in Taiwan? L.H-Y: We released the survey at an international conference, and we plan to release more analysis on it, but it is not published yet. We did provide the information to the Minister of Justice, but the impact was not big. Our plan for next year is to have more grassroots, local discussions about this. For the people around Taiwan, most people they don't really think about this question. We will have 30 or 40 events all over Taiwan. We will go to places where maybe they haven't had this kind of discussion before. We will not just discuss "should we have the death penalty or not," we will discuss the alternatives - like life sentence without parole, or life sentence with the chance of parole after 25 years. From the survey, we know that if people have an alternative, they will choose that. Right now, we are discussing how to make the survey easier to understand. We don't want to publish an academic book. It is a pity that the release of that report didn't have much impact on the government or the public, but we will use the survey to do more. TNLI: We have gone from the KMT to the DPP-led government, they have only been in charge for a short time, but what are the early signals from the DPP on this issue? L.H-Y: The Minister of Justice, Chiu Tai-san, has not said anything clearly [on this issue]. He seems more focused on prison reform and the national judicial reform. Of course the President and the Minister of Justice are important, because they have power, but we also have a new congress. I think the new lawmakers are much more willing to deal with these questions - maybe not [the question of] abolishing the death penalty right now, but they will consider prison reform and the alternatives [to the death penalty]. TNLI: You mentioned judicial reform. In terms of how this applies to the death penalty, have there been miscarriages of justice in Taiwan, and if so what are the problems in the system that causes these results? L.H-Y: Last year we reviewed all the [Supreme Court] death penalty judgments from 2000, 75 cases and 68 judgments - in some cases there were 2 death row inmates. Right now we are working on three cases - within the 41 current death row inmates - and we believe they are innocent. Chiou Ho-shun, he was in detention for 23 years then his death penalty was confirmed in 2011. He is now 56, which means 1/2 his life he has been in prison, for a crime we believe he didn't commit. The Control Yuan, [Taiwan's ombudsman], says that the police tortured him. There are records of the torture - no one can believe it, but it happened, it is very serious. Another case is Cheng Hsing-tse. He was charged with [the 2002] killing a policeman in KTV [karaoke bar]. We found evidence he too was tortured. This year his lawyers asked for a retrial, and that was successful. It is now in the retrial process, so the case is basically reopened. This time the prosecutors are on our side, they believe he is innocent too. TNLI: If the prosecutors now think he is innocent, who is making the case against him, how is there a retrial? L.H-Y: It is something new for us, too. This is a very strange situation, the prosecutors and [defense] lawyer are on the same side. But the victims' families have lawyers. TNLI: And the victims' families still want to prosecute? L.H-Y: Yes. For them, if was not Cheng Hsing-tse, then who? They have believed for 14 years that he murdered the policeman. We hope that from the court hearing and the evidence we provide, maybe they will understand. TNLI: And the 3rd case? L.H-Y: The 3rd is Hsieh Chih-hung. There were 2 offenders, and they were both sentenced to death. We don't think there is enough evidence to show they committed the crime together, but he was at the crime scene, he was there. This case is weaker than the other 2. The first 2 have very clear evidence of torture, but the 3rd one the torture is not so clear. We have found out some things, but it is a more difficult case. TNLI: So you have suspicions he was tortured during the interrogation? L.H-Y: Yes, but in the 1st case we have the [audio] record, the 2nd we have the photos and the doctor's records, the 3rd one is not so clear. TNLI: These are 3 cases out of 41, and you mentioned earlier the difficulty in accessing people on death row. Looking around this office, you have 3 full-time employees and some interns. You obviously don't have endless resources to look at all the cases. Do you think that if you could look closely at other cases you find more issues as well? L.H-Y: Yes. Let me explain a little of our background. We were formed in 2003, there were only volunteers. Since 2006, we have co-operated with the Legal Aid Foundation, and since then we have had more information about the cases. We know their names, we know where they are and we started to communicate with the death row inmates. In 2007, we had our 1st fulltime staff, me. The way we work is, when we have a case we find a lawyer and money is paid by the Legal Aid Foundation - not very much, but it helps. If we can start to help them from the beginning, then maybe the decision of the trial will not be so bad. But because of our resources, we can only help the urgent ones when they are facing execution, and the lawyers can help them with a constitutional review, or a retrial or an ordinary appeal. Recently, we have done more lawyer training. In Taiwan, the lawyers do not do a lot of training in international law. And now we try to work on the cases from the start of the process. If we see a murder in the news, we try to connect with the Legal Aid Foundation to see if [the accused] has a lawyer. If he doesn't have a lawyer, we try to arrange a team of 3 lawyers to work on the case. We hope that if we work from the beginning then we will not have a death sentence. TNLI: So you are able to offer better support to the more recent cases? L.H-Y: Yes. But still we right now, for every confirmed [death penalty] case, we have a lawyer to review the older files. But some cases are very old, we try to get files from the Ministry of Justice but [the files] are not good enough. Some lawyers want more records and information about investigations - [audio] records of interrogations. The papers may say everything is good, but if you listen to the sound recording it is different. TNLI: The lawyers are finding differences between the written records and what was actually said? And the Ministry of Justice won't provide all the original recordings? L.H-Y: Some [requests for recordings] were successful, some were not. For the lawyers who are dealing with the old cases, it is not that easy to find enough information to prove a case was wrong. I believe there are a few cases that have a chance [the accused] was innocent, but we don't have enough information. Of course, there are other cases where they are not innocent, but still the death sentence is not the sentence for them. So we can still find a lot of problems in the old cases. TNLI: You have these 41 cases, and at any time, essentially, the Minister of Justice could sign the execution warrants. Under the previous Minister of Justice, who was pushing these death warrants and why? L.H-Y: You must know Cheng Chieh, the MRT case, and the execution. When a final death sentence is confirmed, normally there will be time for the lawyers to appeal. For the MRT case, when the Supreme Court gave the final decision of the death sentence it issued a press release [leading to the death warrant signed and the execution quickly carried out]. Usually, it takes more than 10 days or one month, and then, when the lawyer gets the final judgment, they can do something. I don't think there is really public pressure. Of course someone will say, 'He should be executed immediately.' TNLI: This is the victims' families, their lawyers? L.H-Y: No, just people. This was the 1st time this kind of case happened in Taiwan, so people are worried about it. For other cases - murder over money, arguments, love - we know the reason. For the MRT case, we don't know the reason. TNLI: These are the so-called random killings? L.H-Y: Yes, people are worried about that. So people say the trial must be quick and he must be sentenced to death and executed. At this time though, we knew there was a new Minister of Justice coming in one month. [Then-minister] Luo Ying-shay ] did not have to do this. TNLI: The criticism at the time was Luo was trying to gain popular support, so the final decision in these cases has become politicized? L.H-Y: Yes. It was not necessary for her; she has no chance to be appointed to any [future] position from the government. In the other executions, when a case is finalized there is a prosecutor in the Ministry of Justice who will give the suggestion to the Minister of Justice that one should be executed. You can see from 2010 to 2015, every year we have 1 execution [round] where 4 of 5 people are executed. There is always a political reason. It is always following a political issue - Ma Ying-jeou wanting to save his public support. TNLI: Do you think, given public support for executions, this will make it difficult for the new minister of justice? L.H-Y: In Europe, they abolished the death penalty because of political will. At that time, the public opinion supported the death penalty, but the politicians led. In Taiwan, this is impossible, because the politicians will not go against public opinion, because they are so afraid of losing votes. This is why we really want to talk to the public. We know that only public opinion can help us to impact the politicians. But right now, about 80% of people support the death penalty. But as I say, if they have an alternative they may change their opinion. That is why we are trying to discuss with the public to change their ideas. TNLI: Every time there is an execution the European Union representatives in Taiwan and others in the international community write papers and try to lobby the government. What impact does that have? L.H-Y: I think it helps. Take the 2010 executions. At that time, the Minister of Justice, Tseng Yung-fu, executed 4 people and said he was going to execute 44. Then the E.U. lobbied and used all the diplomatic tools, and then it was stopped at four, not 44. I think it really helped. Maybe after that, each time the affect is not so strong because the government gets used to it. Still, if the E.U. said nothing about this, I think the [Ma] government would have executed more people. They are not only critical of the government, but they try to help. They have judicial exchange programmes with our judges, which I think is very good. Judges won't listen to lawyers or NGOs, but they will listen to other judges. TNLI: Finally, after the most recent of the so-called "random" killings, some commentators pointed to issues surrounding how mental health is treated in the judicial system. Do you think this is also important in discussions about the death penalty in Taiwan? L.H-Y: Yes. We do training to help the lawyers to argue this issue in the court. But right now judgments on mental issues are not very consistent; there are 2 opposite opinions on this from the court. Another problem is the testing of mental problems. So we are trying to talk to the doctors and to the lawyers and try to discuss what the best way is to approach this issue. (source: thenewslens.com) From rhalperi at smu.edu Wed Jul 13 10:19:48 2016 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Wed, 13 Jul 2016 10:19:48 -0500 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, N.C., GA., FLA., OHIO Message-ID: July 13 TEXAS: Death penalty decision looming for capital murder suspect One of the men accused of gunning down a San Antonio couple on Good Friday will have to wait a few weeks to find out if he'll face the death penalty. During an arraignment this morning, Gilbert Ruiz pleaded not guilty to capital murder charges. The prosecutor was given 30 days to determine if they'll seek the death penalty. The other option for the prosecution would be to seek a life sentence. Meanwhile, Ruiz remains in jail on a $1 million bond. Police say he was involved in the fatal shooting of Elizabeth Martinez and her husband Eric Rodriguez on North Shea Parkway. A 2nd suspect, Daniel Martinez, is also charged with capital murder. He's is also in the Nueces County Jail. (source: KRIS TV news) NORTH CAROLINA: State to seek death penalty in Mount Airy murder case The state will seek the death penalty against Jordan Ross Lowdermilk, according to statements made in Surry County Superior Court on Tuesday. Lowdermilk, 28, of Dobson, is accused of killing Claudia Smith, an 80-year-old Mount Airy woman. He was charged with 1st-degree murder after Smith was found dead in her Franklin Street apartment in May. The defendant was also charged in connection with other crimes that allegedly occurred the night of Smith's death, which include multiple break-ins and stabbing an I-77 motorist. On July 5, a grand jury indicted Lowdermilk with 1st-degree murder, attempted 1st-degree murder, 2 counts of 1st-degree burglary, felony larceny, assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill or seriously injure, breaking or entering a motor vehicle and misdemeanor injury to personal property. North Carolina rules give prosecutors the discretion to choose if 1st-degree murder cases will be tried capitally. If they choose to do so, notice of their intent to pursue the death penalty must be provided to the defendant within 10 days of indictment. The presiding Superior Court judge must also order the parties to appear within 45 days for a Rule 24 pretrial conference where the state may announce the existence of aggravating factors it believes present. The district attorney's office filed notice of its intent to seek the death penalty and request for Rule 24 hearing on July 11. In Superior Court on Tuesday, Assistant District Attorney Tim Watson informed Senior Resident Superior Court Judge A. Moses Massey of the state's intention to seek the death penalty against Lowdermilk. Watson indicated that Lowdermilk's attorney, J.D. Byers, had been served notice of the state's intent, and had consented to a Rule 24 conference. Massey noted for the record the state's intent and ordered the conference scheduled for Aug. 30. Death penalty According to the N.C. Department of Public Safety website, there have been no executions in the state since 2006. "There is still a de facto moratorium on executions," UNC School of Government Professor Jeff Welty said Tuesday in an email. Until 2015, North Carolina statute required a licensed physician be present at executions. In 2007, the North Carolina Medical Board determined that doctors participating in lethal injections violate the code of ethics of their profession. Following a N.C. Supreme Court ruling, in 2009 the board stopped taking disciplinary action against physicians for participating in an execution, according to the organization's website. The N.C. Governor signed the Restoring Proper Justice Act into law in August 2015, which authorizes "a medical professional other than a physician" to monitor a lethal injection at an execution. One factor possibly contributing to a "de facto moratorium" on executions includes litigation about whether the lethal injection process violates the 8th Amendment prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment, Welty said. "Continued uncertainty about the status of the Racial Justice Act and whether its repeal applies retroactively to inmates who filed claims under the Act when it still existed," also may play a role. "To be clear," he said, "there's nothing that prevents a jury from returning a death sentence - but right now, such sentences are not being carried out." Currently, there are 150 inmates on death row in North Carolina, according to N.C. DPS information. As of January 1, 2016, North Carolina had the 6th-highest number of death row inmates among states that allow the death penalty, according to information available from the Death Penalty Information Center (DPIC). North Carolina is tied with 2 other states as the 5th most exonerations at nine since 1973, according to DPIC. 1 Surry County inmate, who was convicted on 2 counts of 1st-degree murder in 1995, is currently on death row, according to N.C. DPS information. 3 Surry County inmates were executed between 1984 and 2006, according to N.C. DPS. (source: The Mount Airy News) GEORGIA----impending execution Lawyers describe violent childhood of man set to die Thursday The jury that decided decades ago that John Wayne Conner should die knew nothing of the frightening path he traveled as a child - a path that led him to become a killer in his 20s, his lawyers say. Conner, who has been on death row for 34 years, is scheduled to die by lethal injection at 7 p.m. Thursday. If he is put to death, the 60-year-old man will be the 6th person Georgia has executed this year, more than any other in year since the current death penalty law was adopted 40 years ago. On Wednesday, Conner's lawyers will meet with the State Board of Pardons and Paroles to make a case for commuting his death sentence to life in prison without the possibility of parole. Later in the day, the Telfair County prosecutor will present his argument for carrying out the execution as scheduled. If the jurors at his trial had known of Conner's horrific childhood, the lawyers wrote in a clemency petition filed with the parole board, they might have shown mercy when they decided his fate for the 1982 murder of J.T. White. "A child's sense of normalcy is defined not by the outside world's social norms, but rather by his immediate family and home life," the clemency petition said. "For young John Wayne Conner, normalcy included extraordinary familial violence that frequently involved knives and guns; regular drug and alcohol abuse; and brutal physical, sexual and emotional abuse." Those circumstances, the clemency petition said, led Conner "into the pattern modeled by those in his family." The lawyers wrote that they were not recounting the details of Conner's life to excuse the murder of White but as an explanation of how Conner came to be a killer. Conner, then 25, and White, 29, had spent the evening of Jan. 9, 1982, at a party, and wanted to keep drinking once they returned to Conner's house in Milan. The 2 men walked to a neighbor's house in search of a ride to the liquor store, but the neighbor refused. They were walking back to Conner's house when the pair got into a fight; White said he wanted to have sex with Conner's girlfriend, Beverly Bates. Conner beat White with a quart bottle and an oak tree branch. Leaving White in a ditch, Conner went directly home and told Bates they needed to leave town. On their way out of town, the couple stopped at the ditch so Conner could be sure White was dead. Bates told investigators Conner walked into the woods and moments later she heard a thud. Conner then told him he was sure. Conner and Bates were arrested the next day. The attorneys wrote in the petition that Conner's abusive father had taught him to be violent, but that information was not presented at trial nor was it included in his appeals that followed. "Imagine a man who evokes fear and repugnance from an entire community," the petition said. The petition said Carroll Conner slit a man's throat after the man brushed against the arm of Conner's pregnant wife. They also said that Carroll Conner, while serving overseas during World War II, beheaded a man in a movie theater for sitting in the seat between him and his brother. The petition said Conner's father stabbed his brother and father-in-law, sexually assaulted his daughters and cut up his wife "like a jigsaw puzzle." Conner, called "Shorty" by his family, was routinely beaten and mocked for his "limited intellectual functioning," the petition said. And sometimes Conner and his siblings slept in the woods to avoid their father, his lawyers wrote, citing accounts by some of Conner's brothers and sisters. They were so poor that for many of his early years, the family home did not have indoor plumbing. The petition said Conner dealt with his violent upbringing by using drugs and alcohol, and tried to kill himself with an overdose and also by hanging. Conner's defense attorney failed him as well, the lawyers wrote. "Mr. Conner was represented at trial by a young appointed attorney, who was wholly inexperienced in capital defense and neglected to investigate Mr. Conner's mental health, cognitive functioning or violent and traumatic family background," according to the petition. The lawyer put on no defense and did not call witnesses during the sentencing phase of the trial. That information also was not included in appeals until now, the petition said. The petition notes that prison had made Conner a better man, that he has found religion and has taken up painting; they attached a copy of his artwork to the petition. "John Wayne Conner is a testament to the rehabilitative process," his lawyers wrote. "Despite being on death row for the last 34 years without hope for release, Mr. Conner has transformed himself from a violent young man with severe substance abuse problems into a peaceful and productive member of the prison community." (source: myajc.com) FLORIDA: Supreme Court Continues Mulling Death Penalty Law The Florida Supreme Court moved quietly into an annual summer break last week. In releasing its last regular batch of opinions until Aug. 25, the court left unresolved questions about issues such as the constitutionality of the state's death-penalty sentencing laws. Justices have been inundated with arguments in recent months about Florida's death-penalty sentencing system. The arguments are rooted in a January U.S. Supreme Court ruling that essentially said the state's system was unconstitutional because it gave too much power to judges, instead of juries, in sentencing inmates to death. The Legislature and Gov. Rick Scott scrambled to approve changes to address the U.S. Supreme Court ruling, which came in a case known as Hurst v. Florida. The new state law requires 10 of 12 jurors to vote for death, before the sentence can be imposed. Senate President Andy Gardiner says his chamber initially wanted the measure to require a unanimous jury decision, but the Senate compromised with the House in order to pass something. "You are talking about somebody's life, but the alternative is that you get nothing done," Gardiner said. "So, you have to come to some resolution to make sure that the House and the Senate are comfortable. That's what we ultimately did." Gardiner says the legislature had to do something in order for the death penalty to remain a viable option for prosecutors. In cases involving numerous death row inmates, the Florida Supreme Court is trying to sort out questions such as whether the changes approved by the Legislature and Scott meet constitutional tests. Florida is 1 of only 3 states with the death penalty that does not require jury unanimity. There are currently 384 men and 4 women on death row in Florida. (source: usf.edu) ********************** Florida fights to keep lethal drug records secret----Arizona lawyers seek records of Florida's triple-drug lethal injection protocol Lawyers representing seven Arizona death row inmates want information about the drugs used in Florida's lethal-injection procedure, but corrections officials are asking a judge to keep the documents secret. The Arizona lawyers last month filed a subpoena seeking years of records related to Florida's triple-drug lethal injection protocol, including the types of drugs purchased, the strengths and amounts of the drugs, the expiration dates of the drugs and the names of suppliers. The lawyers are seeking similar information from other states. The subpoena, filed in federal court in Arizona, is part of a drawn-out challenge to that state's lethal-injection process. Arizona's death penalty has been on hold for 2 years following the botched execution of inmate Joseph Wood in 2014, who died nearly 2 hours after the lethal-injection procedure was started. On Monday, the Florida Department of Corrections asked a federal judge in Tallahassee to quash the subpoena, saying that state information regarding death penalty drugs is exempt from public disclosure. The state agency "is unclear how Florida's lethal injection drugs have anything to do with this case out of Arizona, in which plaintiffs are, in part, challenging Arizona's use of midazolam for its lethal injections. FDC does not have any involvement in Arizona's lethal injection procedures or Arizona's procurement of drugs for its lethal injections," Florida Chief Assistant Attorney General James Lee Marsh wrote in the 15-page motion. Midazolam, 1 of the drugs used in Wood's execution, is the 1st of the 3-drug lethal cocktail used in Florida. Florida corrections officials and the state "have very strong public policy interests in preventing its confidential execution information from being publicly disclosed," Marsh wrote. "The United States Supreme Court has recognized that there is a guerilla war currently occurring against the death penalty in the United States. Anti-death penalty groups have been on a crusade against those legally involved with executions, harassing and threatening them until they feel pressured to withdraw their participation. ... In Florida, the plight has not been any different," he also wrote. Arizona corrections officials told U.S. District Judge Neil Wake they are discontinuing the use of midazolam because their supply of the drug expired and they can no longer obtain the sedative. Pfizer, which manufactures midazolam, in March announced that it would not distribute the drugs for use in capital punishment. In May, a spokesman for the Florida Department of Corrections said the manufacturer's decision would have no impact on Florida. A bitterly divided U.S. Supreme Court last year signed off on the use of midazolam for executions, ruling that lawyers for Oklahoma prisoners failed to prove that the use of the drug "entails a substantial risk of severe pain." The Oklahoma prisoners had argued that the drug does not effectively sedate inmates during the execution process. Florida and other states began using midazolam as the 1st step in a 3-drug execution cocktail in 2013, after previously using a drug called pentobarbital sodium. The states switched because Danish-based manufacturer Lundbeck refused to sell pentobarbital sodium directly to corrections agencies for use in executions and ordered its distributors to also stop supplying the drug for lethal-injection purposes. Florida's death penalty, meanwhile, has been under scrutiny following a U.S. Supreme Court decision earlier this year that found the state's death penalty sentencing system gave too much power to judges, and not juries. The Florida Supreme Court has been grappling with the aftermath of that decision, in a case known as Hurst v. Florida, as well as a law hurriedly passed this spring to deal with the Hurst ruling. The court indefinitely postponed 2 executions following the January 12 Hurst ruling. (source: news4jax.com) OHIO: Evaluation delayed in capital murder case Judge John M. Durkin granted a request by prosecutors to extend by 20 days an evaluation to determine if a man facing the death penalty is competent to stand trial. Ricki Williams, 20, of Lansdowne Boulevard, will be transferred shortly to a facility in Columbus for a 20-day stay to conduct the evaluation. Williams has been charged with eight felonies, including 2 counts of aggravated murder and 2 counts of aggravated burglary, in connection with the June 23, 2014, killing of 16-year old Gina Burger in Austintown. A competency hearing was scheduled Tuesday in Mahoning County Common Pleas Court, but prosecutors asked for the extension because the doctor performing the study said he was not able to complete it. Judge Durkin said he had read the evaluation, dated July 1, and it said an opinion could not be rendered on whether Williams is competent. No reason was given as to why the evaluation was not completed, although the judge said there was some suggestion that Williams was "malingering," but there was no concrete evidence to support that he was stalling on purpose. At issue is if Williams can understand the case against him and if he can assist in his own defense. If he is ruled incompetent to stand trial, he will be declared incompetent and will be treated for a year to see if his competency can be restored. According to police reports, Gina had gone missing from an apartment in the Compass West complex in Austintown and her body was discovered in a landfill in Grove City, Pa., a few days later. She died from a stab wound to the chest. A criminal complaint said Williams admitted to authorities he stabbed Gina and put her body in a playpen to transport it to a trash receptacle at the apartment complex. If convicted, Williams could face the death penalty. (source: vindy.com) From rhalperi at smu.edu Wed Jul 13 10:21:23 2016 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Wed, 13 Jul 2016 10:21:23 -0500 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----KY., NEB., ARIZ., NEV., CALIF., USA Message-ID: July 13 KENTUCKY: Timothy Madden in court Wednesday Timothy Madden is scheduled to be in Allen Circuit Court Wednesday afternoon for his latest pretrial conference at 1:30. Madden is charged with murder, rape, sodomy, and kidnapping in the death of 7-year-old Gabbi Doolin. Gabbi was killed on November 14, 2015 at a youth football game on the campus of Allen County-Scottsville High School after being reported missing for only 30 minutes. Doolin was found in a creek near the football field by police. Madden was arrested a week later after police confirmed DNA at the crime scene. Wednesday is the last day for the defense to receive discovery in the case. If convicted, Madden could face the death penalty. (source: WBKO news) NEBRASKA: Touring anti-death penalty speakers include relatives of murder victims, death-row exonerees Relatives of murder victims, death-row exonerees, and family members of the executed will speak at a series of public meetings about why they oppose the death penalty. The meetings will be held in Omaha, Lincoln and across Nebraska. Journey of Hope will start its speaking tour at 10 a.m. Sunday at St. Benedict Catholic Church in Omaha. It will make 6 additional appearances in Omaha along with about 20 more in Lincoln, Grand Island, North Platte, Norfolk, Columbus, Scottsbluff and other communities. Some locations also will feature film screenings. Nebraskans For Alternatives to the Death Penalty invited the group as part of a public eduction campaign in the group's effort to keep capital punishment off of the books. State lawmakers repealed the death penalty in 2015, making Nebraska the 1st conservative state to end capital punishment since North Dakota in 1973. Death penalty supporters have since collected enough signatures to allow voters to decide in November if the repeal should be overturned. Among the 10 speakers on the tour: --Derrick Jamison, who was removed from Ohio's death row in 2005 after the courts ruled he was convicted through false testimony and official misconduct. --Marietta Jaeger-Lane of Three Folks, Montana, whose 7-year-old daughter Susie was kidnapped and murdered by a serial killer in 1973. When the killer later called to taunt the mother, Jaeger-Lane disarmed him by saying she was praying for his healing. The phone call led to his arrest and conviction, and Jaeger-Lane has remained an advocate for forgiveness. --George White, who, along with his wife, was repeatedly shot during a 1985 robbery in Coffee County, Alabama. Despite White's wounds, authorities said he staged the robbery. White was convicted and sentenced to life in prison in 1987. The conviction was set aside in 1989 after an appellate court found serious errors by the trial judge. But charges were not dismissed until 1992, when White's attorney discovered a witness who had seen a man fleeing the business where the robbery occurred. For a full list of speakers, times and locations, go to nadp.net. (source: Omaha World-Herald) *************** Anti-death penalty group airing ad across Nebraska The effort to keep the death penalty out of Nebraska will include a former U.S. Marine. Kirk Bloodsworth is featured in a new ad paid for by Retain a Just Nebraska. Ryan Horn, media strategist, says Bloodsworth was wrongfully convicted of rape and murder, and sentenced to death. "Law enforcement, our criminal justice system are made up of thousands of wonderful people who work very hard and do their very best, and sometimes they make mistakes," Horn tells Nebraska Radio Network. "And if you're going to make a mistake, the state cannot kill someone because of a mistake. We can't let that happen." Bloodsworth was eventually freed after DNA testing cleared him of the crime. The ads are running on television and radio across Nebraska before a vote this fall on whether to bring back the death penalty or keep it repealed. Horn says if it can happen to someone like Bloodsworth, it can happen to anyone. "This guy was an honorably discharged Marine. He'd never been in trouble with the law before. He had a good job. This wasn't some gangbanger who had committed crimes before and maybe just got caught in the wrong one - not at all," Horn says. "This happens to people. It can happen to people." Horn says other ads will run between now and the November election. (source: nebraskaradionetwork.com) ARIZONA: Pinal mulls death penalty ---- 1 of 3 women charged in abuse and death of 3-year-old The cases of 3 Pinal County women arrested in connection with the abuse and death of a 3-year-old have been delayed as the Pinal County Attorney's Office weighs whether to seek the death penalty for 1 of the defendants. Shawn Main, a 45-year old caretaker to the toddler, was arrested for the murder of Tiana Rosalee Capps on Christmas Eve along with Capps' biological mother, 27-year-old Tina Morse, and 46-year-old Maria Tiglao; Morse and Tiglao face charges of child abuse committed against 4 of Morse's biological children, including Tiana and three boys ages 5, 4 and 5 months at the time of the arrests. The 3 defendants, all residents of unincorporated Maricopa, appeared in court separately on Monday, but each case was set to return to Judge Kevin White's court on Aug. 8 as the state has not yet decided whether to seek the death penalty for Main. According to PCAO spokeswoman Tiffany Davila, the state has until July 29 to make its decision. Defense attorneys for Morse and Tiglao expressed concern over the state's pending decision delaying any chance for resolution for their clients before trial. Tiglao is no longer being held at the Pinal County Adult Detention Center, but Morse continues to be held on a $7,500-bond, which her attorney said she could not meet. In an email to the Casa Grande Dispatch, Davila said the 3 defendants have to be tried together because they were charged together. Main, Morse and Tiglao are presumed innocent unless proven guilty, she added. As previously reported by the Dispatch, Main had been caring for Tiana and the eldest of Morse's 2 sons while Tiglao was responsibly for the infant, according to Pinal County Sheriff Paul Babeu. "Tina Morse admitted to providing no care for the children," Babeu said in December. "Shawn admitted that Tiana was under her care at the time of her fatal injuries. Although Shawn claimed the child's injuries were self-inflicted, the medical examiner's report did not support the claims." Main had been transporting Tiana to the hospital on Nov. 19 when she made a 911 call to report the child was in medical distress; paramedics intercepted Main while she was driving and drove Tiana to a local emergency room, where she died. Doctors noted unexplained injuries to Tiana's head and body, and the Pima County medical examiner later ruled Tiana's death was a result of repeated instances of blunt force trauma. PCSO deputies discovered filthy conditions at Morse's residence on Ralston Road during the initial investigation, and the boys were found to be malnourished; the 5-year-old also had head injuries. The surviving children were placed in the custody of the state Department of Child Safety. (source: trivalleycentral.com) NEVADA: Defense reveals why team decided against putting James Biela on the stand Day 2 of a evidentiary hearing that will determine if the man convicted of raping and killing Brianna Denison back in 2008 revealed some riveting information. Lawyers for Biela asked the public defender at the of the trial why Beila was never put on the stand to testify in his own defense during the initial trial in 2010. At first the attorney was hesitant to answer saying he didn't feel comfortable talking in front of the client. But after getting the go-ahead from Judge Freeman, he answered the defense team felt Biela did not possess the ability to show empathy for the victim. He said, "As a result we did not feel he would have been a sympathetic character or one in which the jury could identify with." Biela's lawyers are arguing Biela had ineffective counsel in his initial trial and should be entitled to a new trial. Biela was found guilty in the kidnapping, rape and murder of Denison. He received the death penalty. His conviction and death sentence have been upheld by the Nevada Supreme Court. For the past 2 days, Biela's lawyers have been hammering on points they believe were trial errors or mistakes that violated Biela's constitutional rights. Among their issues are that police made a mistake in citing Miranda Rights to Biela. They claim officers wrongfully expanded in explaining those rights telling Biela he could refuse to answer any question and that refusal would be honored. Biela's lawyers state no such right exists and the State used Biela's refusals to answer questions against him in the trial. They are also questioning why a change of venue was not granted, given the pre-trial publicity. They are also trying to poke holes in the DNA evidence presented and are questioning the State's handling of a defense forensic expert. Lawyers argue the State withheld knowledge it had conducted certain forensic tests and used this to diminish the credibility of the defense expert. In the 1st day of the hearing, the defense team leader, Maizie Pusich, who is also a Chief Deputy in the Public Defender's Office, testified she raised concerns the State's actions were misleading and dishonest. Lawyers are also questioning the impartiality of 3 jurors specifically. They claim the three stated they would not be able to consider any options besides the death penalty if Biela was found guilty. Security has been tight in the courtroom as Biela has been present and sitting at the defense table during the proceedings. He is dressed in prison clothes with chains around his legs. He showed little to no emotion over the past 2 days. (source: NBC news) CALIFORNIA: Jailed con pleads 'not guilty' to bashing murders of La Verne husband, 89, wife 74 A jailed convict already behind bars for another crime pleaded not guilty Tuesday to the possible death-penalty bludgeoning murders of an 89-year-old man and his 74- year-old wife at their multimillion-dollar home near La Verne the day after Christmas in 2014. Luke Matthew Fabela - who authorities said last year was linked to the killings through DNA while he was serving a jail term in San Bernardino for auto theft - was charged in February with 2 counts of murder and 1 count each of 2nd-degree robbery and 1st-degree residential burglary in the deaths of Armie "Troy" Isom and his wife, Shirley. The murder charges against Fabela, 24, include the special circumstance allegation of multiple murders during the commission of a robbery - the only item taken was Shirley Isom's cell phone, according to the prosecution. Prosecutors have yet to decide whether to pursue the death penalty. The victims were found by a groundskeeper at their multimillion-dollar home abutting open land in an unincorporated area near La Verne. Both died of blunt force trauma and Shirley Isom sustained "sharp force trauma," according to Deputy District Attorney Tannaz Mokayef. While Fabela was jailed in San Bernardino for an auto theft case, Los Angeles County sheriff's officials announced last May that he had been linked by DNA to the killings and that he would serve his term in San Bernardino before being sent to Los Angeles County. He is due back in court Oct. 18 in Pomona. He remains jailed without bail. (source: mynewsla.com) *************** No Death Penalty for California Murderer A man who shot a liquor store worker to death 17 years ago should not be put to death, as prosecutors wrongly excused a juror, the California Supreme Court ruled Monday. After David Gaines, 36, and his father, William Gaines, 87, closed their Stockton liquor store at 11 p.m. on June 11, 1999, they drove home in separate cars. As soon as the father shut his car door, a man punched him in the chin and shoulder, grabbed the brown paper lunch sack from his hand, and took off running. The son rushed outside with a can of Mace and said, "Hey!" The assailant, later identified as David Zaragoza, was already 10 to 30 feet down the street, with his back to William. Hearing gunshots, William ducked behind his car. He then found his son on the driveway in a pool of blood. Zaragoza and another man were 50 to 100 feet away, running down the street. 2 years later, in 2001, a San Joaquin County jury found Zaragoza's brother, Louis Rangel Zaragoza, guilty of the 1st-degree murder of David Gaines and of robbing his father. The jury sentenced him to death, which Zaragoza automatically appealed. The California Supreme Court reversed the death judgment Monday, and only the sentence of death. The ruling focuses on Prospective Juror No. 129, who told prosecutors she had religious convictions that would interfere with her ability to sit as a juror in a capital case. "Don't feel I have the right to decide if a person is to die," the juror wrote. A prosecutor challenged the juror for cause, based on her religious beliefs. Though the trial court acknowledged the question was not "very good" and that "we probably should have elaborated a little bit on this," it excused the juror for lack of neutrality. The state supreme court found error in that ruling alone. "A prospective juror's conscientious objection to capital punishment is not by itself a sufficient basis for excluding that person from jury service," Judge Mariano-Florentino Cuellar wrote for the court. "Although the juror here also stated that her beliefs would make it 'difficult' to vote for execution, we have explained that [b]ecause the California death penalty sentencing process contemplates that jurors will take into account their own values in determining whether aggravating factors outweigh mitigating factors such that the death penalty is warranted, the circumstance that a juror's conscientious opinions or beliefs concerning the death penalty would make it very difficult for the juror ever to impose the death penalty is not equivalent to a determination that such beliefs will substantially impair the performance of his [or her] duties as a juror.'" (Brackets in original). Cuellar added: "Prospective Juror No. 129's written responses did not clearly reveal personal views that would interfere with her ability to judge the penalty based on the evidence presented. Rather, her written responses, at worst, left it uncertain whether she had the ability to perform as a juror. Because those responses did not 'clearly reveal' an inability to perform her duties, the trial court erred in granting the prosecution's challenge for cause without examining the juror in court to ascertain her true state of mind. When a trial court errs in excusing a prospective juror for cause because of that person's views concerning the death penalty, we must reverse the penalty. We do so in this case." (source: Courthouse News) USA: Fell: Death penalty views changing It has been nearly 10 years since Donald Fell was sentenced to death in the kidnapping, carjacking and death of a North Clarendon grandmother. But since his sentencing, the death penalty debate has shifted dramatically, according to defense testimony Tuesday in Rutland federal court. "The way we talk about the death penalty is very different today," said Michael L. Radelet, a professor in the department of sociology at the University of Colorado in Boulder. ???Attitudes toward the death penalty have changed more rapidly than any other social issue other than gay marriage." Radelet, who has published extensively on issues related to the death penalty, testified during the 2nd day of defense testimony in a 10-day federal hearing on the death penalty in Fell's case. In 1976, according to Radelet, 16 countries had abolished the death penalty, but today executions are confined to 5 countries including the U.S., China, Yemen, Iran and Iraq. 19 states, including Vermont and the District of Columbia, have abolished the death penalty and 4 states have a governor-imposed moratorium, according to the Death Penalty Information Center. In 2005, Fell was convicted by a jury in the death of Terry King, 53, after he and accomplice Robert Lee stopped her at gunpoint in the Rutland Price Chopper parking lot on her way into work in the early-morning hours of Nov. 27, 2000. According to prosecutors, Fell and Lee took King in her car to a remote field in Essex County, New York, and killed her. Lee died in prison before he could be tried; Fell was convicted in 2005 and sentenced to death the next year. But claims of juror misconduct surfaced and Fell was granted a new trial, slated to begin in 2017. Nonetheless, Vermont U.S. Attorney Eric Miller is seeking the death penalty again in Fell's case. Because Vermont abolished the death penalty, if convicted a second time and sentenced to death Fell would be executed in the nearest death penalty state in the Second Circuit. Radelet pointed out how the number of death sentences has been steadily declining. In 1998, according to the Death Penalty Information Center, 295 prisoners were sentenced to death; in 2006, Fell was 1 of 123 sentenced to death; and in 2015 there were 49 death sentences handed down. As part of his research, Radelet said that he and a colleague surveyed former and current presidents of the country's top academic criminological societies and 88 % of these experts rejected the notion that the death penalty acts as a deterrent to murder. Also, Radelet referred to a study by the National Research Council that concluded research to date is insufficient to establish that the death penalty is an effective deterrent to crime. Judge Geoffrey W. Crawford asked Radelet his views on arguments in favor of the death penalty. Citing 3 specific flaws, Radelet replied that the death penalty does not account for the number of wrongful convictions, there is no data that supports the death penalty as an effective deterrent, and there is no way of knowing what is in the mind of someone who is planning a crime. Also, Radelet said that when Illinois commuted several death row sentences, some experts predicted that each commutation would cause 5 murders. Homicides dropped sharply in that state between 2003 and 2011, he said. In referencing the number of wrongful convictions, Radelet said there is a continuing flow of innocent inmates released from death row. "Last year 6 people were released, most having served 25 years," he said. "In 2014, 7 were released from death row as innocent. One had been in for 30 years." Crawford expressed his concerns and asked Radelet about such errors. "The number 1 cause of error is prejudicial prosecutorial testimony," he said. "Prosecutorial misconduct, false confessions, fraudulent forensics." Crawford responded. "It is upsetting to think this is happening," he said. The hearing is expected to continue through July 22, with government witnesses testifying next week. (source: Times Argus) ************** Wednesday Roof hearing could end dispute between state, federal authorities It's a tale of 2 trials. Both state and federal prosecutors are seeking the death penalty for accused Emanuel AME church shooter Dylann Roof. There has been an ongoing battle over which court should have the chance to try him first, and it all could be settled Wednesday afternoon at the Charleston County Courthouse. State prosecutors believe their trial against Roof is the utmost importance to citizens in Charleston County. As it stands, the state proceeding is scheduled for Jan. 2017, 2 months after the federal trial. Solicitor Scarlett Wilson says it should start before the federal trial to avoid issues with custody and carrying out Roof's sentence. The State argues if the feds sentence Roof to life without possibility of parole, they will never get the chance to put him to death. Part of the battle is there no legal model for this situation. Roof is believed to be the 1st defendant in U.S. history to be subject to state and federal death-penalty prosecutions at the same time. In federal court Roof was indicted on 33 charges, including hate crimes. The state is charging him with attempted murder, 9 counts of murder among other charges. He is being held in the Charleston County jail. (source: live5news.com) From rhalperi at smu.edu Wed Jul 13 10:22:13 2016 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Wed, 13 Jul 2016 10:22:13 -0500 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide Message-ID: July 13 MALAYSIA: Stop shifting the goal post on abolishing the death penalty A parliamentary reply dated May 20 to my question on the breakdown of nationalities on the death row in Malaysia and if the government is ready to abolish the mandatory death penalty, stated that 1,042 people were facing the death penalty as at April 30, 2015. Of them, 629 are Malaysians and 413 are foreigners, with 649 executions pending court appeals and 393 seeking pardon from the state Pardon Boards. While I welcome Minister Nancy Shukri's recent statement justifying the delay in tabling the amendments on the mandatory death penalty, the burden lies on her as the minister in charge of law to table the proposals to the cabinet, and together with attorney-general (AG) Apandi Ali, she should once and for all advocate and push for human rights reforms such as this to gain confidence among Malaysians, members of Asean and of the global community, carving a new identity for Malaysia as an abolitionist country. In a written reply to Puchong MP Gobind Singh Deo in March 2014 on whether the government would impose a moratorium on executions and that the government is prepared to study the effectiveness of it, the government had clearly stated that it had no intention for a moratorium on executions, particularly for those who have exhausted all avenues in seeking pardon from individual state Pardon Boards. The reply also shockingly stated that the issue of the government abolishing the death penalty is non-existent as the Pardon Board headed by the Yang di-Pertuan Agong has full authority to abolish the death penalty for offences committed in the Federal Territories of Kuala Lumpur, Labuan and Putrajaya. For offences committed in other states, the jurisdiction lies within the powers vested in the Sultan or Yang di-Pertua Negeri, after the Federal Court has upheld the decision to execute, while Article 42(1) of the Federal Constitution grants the Yang di-Pertuan Agong the power to grant pardons, reprieves and respites in respect of all offences. The impression given to Parliament And all this while, the Parliament has been given the impression that the 'power' to bring about these changes lies within the cabinet and the AG. This is the 1st case of shifting the goal post. Secondly, the government has clearly stated, time and time again, that public opinion is in favour of retaining the death penalty. If yes, then it is laughable and ironic that the government decides as and when it wants to listen to public opinion, for an online poll conducted by Gerakan in February 2016 shows that more than half of the 1,523 anonymous respondents wanted an end to the death penalty. While the majority of the Malaysian public vehemently oppose the implementation of the goods and services tax (GST), the government decides to turn a deaf ear to public opinion with stringy replies justifying the need to have it. According to Professor Mai Sato of the University of Reading, when carrying out surveys on death penalties, a 'yes' or 'no' answer hardly addresses the weight of the matter, which is for a state to take one's life away. Tailor-made public surveys with options given to the respondent have proven to be best strategies when gathering data on public opinion regarding the death penalty. Government cagey on the questionnaires However, our government appears cagey on tailor-made death penalty questionnaires to gauge public opinion. Such a dense double standard speaks volumes about the severe lack of political will to bring amendments to the mandatory death penalty in the country. The 3rd shift of goal posts is not granting discretionary powers to the judges to hand down different forms of punishment, apart from the death penalty. This shows the dark hands of executive interference in the criminal justice system and judicial independence. On June 19, 2016, Nancy Shukri stated in The Star that she really wants to see the amendment to the mandatory death penalty be passed and implemented prior to the 14th general election. As elected officials with legislative power, Members of Parliament have a duty to protect the rule of law and human rights. As MPs from both sides of the divide, we must use our positions to push for the abolition of the death penalty with our government, as well as with regional and international organisations. As a minister in the Prime Minister's Department in charge of law, it is Nancy's moral responsibility to put political differences aside and, together with MPs from the opposition and members of the civil society such as Amnesty International, Anti-Death Penalty Asia Network, National Human Rights Society (Hakam) and also members from the Bar Council to advocate for this tectonic change in our national policy to display valiant commitment in upholding and protecting human rights, especially on the right to life. The cabinet should not keep shifting the goal post on committing to abolish the mandatory death penalty and table the amendments to abolish this law at the coming October sitting of the Dewan Rakyat. (source: KASTHURI PATTO is the MP for Batu Kawan and a member of Parliamentarians for Global Action on the Abolition of the Death Penalty----malaysiakini.com) PAKISTAN: Terror convict moves LHC to get trial record The Lahore High Court (LHC), Rawalpindi bench, yesterday sought reply from secretary defence on a writ petition filed by a former navy officer who has been awarded capital punishment by a field general court martial (FGCM) in case of attacking Naval Dockyard in Karachi on September 6, 2014. The court gave seven days to the secretary defence for submitting his reply on the petition filed by ex-Lt Hammad Ahmed Khan. The petitioner seeks necessary trial and investigation documents to prepare his appeal against the death penalty. Hammad along with 5 other serving naval officials was given death sentence by the FGCM in May 2016 for their involvement in a terrorist attack on the dockyard. The petitioner had prayed to the court to ask the military authorities to provide him relevant documents enabling him to prepare the appeal against his conviction. He had further prayed to the LHC for stopping the naval authorities from taking any adverse decision against him till final disposal of his petition before the high court. (source: The Nation) KENYA: Homa Bay residents ask State to classify corruption as capital offence Homa Bay residents have asked that corruption and sexual assault be classified as capital offences. A capital offence is a crime considered so serious that it attracts a death penalty or life imprisonment. In a public debate on capital offences and capital punishment organised by Power of Mercy Advisory Committee (POMAC), residents said corruption had led to underdevelopment. Homa Bay Bunge La Wenye Nchi Speaker Walter Opiyo said failure to take serious punitive action against leaders implicated in corruption had hampered the fight against the vice. "We cannot realise any economic prosperity as a country or county if our governments don't eradicate corruption. And for us to eradicate it, people who are proven guilty before a court of law should be sentenced to death," Mr Opiyo said. extreme poverty He warned that corruption would plunge this country into extreme poverty if the Government would not act. "This country has enough resources to transform the lives of Kenyans. But this cannot be achieved because a lot of funds allocated both in the national and county governments end up in the pockets of a few individuals," he added. The residents also proposed that those who are convicted of sexual offences be sentenced to death. They argued that sexual offences such as rape and defilement had been on the rise in the area since some perpetrators were fond of repeating the offences after serving their sentences. John Onyango, a resident, argued that sexual offences had greatly contributed to the spread of HIV. "Some people are HIV positive because they were raped or defiled. The perpetrators should be sentenced to death to help eliminate the vice," said Mr Onyango. POMAC Chief Executive Officer Michael Kagika and Vice Chairperson Regina Bosaibi said a majority of residents want those who are sentenced to death hanged. "They argued that failure to hang these people makes them continue enjoying life in prisons so their death sentences are not felt," said Mr Kagika. He said there are more than 2,800 people who have been sentenced to death in various prisons across the country. The organisation is set to present the recommendations to various state organs concerned with their implementation. (source: standardmedia.co.ke) VIETNAM: Death penalty of Australian is 'appalling' The New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) said it was appalled by the death penalty verdict by a Vietnam criminal court against an Australian grandmother for drug trafficking. In comments to AAP, HRW was calling for Australia to press Vietnam 'hard' to ensure the death sentence is never carried out. Phil Robertson, deputy Asia director for Human Rights Watch, was highly critical of Vietnam's policy to apply the death penalty for drug trafficking. 'It's appalling that an Australian grandmother, Nguyen Thi Huong, faces the death penalty for drug trafficking in Vietnam,' Robertson said in emailed comments. He said Huong, 73, was 'facing Vietnam's expansive endorsement of capital punishment that is happily implemented by the country's lap-dog courts operating at the behest of the ruling party and government'. Robertson said Australia needed to press 'hard in a very public way for Vietnam to guarantee that under no circumstances will she face execution,' once the appeal process is complete. Huong was arrested at Tan Son Nhat in December 2014, with the heroin hidden in 36 soap bars she claimed had been given to her by a Thai woman to take to Australia. But the court held her responsible. Under Vietnam's tough drug laws those found guilty of possessing or smuggling more than 600 grams of heroin or more than 2.5 kilograms of methamphetamine type stimulants face the death penalty. Vietnam-based sources told AAP they had doubts over Huong's innocence and suspected the grandmother had been acting as a 'mule' to traffic the drugs to Australia. Australia's Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT), in emailed comments to AAP, said officials were closely monitoring the case. 'We are concerned that an Australian citizen has been sentenced to death in Vietnam,' the spokesperson said.But DFAT said Huong still faced a lengthy appeal process before the case was complete.' Universal opposition to capital punishment is a long-established policy of Australian governments,' they added. Huong's case follows the court decision in May when 34-year-old Australian man, Nathan Andrew James, was sentenced in May to life in prison by a Ho Chi Minh City court for attempting to traffic 3.5kg of heroin to Australia in 2013. James' sentencing followed the arrest of another unnamed 76-year-old Australian woman detained while attempting to smuggle 3 kilograms of heroin in a jar of fermented fish paste. (source: skynews.com.au) ************** Lao siblings sentenced to death, life for smuggling heroin to Vietnam A court in the central province of Nghe An on Tuesday handed down a death penalty and a life sentence to 2 Lao siblings for smuggling 3.7 kilograms of heroin from Laos to Vietnam, VnExpress reported. Xong Ba Tu and Xong Rua Co, as the defendants are called in Vietnamese, were reportedly on their knees asking for leniency from the court. Tu, 27, was sentenced to death while Co, 30, got the life sentence. According to the indictment, the duo carried 10 brick-shaped packs containing 3.7 kilograms of heroin and entered Vietnam via Thanh Thuy Border Gate on June 27, 2014. The drugs would be delivered to dealers in Nghe An's Thanh Chuong District. The following day, Tu planned to meet a buyer in a forest to deliver the drugs. Co stayed in a motel waiting for another man to come and pay for the drugs. But when Tu was on the way to the forest, he was stopped by local border guards. He attempted to use a knife to attack the border guards, but was overpowered after a brief fight. Co was also arrested at the motel. The duo told the police that 2 Vietnamese men came to their house in Laos in early June 2014, asking them to bring 10 heroin bricks to Vietnam. The Vietnamese men promised to pay them US$52,000 in total. The case was tried in April last year but Supreme People's Court in December ordered a fresh investigation to clarify some details. The retrial this week ended with the defendants being found guilty again and the same sentences. Vietnam's Penal Code rules those convicted of smuggling more than 600 grams of heroin or more than 2.5 kilograms of methamphetamine face the death penalty, making the country one of the toughest in the world regarding drug laws. The production or sale of 100 grams of heroin or 300 grams of other illegal narcotics is also punishable by death. (source: Thanh Nien News) From rhalperi at smu.edu Wed Jul 13 14:16:47 2016 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Wed, 13 Jul 2016 14:16:47 -0500 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----PENN., S.C., ARK., COLO., USA Message-ID: July 13 PENNSYLVANIA: Judge upholds death penalty for Frein A Pike County Court judge denied 2 requests from the attorney of Eric Matthew Frein, who is accused of killing 1 state trooper and wounding another in a September 2014 ambush. The Honorable Gregory H. Chelak turned away a motion to take the death penalty off the table, and another motion that "aggravated circumstances" had occurred during Frein's arrest. Frein was arrested after an extensive monthlong manhunt, after he fatally shot State Trooper Cpl. Bryon Dickson and seriously wounded Trooper Alex Douglass. The case caught national attention. Frein's attorney, Michael E. Weinstein, said that due to "aggravated circumstances" during Frein's arrest, the case should be tried as a non-capital case. He argued that the death penalty should be taken off the table altogether, calling it was unconstitutional. In the court documents, the judge said recent developments in Pennsylvania do not apply to the Frein case, specifically: Governor Tom Wolf's temporary moratorium on the death penalty, and the report from the Pennsylvania Supreme Court's Committee on Racial and Gender Bias in the Justice System and the American Bar Assessment Team stating that the "death penalty in Pennsylvania has not been administered in an 'evenhanded manner,' and in substantial noncompliance with American Bar Association's guidelines." Judge Chelak said the supreme court's decision didn't deny Pennsylvania the right to have death penalty, and that the temporary reprieve ruling said the governor does have the right to do so. Chelak also dismissed the idea that the death penalty is unconstitutional. "Supreme Court has recognized the continued application of the death penalty in appropriate capital cases," he said. Frein is charged with Murder of the 1st Degree and Murder of a Law Enforcement Officer in the 1st Degree. By Pennsylvania Criminal Code, "a person convicted of one of both of the aforementioned Murder offenses shall be sentenced to death or a term of life imprisonment." In a separate, earlier ruling, the judge stated that Frein's trial will take place in Pike County, but that jurors will be brought in from outside the county. (source: Pike County Courier) ************* Death penalty demands strong defenders ---- Take the case of Mark Spotz. In 1995, the Clearfield County man went on a rampage in 4 Pennsylvania counties, killing 4 people, including 1 in York County. His crimes were beyond senseless. They were beyond brutal. They were heinous. If anyone deserves to die strapped to a gurney at the State Correctional Institution at Rockview, it is Mr. Spotz. That is clearly an emotional argument. The reality of the matter is that during his trials, Mr. Spotz chose to defend himself. The old joke, any defendant who chooses to do so has a fool for a client, has some validity. It could be said that Mr. Spotz did not receive adequate legal representation, especially considering the gravity of the offenses and the ultimate penalty. That is a difficult argument to make, since Mr. Spotz chose, by his free will, out of either hubris or stupidity, to act as his own attorney. Mr. Spotz has been appealing his multiple death sentences. After his initial appeals had been exhausted, the Federal Community Defender Office became involved in his case. The non-profit organization has expertise in death penalty cases and is permitted to represent some of the most notorious and reprehensible killers on death row in state court. In the course of Mr. Spotz's appeals, former state Supreme Court Chief Justice Ronald Castille was highly critical of the office, writing, in essence, that its attorneys were too good at their jobs, litigating death penalty cases with the kind of thoroughness and attention to detail that you would expect from a private law firm with more than adequate resources. "A zealous representation of your client - that's fine," he said in a recent interview. "But being a zealot is different." Maybe it's a fine line. But does not change the simple fact that, no matter how you feel about the death penalty, our justice system demands that a person facing the loss of his or her life for committing the most terrible offenses receive the best legal representation possible. That's why some death-row inmates - including 4 current condemned men from York County - have sought representation by the Capital Habeas Unit of the Federal Community Defender Office. The organization specializes in representing death-row inmates, a specialty that few legal general practitioners focus upon. The office, which gets some of its funding from the federal government, usually practices in federal courts, and not all of the agency's offices become involved in what are considered state-level cases. But in Pennsylvania, the office serves a definite purpose. The commonwealth is the only state in the country that does not provide funding for defense counsel in capital cases in instances in which defendants cannot afford attorneys. Its attorneys are thorough. Benjamin Lerner, a former Philadelphia Common Pleas Court judge, said that whenever one of the office's attorneys appeared in his court, he knew he would have to work "awfully hard." The attorneys, he said, litigated every relevant issue, and those cases did not return to his court with appeals citing inadequate counsel. Lerner summed it well: "We have no right, I think, as a society to say, 'On the one hand we want to have the death penalty, but on the other hand, we aren't going to provide the resources for a constitutionally adequate defense for people who we're seeking to put to death,'" he said. That is the issue in a nutshell. And it provides more than enough justification for Gov. Tom Wolf's 2015 moratorium on executions, an executive decision that, by the way, has been upheld by the state Supreme Court. Prosecutors had sought to forbid the office from representing defendants in state court, citing, among other things, jurisdictional issues, a tactic that was rejected by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. The court's chief judge, Theodore McKee, wrote that systemic attempts to disqualify the office's lawyers was "all the more perplexing and regrettable" considering the volume of evidence suggesting that inadequate representation risks gross miscarriages of justice. The bottom line is that our Constitution requires even those accused of the most heinous acts receive more-than-adequate representation in court. That is essential for our criminal justice system to function properly. Without it, we not only violate the rights of people like Mark Spotz, but we also diminish ourselves. (source: Editorial Board, York Daily Record) SOUTH CAROLINA: Solicitor: Justice unlikely in federal church slayings trial A federal trial for the man charged in the slayings of nine black church members is unlikely to deliver the death penalty and he should be tried in state court first, where there is a better chance for capital punishment, a prosecutor said. Dylann Roof, 22, faces possible death sentences in state court, where he is charged with murder, and in federal court, where he is charged with hate crimes and other counts. The charges stem from the slayings of 9 black parishioners during a Bible study at Emanuel AME Church in June 2015. Roof, who is white, posed with the Confederate battle flag before the killings and talked of trying to start a race war. Currently, the federal trial is set for November while the state case is scheduled for January. "The federal government's track record suggests an unwillingness to carry out a death sentence," prosecutor Scarlett Wilson wrote in court documents filed late Tuesday. She renewed her request that judges in the state and federal cases get together and set a trial schedule that lets South Carolina try Roof first. Circuit Judge J.C. Nicholson, the state judge, has set a hearing on the matter Wednesday. Wilson said the federal government hasn't carried out a death sentence in years. The last person executed by the federal government was in 2003. "A federal trial may be unnecessary to achieve justice for Roof if a state trial results in a death sentence since the state sentence would be carried out before any federal sentence," the documents said. Public Defender Ashley Pennington, who is defending Roof in state court, said earlier that if Wilson wants justice, she should accept Dylann Roof's offer to plead guilty in exchange for a life sentence. Roof's attorneys in the federal case have made a similar offer. Complicating the trial schedule is a 2nd high-profile case. Wilson is also slated to try former North Charleston police officer Michael Slager in the April 2015 shooting death of black motorist Walter Scott. That trial is now set for Oct. 31 and will likely be underway at the time of Roof's federal trial. Slager is also charged in federal court, but the federal trial has not yet been scheduled. (source: Associated Press) ARKANSAS: Arkansas Governor Hopes To Start Executions By January Gov. Asa Hutchinson is hoping Arkansas will resume executing death row inmates before January, when 1 of the 3 drugs used in the state's lethal injection mixture will expire. On Tuesday the Arkansas Department of Correction announced the state had replenished supplies of a different drug, the paralytic vecuronium bromide, which expired last month. Talking with reporters Wednesday, the Republican governor praised a recent state law that keeps suppliers of lethal injection drugs secret. "The confidentiality law had the desired effect and increased the opportunity for that supply," Hutchinson said. "The next step is to await the mandate from the Arkansas Supreme Court. Nothing can proceed until the mandate is issued on the pending cases. Once the mandate is issued the attorney general will take the next step to advise of any individuals who are subject to execution and request that dates be set. It'll be my obligation under law to set the dates." Last month the Arkansas Supreme Court determined the state's secrecy law was constitutional, but the ruling won't go into effect until justices consider a petition by 8 death row inmates to re-hear the case. The governor said he'll be ready to act expediently if the re-hearing issue is resolved in the state's favor. "I certainly would expect to set dates before January, absolutely," he said. "It's been way too long and painful for the victims and their families. We would set the dates without any undue delay. As to how many requests are sent by the attorney general remains to be seen, as to whose dates will be set remains to be seen and the specific timeframes ... but it is my job as chief executive to faithfully execute the laws." There are 34 Arkansans on death, all our male. 18 are black and 16 are white. A U.S. Census Bureau report from 2015 identified 15.7 % of the state's population as African-Americans. The demographic makes up 45 % of those on death row. When asked, Governor Hutchinson said there is no evidence of racial biases at play in who receives the death penalty in Arkansas. "That's the kind of question that is resolved by constitutional challenges to convictions. In each of the instances that are before the court ... the Supreme Court now, that has been affirmed and we're waiting to mandate on ... there has been no constitutional issue raised that has been found to have merit by the court and therefore it's my duty to execute the law based on the Supreme Court's review and affirmation of the convictions," said Hutchinson. The governor continued, "In terms of more broad criminal justice reform, it is a very legitimate point of evaluation to make sure our criminal justice system is working fairly and that we're incarcerating the right people and that there's not any racial bias in our system. I hope we continue to debate it and try to get it right and that we listen to each other when there are legitimate concerns to be raise." The state has not held an execution since 2005, largely due to legal challenges and drug supply issues. (source: ualrpublicradio.org) COLORADO: Questions raised in 2nd death penalty case over judge's firing --- Lawyer for death row inmate Robert Ray wants answers in Judge Gerald Rafferty's removal A lawyer for a 2nd Colorado death row inmate has filed a lawsuit seeking answers about why a judge who once presided over 2 of the state's most high-profile appeals was removed from both. The lawsuit, filed last week in Denver District Court, accuses state court officials of violating open-records rules in not revealing more about what led to the dismissal of Judge Gerald Rafferty. Rafferty was fired in April from his contract position in Arapahoe County District Court as he was about to issue a final order in an appeal involving death row inmate Sir Mario Owens. The new lawsuit, though, also raises questions about why Rafferty was removed months earlier from overseeing the appeal of Robert Ray, who was convicted in connection with the same killings as Owens and was also sentenced to death. The 2 cases are the only ongoing death penalty appeals in Colorado. "If Judge Rafferty was removed from Mr. Ray's case for reasons that have anything to do with the content of his finished order in Mr. Owens' case, this would have as much of an effect on Mr. Ray's case as it would have on Mr. Owens' case," the lawsuit states. Rafferty presided over the trials for both Owens and Ray, both of whom were found guilty of murder in the 2005 deaths of Javad Marshall-Fields and Vivian Wolfe in Aurora. By law, that meant Rafferty would also oversee the 1st review of the convictions on appeal. In January, after working for more than 3 years on a ruling in Owens' appeal, Rafferty reached the state's mandatory retirement age for judges and had to step down. In March, he was re-hired on a contract basis to finish his order in Owens' case. However, in April, court officials abruptly ended his contract and Colorado Supreme Court Chief Justice Nancy Rice rescinded his appointment over allegations that Rafferty had breached the terms of his employment deal. The deal prohibited Rafferty from performing outside work while also serving as a judge. Rafferty had worked between January and March at the Denver law firm of Collins & Coldwell, a fact e-mails suggest the State Court Administrator's Office may have been aware of prior to the start of Rafferty's judge contract. Court officials have not said whether they believe Rafferty continued to work at the firm after resuming the bench. By the time he was fired, though, Rafferty was no longer in charge of Ray's appeal. Court records show that Arapahoe County Chief Judge Carlos Samour Jr. transferred Ray's appeal away from Rafferty and to himself in November 2015. The new lawsuit alleges that Samour "apparently did not tell Judge Rafferty" about the transfer for a month. Both Ray's and Owens' appeals have since been assigned to other judges. Earlier this month, lawyers for Owens unsuccessfully asked the state Supreme Court to order more information released about Rafferty's firing and also to overturn his dismissal. Lawyers for Owens said they believed Rafferty, in his never-released final order in Owens' appeal, would have addressed several defense allegations of prosecutorial misconduct that could have led to a new trial for Owens. In the new lawsuit, an attorney for Ray, Mary Claire Mulligan, is suing 2 officials in the State Court Administrator's Office, alleging they violated the court system's public-records rules by withholding information about why Rafferty was removed from Ray's appeal and later fired. Mulligan says she asked for copies of e-mails about Rafferty going back to the start of 2015 but that much of her request was denied based on privacy justifications. Court officials have not yet responded to the lawsuit. (source: The Denver Post) USA: Texas Sens. Cornyn, Cruz propose bill to make killing of cop a federal crime 2 senators from Texas introduced legislation making it a federal crime to kill a police officer nearly 1 week after 5 officers in Dallas were killed by a sniper. Sens. John Cornyn and Ted Cruz, both Republicans, co-sponsored the Black and Blue Act of 2016, which would make it a federal crime to kill a law enforcement office, public safety officer, or federal judge, and carries a mandatory minimum sentence of 30 years and the possibility of the death penalty. The bill also increases penalties for the attempted murder of a police officer, and would make it legal for officers to carry their firearms into federal buildings. "Law enforcement officers selflessly put their lives on the line every day to protect our communities, and in return they deserve our unparalleled support for the irreplaceable role they serve," Cornyn said in a statement . "The Back the Blue Act sends a clear message that our criminal justice system simply will not tolerate those who viciously and deliberately target our law enforcement." The bill is being publicly supported by the National Fraternal Order of Police, the National District Attorneys Association, the International Association of Chiefs of Police, the Major County Sheriffs Association, the Sergeants Benevolent Association, and the Department of Justice's VALOR program. (source: United Press International) From rhalperi at smu.edu Wed Jul 13 14:17:26 2016 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Wed, 13 Jul 2016 14:17:26 -0500 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide Message-ID: July 13 IRAN----executions Iran regime hangs nine collectively Iran's fundamentalist regime hanged 9 prisoners collectively on Wednesday in Gohardasht Prison in Karaj, north-west of Tehran. 3 of the executed prisoners were identified as Seyyed Mohammad Taheri, Amir Khadem Rezaiyan and Saeid Ahmadi. The victims had been transferred to solitary confinement in the days prior to their execution. More than 270 Members of the European Parliament signed a joint statement on Iran last month, calling on the European Union to "condition" its relations with Tehran to an improvement of human rights. The MEPs who were from all the EU Member States and from all political groups in the Parliament said they are concerned about the rising number of executions in Iran after Hassan Rouhani took office as President 3 years ago. Amnesty International in its April 6 annual Death Penalty report covering the 2015 period wrote: "Iran put at least 977 people to death in 2015, compared to at least 743 the year before." "Iran alone accounted for 82% of all executions recorded" in the Middle East and North Africa, the human rights group said. There have been more than 2,400 executions during Hassan Rouhani's tenure as President. The United Nations Special Rapporteur on the human rights situation in Iran in March announced that the number of executions in Iran in 2015 was greater than any year in the last 25 years. Rouhani has explicitly endorsed the executions as examples of "God's commandments" and "laws of the parliament that belong to the people." (source: NCR-Iran) From rhalperi at smu.edu Thu Jul 14 08:43:27 2016 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Thu, 14 Jul 2016 08:43:27 -0500 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----MASS., PENN., S.C., GA., KAN., S.DAK., UTAH, CALIF. Message-ID: July 14 MASSACHUSETTS: Council confirms Gaziano for seat on state's high court The 1st of 3 nominations by Republican Gov. Charlie Baker to fill upcoming vacancies on the state's highest court was unanimously approved Wednesday by the Governor's Council. Frank Gaziano, currently a Superior Court judge, was praised by several councilors for his fairness and integrity before the 8-0 vote. The Scituate resident was interviewed for several hours at a public hearing last week before the council, an elected body that reviews all judicial nominations. Councilor Michael Albano, a Democrat and former Springfield mayor, said Gaziano allayed any fears that the Supreme Judicial Court might "tilt to the right" under a Republican governor. Albano, who called the nominee a "superstar," said Gaziano expressed support for abortion rights, affirmative action and issues affecting working families during his confirmation hearing. Albano and 2 other Democrats on the council, Terrence Kennedy and Robert Jubinville, did acknowledge concerns over Gaziano's support for the death penalty. But they noted that it was unlikely that the Legislature would move to reinstate capital punishment in Massachusetts anytime soon. Gaziano was the lead prosecutor in the federal death penalty case against Gary Lee Sampson, who pleaded guilty in 2001 to the carjack killings of 2 Massachusetts men. Sampson is now awaiting a new sentencing trial after his original death sentence was set aside by a federal judge. Gaziano was called a "judicial centrist" by Councilor Jennie Caissie, a Republican. "There was not a bad word spoken about him throughout this process," she said. Associate Justices Fernande Duffly, Francis Spina and Robert Cordy all announced plans to retire from the SJC by the end of the summer, giving Baker a unique opportunity to put his stamp on the 7-member court, billed as the oldest continuously-operating appellate court in the Western Hemisphere. 2 other justices will reach the mandatory retirement age of 70 before the governor's 1st term ends. In addition to Gaziano, Baker nominated Superior Court judges Kimberly Budd and David Lowy and the council has scheduled confirmation hearings for them later this month. "I thank the members of the Governor's Council for their thoughtful deliberation and overwhelming approval of a highly qualified candidate like Judge Gaziano, and look forward to their future consideration of our remaining nominees," Baker said in a statement. (source: Associated Press) PENNSYLVANIA: Judge wants answers from accused baby killer's shrink Judge James Nilon said Tuesday that he intends to hold a hearing with a psychiatrist retained by death penalty counsel in the case of accused baby killer Ummad Rushdi. Rushdi, 33, is accused of killing 7-month-old Hamza Ali in August 2013 at his parent's home in the 6600 block of Chestnut Street, Upper Darby, then transporting the body elsewhere and burying it at an unknown location. He has been charged with 1st-, 2nd- and 3rd-degree murder, kidnapping and abuse of a corpse, for which he faces the death penalty. Dr. Muhamad Aly Rifai was paid $10,000 last year to produce an expert report on Rushdi's mental state. Death penalty counsel Scott Galloway said Tuesday that Rifai has provided only some preliminary reports. Defense counsel Michael Malloy was not present Tuesday, but previously indicated he needs Rifai's report for his own expert to complete another report. Malloy previously indicated that he would not invoke a plea of not guilty by reason of insanity or incompetency defense based on prior reports. Deputy District Attorney Stephanie Wills called it a "disgrace" that the final reports are still not available, noting the judge ordered them to be produced by November 2015. "We have a trial date in this matter and neither counsel has complied with any of the court's orders, rulings, scheduling orders, anything," said Wills, who also needs to review both reports with her own expert. "We keep coming back and it's the same conversation every time." The case has so far seen 10 motions hearings and nine status conferences. Trial is scheduled to begin Oct. 31. Galloway could not say when, if ever, he might hope to have the final report in hand from Rifai and suggested he might file a motion to have Rifai replaced with another expert. Nilon asked Galloway to furnish the doctor's address to the court and asked him to hold off on filing the motion to remove Rifai from the case until after a hearing could be held. The judge indicated the hearing would take place before the end of next week and that an order would follow. He added the commonwealth might not be invited to the hearing. "This is an issue between the court and the expert, so I'm going to take the action that I deem appropriate," he said. Nilon also set a new status hearing for Aug. 9. (source: Delaware County Daily Times) SOUTH CAROLINA: Judge refuses to set state's Dylann Roof trial before feds' case A judge on Wednesday refused to "take up the state's battle" and try Dylann Roof before federal authorities. Circuit Judge J.C. Nicholson denied a prosecutor's request to move up the trial date, keeping the federal proceeding on track to begin Nov. 7, just ahead of the holiday season. The judge said that "the horse was out of the barn," and it was likely too late to change that schedule now. The state's trial is set to start Jan. 17. "I'm not the one to fight with the federal government on who tries it first," Nicholson said during an afternoon hearing in downtown Charleston. "That's not my job. ... I'm not going to do it." Ninth Circuit Solicitor Scarlett Wilson had sought the move to avoid back-to-back trials for the survivors and the families affected by the slayings last year of 9 black worshippers at Charleston's Emanuel AME Church. To ease their ordeal, Nicholson said he would likely further delay the state's trial. Both Wilson and Roof's defense lawyers agreed. The judge was expected to later issue a written order calling for jury selection to start in mid-January with opening statements and testimony weeks later. Wilson had argued that the state should try Roof 1st to avoid problems with carrying out his sentence. Roof, a white 22-year-old from Eastover, was indicted on 13 counts in state court and 33 federal charges, including hate crimes. Some of those charges in each case make him eligible for the death penalty, but the federal system is historically less likely to execute people. After the hearing, Wilson said her concerns about "primary custody" of Roof - a legal concept calling for the state to impose its sentence 1st - had been largely ignored. "It doesn't seem to matter. I'm afraid that leads us to 2 trials," she said. "In the long run, I hope I am wrong about this." Roof is the 1st person to be prosecuted in state and federal death penalty cases at the same time, so how the cases and his sentences play out is unknown. Wilson told Nicholson that defense lawyers had unfairly called her "reckless" for fighting for an earlier trial. In documents filed before the proceeding, she said the attorneys' stance on the issue amounted to "unsupported outrage." Nicholson told Wilson that she was not reckless and that he understood her concern. But his courtroom was the wrong place for her argument, he said. He encouraged Wilson to file a motion in U.S. District Court, though Wilson had already expressed her wishes in a letter to the federal judge, Richard Gergel. "I don't even know why we're having this argument," Nicholson said. Roof's lawyers in federal court had asked for a speedy trial - leading to the scheduling dilemma that prompted Wilson's request for an earlier date. Circuit Public Defender Ashley Pennington, 1 of Roof's attorneys in state court, had opposed the move. "I don't see any stumbling blocks or impediments to (the federal court) actually being able to commence on Nov. 7," Pennington said Wednesday. Problems could arise, though - particularly in selecting a jury. Roof's lead federal defender, David Bruck, has said he didn't plan to ask for a trial outside the Charleston area. But he said in a filing Wednesday that it would be "irresponsible to declare an absolute" position because of "unforeseeable new developments" that could change his stance. If an impartial jury cannot be chosen, he explained, the defense team might ask for a change of venue. If the federal date remains unchanged, Nicholson's decision Wednesday means that 2 historic trials are on course to happen simultaneously. A week before Roof's federal proceeding, the murder trial of former North Charleston police officer Michael Slager is set to begin. Slager, who is white, fatally shot Walter Scott, a black man, during a traffic stop last year. Both trials are expected to last weeks. "We'll just have to play it by ear and see what happens," Wilson said. (source: The Post and Courier) GEORGIA----impending execution Parole Board turns down John Wayne Conner's clemency request The State Board of Pardons and Paroles today turned down John Wayne Conner's request to stop his execution set for Thursday evening. The board reached its decision about 2 hours after District Attorney Timothy Vaughn, the prosecutor in Telfair County, laid out the details of the 1982 murder of J.T White, but also told of 2 other people Conner had killed - 1 when he was 15 and the other just months before White's death. Earlier in the day, the 5 board members heard from Conner's attorneys, 2 sisters and other friends who wanted to the board to consider his violent upbringing as they considered his clemency request. The board does not explain its reasons. Unless the courts grant his appeal, the 60-year-old Conner will die by lethal injection at 7 p.m., becoming the 6th person Georgia has executed this year. His execution would come 34 years to the day of when he was convicted . Conner, then 25, and White, 29, had spent the evening of Jan. 9, 1982, at a party but wanted to keep drinking once they returned to Conner's house in Milan. They walked to a neighbor's house in search of a ride to the liquor store, but the neighbor refused. Walking back to Conner's house, the 2 got into a fight when White said he wanted to have sex with Conner's girlfriend, Beverly Bates. Conner beat White with a quart bottle and an oak tree branch. Leaving White in a ditch, Conner went home to get Bates so they could leave town, but on the way Conner stopped at the ditch where he had left White. To make sure White was dead, Conner beat him with a tree limb and then stabbed him with a stick. Conner and Bates were arrested the next day in Butts County, on their way to Gainesville. (source: myajc.com) KANSAS: Bennett to be evaluated A Labette County judge ordered Wednesday a mental health evaluation of a quadruple murder suspect based on his behavior while jailed. David Cornell Bennett Jr., 24, is charged in Labette County District Court with capital murder or in the alternative 4 counts of 1st-degree murder. The punishment for capital murder is death by lethal injection or life in prison without parole, but the punishment requires an additional hearing after a finding of guilt. The prosecution filed notice that it is seeking the death penalty. Bennett also faces a rape charge, 3 counts of criminal threat, all felonies, and 4 misdemeanors, 2 counts of phone harassment and 2 counts of criminal deprivation of property. Bennett is accused of strangling Cami Umbarger and her 3 children, Hollie Betts, 9, Jaxon Betts, 6, and Averie Betts, 4, in November 2013. Their bodies were discovered on Nov. 25, 2013, at Umbarger's home in Parsons after she didn't show up for work. Bennett's defense is handled by the state's Death Penalty Defense Unit, a division of the Kansas Board of Indigents' Defense Services. His attorneys are Tim Frieden and Jeffrey Wicks. The Kansas Attorney General's Office is prosecuting the case. Late last month, Frieden and Wicks filed a motion to determine competency of their client, writing that he'd been exhibiting behavior that makes them question whether he's capable of understanding the legal process enough to assist in his defense. Bennett has been jailed since November 2013 in isolation. He has limited family and friends who communicate with him, the attorneys wrote. Bennett reports hearing voices and sounds and the voices are critical of him and they interfere with his ability to think, the attorneys wrote. He reports being "out of it" and "out of touch." He's also paranoid and fears jailers intend to kill him. He's also exhibiting compulsive behavior, the attorneys wrote. His attorneys asked Wednesday in a brief hearing for Bennett to be sent to Larned State Security Hospital for a competency evaluation, even though the law requires him to go through an evaluation at a local mental health center first, in this case Labette Center for Mental Health Services in Parsons. Jessica Domme, an assistant attorney general, asked Judge Robert Fleming to follow the law and order an evaluation at Labette Center for Mental Health first. Fleming said if the center recommends further evaluation at Larned, then that could be done by order rather than by a hearing. Domme suggested the report from Labette Center for Mental Health be turned into the court by July 29. A hearing on motions in Bennett's case is set for Aug. 4 and these motions likely will be heard another time depending on the mental health evaluation process. Bennett's trial is scheduled to begin July 10, 2017. (source: Parsons Sun) SOUTH DAKOTA: South Dakotans gather in Sioux Falls with goals to repeal the death penalty A number of South Dakotans got together in downtown Sioux Falls to pay their respects to Thomas Egan. He was an innocent man who was executed in Sioux Falls in 1882. This group is using his story to bring change to the state's death penalty. The reunion began with a short moment of silence. People were given the opportunity to share how the death penalty has affected their lives. Denny Davis is the director of the South Dakotans for Alternatives to the Death Penalty and believes the community needs to convince the legislature that execution is not the answer. "I think it's important that the citizens make them aware that this is an important issue for us. That we are better people than this. If we say that we are as we have so many times said that we are a pro-life state then it has to be all of life. This would include executing a human being," he said. Davis also says innocent or not, it is unfair to the families who have to deal with the aftermath of an execution. (source: KSFY news) ****************** Death Penalty Critics Remember The Wrongly Executed----18 people have been executed in S.D. since 1877, including Thomas Egan in 1882 Mary Ihly had just graduated from college working as a nurse, when she was summoned for jury duty - almost 4 decades ago. It was a case that could have ended in a death sentence. "It does something to the inside of you when you say yes to murder somebody else," she said, "I know, because I was one of them." Ihly and the other 11 jurors found the man guilty of his crimes. But there was another part of the process she won't soon forget. "The 2nd part of that is you have to decide if he gets life in prison or whether he gets the death penalty," she recalled. Conflicted with decision to put a man to death or leave him in jail for the rest of his life, Ihly sought comfort through prayer in the back pews of St. Joseph's Cathedral in Sioux Falls. "Can I say yes, to killing another person?" she asked herself, "and it just hit me." Ihly described it as a clear sign from God, which helped her make a decision in this case. "'Mary, you can kill him today, but I was going to convert him tomorrow.'" That's what Ihly remembers thinking. After leaving the church she headed back into the Minnehaha County courtroom, and alongside other jurors, sentenced him to life behind bars. Her change of heart kept the man alive, but acts as a sobering reminder for Denny Davis and other opponents of South Dakota's death penalty law, that death in exchange for a crime is never the answer. Those in favor of repealing the death penalty gathered around the historical maker known as "The Hanging of an Innocent Man." It tells the story of Thomas Egan who was hanged for killing his wife. Years later, on her death bed, his daughter confessed to killing her mother. Davis says that Egan's story is a prime example that death penalties for crimes often come with uncertainty. "We are better than what this person has done," said Davis, "we're not going to lower ourselves and kill because this person was killed." Davis and Ihly hope that lawmakers see this vigil and hear these stories to write legislation that would repeal the law one and for all. The death penalty is legal in 30 other states. South Dakota currently has 3 people on death row. (source: KDLT news) UTAH: Cost of death penalty giving rise to competing bills A Utah lawmaker still intends to run a bill next year to condense Utah's death penalty appeals process, even though state law enforcement officials Wednesday told legislators it's already as tight as possible. The legislation, planned by Rep. Paul Ray, R-Clearfield, would compete with a bill calling for repeal of the death penalty - a proposal that passed in the Senate earlier this year but didn't make it to the House floor before the end of the session. After lawmakers heard from the Utah Attorney General's Office and an expert on national death penalty information, opponents of capital punishment said they felt confident legislators would recognize that abolishing the death penalty is the only cost-effective and rational choice. "There's really no basis for an argument based on the testimony that was brought forward here today," Ralph Dellapiana, director of Utahns for Alternatives to the Death Penalty, said after Wednesday's meeting of the Law Enforcement and Criminal Justice Interim Committee at the Capitol. Andrew Peterson and Thomas Bunker, both with the Utah Attorney General's Office, told lawmakers that most delays in the appeals process happen in federal court. "The way the statute is right now is the best that the state can do to move the cases along in both state and federal court," Bunker said. Robert Dunham, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, said every cost study done in the U.S. has indicated that the death penalty is "generally far more expensive" than life in prison. Dunham also said a "fast-track" state process could also mean more delays in federal proceedings. "There's no argument to try to speed it up any further," Dellapiana said. "It's only going to cost more and increase the possibility of innocent people being executed, so I don't see anybody signing up to support such a bad idea." Still, lawmakers are pushing forward with the discussion. Ray, who did not attend Wednesday's meeting because he was traveling for work, said he'll study the information, but it's not going to "deter" him. "People will present all different kinds of opinions, but my job is to find the most efficient and effective way," he said. "And I've met with some judges, and I've seen some areas we can make changes. Even if we take five years off of (the appeals process), that's five years we will save the taxpayer." Ray said information presented at the meeting was "skewed" because it only addressed legal costs and not other expenses associated with life without parole sentences, such as medical costs for aging inmates. "The reason we're talking about this is not because we're a blood thirsty Legislature and we just want to hurry up and execute everyone," said Sen. Todd Weiler, R-Woods Cross. Lawmakers are "digging deep" on the costs and what makes the process take so long, Weiler said. The length of the appeals process can be difficult for victims' families, he said. Legislative fiscal analysts estimate a capital murder case from trial to execution in Utah costs state and local governments $1.6 million more on average than a life without parole case. 9 condemned death-row killers in Utah have yet to exhaust all of their appeals in state and federal courts. The average length of stay on death row among those men is just over 23 years, with Ron Lafferty and Douglas Carter being the longest at 31 years, and Floyd Maestas the shortest at 8 years. The last person to be executed in Utah was Ronnie Lee Gardner, who was killed by firing squad in 2010 after spending 24 years on death row. Last year, the Utah Legislature passed a law - also sponsored by Ray - to bring back the firing squad if the lethal injection drugs aren't available. Pharmaceutical companies no longer sell the drugs for that purpose. Ray has said he believes there's a "98 % chance" the state's next execution will be by firing squad. (source: Deseret News) CALIFORNIA: Trial begins for Canyon Country man accused of double murder The trial of Lance Holger Anderson, accused of killing his wife and sister 2 1/2 years ago, got underway Wednesday with opening statements made by lawyers before a judge, a spokesman for the Los Angeles County District Attorney's office said. Anderson, now 63, appeared Wednesday in San Fernando Superior court charged with 2 counts of murder, District Attorney spokesman Ricardo Santiago said. The trial is scheduled to continue Thursday, he said. Anderson was ordered to stand trial in October 2015 following a 1-day preliminary hearing. During that hearing Oct. 15, Deputy District Attorney Julie Kramer presented evidence in both slayings, calling at least 10 people to the witness stand. If found guilty on all charges and the special allegations, Anderson faces the possibility of the death penalty. A decision on whether to recommend the death penalty upon conviction lies with the District Attorney's Office. Anderson, who lived at a condominium complex on Claudette Street in Canyon Country, was arrested Dec. 11, 2013, on suspicion that he killed his 68-year-old wife, Bertha Maxine Anderson, and his 58-year-old sister, Lisa Florence Nave. Anderson's wife died of an apparent gunshot wound, homicide detectives said. His sister was killed in a nursing home in North Hills in the San Fernando Valley. (source: Santa Clarita Valley Signal) From rhalperi at smu.edu Thu Jul 14 08:44:25 2016 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Thu, 14 Jul 2016 08:44:25 -0500 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide Message-ID: July 14 IRAQ: Iraqi President approves decision to carry out death penalty Iraqi President Fuad Masoum has approved a decision to carry out death sentences for a number of prisoners convicted of serious terrorism offenses which "claimed the lives of innocent citizens," according to a statement by the official website of the Iraqi Presidency posted on Wednesday (July 13). Iraqi Presidency Spokesman Khalid Shwani said, "Decrees signed by the executive office were sent to the proper authorities for the purpose of implementing these provisions." Shwani said the death sentences were approved following a study by a special legal committee formed for the purpose. Citing Shwani, the Iraqi Presidency said in its statement the committee has resumed work to resolve remaining cases after receiving the approval of the Iraqi president in accordance with the required legal process. Hundreds of Iraqis took to the streets on Monday (July 11) in the area of Talibiya near the entrance to Sadr City, demanding authorities carry out the death sentences of 300 people convicted of terrorism offenses. Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi has ordered the Ministry of Justice to implement the death sentences of inmates convicted of terrorism. (source: nrttv.com) CAMEROON: Detained 'Boko Haram supporters' dying of torture, disease in Cameroon - Amnesty----"In the fight against Boko Haram, innocent people are paying the price" More than 1,000 people accused of supporting Boko Haram in Cameroon are being detained in military bases and prisons, often without any evidence, and dozens are dying from disease, malnutrition and torture, a rights group said on Thursday. Since a regional offensive last year drove Boko Haram from most of their strongholds, the Islamist militants have waged a guerrilla-style campaign targeting civilians. In Cameroon, teenage girls have killed dozens in suicide bombings carried out by the group. But a crackdown by the government and security forces on the Islamist militants has fuelled the widespread abuse of civilians across Cameroon's Far North region, said Amnesty International. Cameroonian government officials were not immediately available for comment. "We are not necessarily talking about Boko Haram fighters - but about normal people who happened to be in the wrong place in the wrong time," said Amnesty researcher Ilaria Allegrozzi. "In the fight against Boko Haram, innocent people are paying the price," she told the Thomson Reuters Foundation. Many people are held at illegal detention sites in military bases run by Cameroonian troops before being transferred to official prisons, Amnesty said in a report. Several detainees in the military bases told Amnesty that they were tortured and beaten with sticks, whips and machetes, sometimes until they lost consciousness. "Two prisoners were beaten up so badly that they died in front of us," Amnesty quoted a 70-year-old man as saying. "The men kicked them, slapped them violently, and hit them with wooden sticks." In the main prison in Maroua, the capital of the Far North region, between six and eight people die every month in dirty and overcrowded cells where malnutrition is rife, Amnesty said. Detainees suspected of supporting Boko Haram who are brought to trial risk being convicted and sentenced to death, despite there often being little or no evidence, the rights group said. More than 100 people have been sentenced to death in Maroua's military court since July 2015, although none have yet been executed, said the "Right Cause, Wrong Means" report. Most defendants are charged under an anti-terrorism law passed in 2014, which is ambiguous and vague, Amnesty said. A 27-year-old who was arrested after sending a text message to his friends, joking about Boko Haram recruiting graduates, could face the death penalty, the rights group said. "If a student can face the death penalty for sending a sarcastic text message, it is clear that there is a serious problem with the design and use of Cameroon's anti-terrorist legislation," said Alioune Tine, Amnesty's regional director. More than 15,000 people have been killed and 2.4 million uprooted in Nigeria and neighboring Chad, Niger and Cameroon during Boko Haram's 7-year campaign to carve out an Islamic caliphate in northeast Nigeria. (source: Reuters) INDONESIA: Kuta drug kingpin threatened with death penalty An alleged narcotics kingpin and 2 other Bali drug lords operating under him in the same network have been threatened with the death penalty. Suspected drug boss Putu Leon, 44, along with Cahyadi alias Boy, 38, and I Made Astawa alias Krecek, 39, have been hit with charges carrying life imprisonment and the death penalty. The suspects and evidence were submitted to the district attorney's office on Tuesday. Evidence, found after a thorough police investigation, reportedly consists of hundreds of millions of rupiah, Australian and American dollars, luxury cars and motorcycles, as well as mobile phones. Meanwhile, drug evidence found from Cahyadi included as much as 58 ecstasy pills and183 packages of crystal meth, Head District Attorney Erna Normawati Widodo Putri told Tribun Bali. The 3 suspects, labeled as big time drug dealers by police - supposedly some of the biggest in Bali - were arrested during a dramatic raid back in March 2016 on Jl. Dewi Sri. Leon, originally from Karangasem, was the big boss and financier, while Cahyadi and Astawa would deal in places like nightclubs in Bali, reports say. (source: coconuts.co) From rhalperi at smu.edu Thu Jul 14 19:07:24 2016 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Thu, 14 Jul 2016 19:07:24 -0500 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----GA., NEB., NEV., CALIF. Message-ID: July 14 GEORGIA----impending execution Georgia Scheduled To End Nation's 2-Month Death Penalty Hiatus---John Conner is scheduled to die Thursday evening for killing his friend. If Georgia executes him, it will be the state's 6th execution this year - a record for the state. Georgia is preparing to execute John Conner on Thursday, ending a 2-month death penalty hiatus for the United States. If Conner is put to death, he would be the 6th person executed by Georgia this year, putting the state on equal footing with Texas. His lawyers on Thursday asked the U.S. Supreme Court to halt his execution - likely Conner's last opportunity to stop the scheduled 7 p.m. execution from going forward. The state has opposed Conner's request. Conner was sentenced to death 34 years ago. According to court documents, Conner, who was 25 at the time, went to a party with friends, where he drank and smoked pot. After returning home, Conner and another man, J.T. White, went for a walk with a near-empty bottle of bourbon, searching for more alcohol. Conner claims that while they were walking, White remarked that he would like to have sex with Conner's girlfriend, who they had left behind at the house. "So I got mad and we got into a fight and fought all the way over to the oak tree and I hit him with a quart bottle," Conner said. "I was down there at him right there in the ditch where he was at, and he was swinging trying to get up or swinging at me to try to hit me one. And there was a stick right there at me, and I grabbed it and went to beating him with it." Conner left White in the ditch, and returned home to tell his girlfriend they needed to leave town. Conner returned later to make sure White was dead. Conner was sentenced to death for killing White, and later pled guilty killing another man: Jesse Smyth. Conner's attorneys asked the Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles to spare his life, pointing to his horrific childhood and violent father. "For young John Wayne Conner, normalcy included extraordinary familial violence that frequently involved knives and guns; regular drug and alcohol abuse; and brutal physical, sexual and emotional abuse," the clemency application read. "Having been raised in almost unimaginable circumstances of poverty and violence, Mr. Conner initially fell into the pattern modeled by those in his family." The Board of Pardons and Paroles denied clemency on Wednesday. Conner's attorneys have also argued in court that he is intellectually disabled. "After his arrest in 1982, he was evaluated at Central State Hospital following a jailhouse suicide attempt," they wrote. "The evaluation revealed a suicidal man with a 'history of mental illness' exhibiting symptoms of schizophrenia, autism, 'psychomotor retardation' and severe drug and alcohol dependence." Attorney General Sam Olens' office responded that "there has been no genuine change in the facts or the law since relief was denied in his prior" requests. On Thursday, the Georgia Supreme Court declined to halt his execution. 2 justices wrote that they would grant a stay of execution "solely to decide whether, under the specific facts and circumstances of this case, his execution more than 34 years after being sentenced to death would qualify as cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the Eighth Amendment to the United States Constitution." Conner's attorneys on Thursday asked the U.S. Supreme Court to stay his execution and to review the Georgia Supreme Court's decision. If Georgia executes Conner Thursday evening, it will be the most executions in a year for the state since the death penalty was reinstated. Georgia, like other active death penalty states like Missouri and Texas, uses a single drug called pentobarbital. Other states that would like to carry out the death penalty have been unsuccessful getting the drug. (source: buzzfeed.com) NEBRASKA: Death penalty sought for man charged in deaths of woman, tot Prosecutors will seek the death penalty for a man charged in the December shooting deaths of a woman and her 2-year-old daughter. Omaha television station KETV reports (http://bit.ly/2a1QZ87 ) that 24-year-old Dontevous Loyd appeared in court Thursday and was formally arraigned on the enhanced 1st-degree murder charges. Prosecutors say they also will file witness tampering charges against Loyd, saying he threatened a witness from jail. Police say Destacia Straughn, who had dated Loyd on and off, reported to police on Dec. 6 that she was afraid of Loyd, and officers removed him from her apartment. Police say later that night, Loyd kicked in Straughn's apartment door and began shooting, killing 2-year-old Kenacia Straughn first, then her mother. 3 other women visiting were shot and injured. (source: Associated Press) NEVADA: DA to decide whether to seek death penalty against 4 men accused of killing Aric Brill The District Attorney's office will decide within the next few weeks whether to seek the death penalty against the 4 men accused of murdering Aric Brill. All men appeared in court Wednesday and pleaded not guilty. Brill was just 16-years-old when he was shot and killed outside a house party back in February 2009. "Generally the more time it takes to get a case to trial, that's an advantage for the defense rather than the prosecutor," said District Attorney, Steve Wolfson. Wolfson knows 7 years is a very long time to wait. Prosecuting four young men for a brutal crime that occurred when most of them were still teenagers. "The same fire in the belly some witnesses had in the beginning but as time goes on people's lives move on," said Wolfson. But Wolfson believes the evidence surrounding the murder of Aric Brill is strong. According to newly released court transcripts, one witness, Edward Kruse testified that Nadin Hiko confessed to the murder. That conversation occurred when the 2 men were housed together at the Clark County Detention Center on unrelated charges. Kruse testified saying, "Hiko told me he shot him in the back of the head". The testimony continued with Kruse saying, "At first I didn't believe it and then he started giving me details". Lt. Laz Chavez, who leads the criminal intelligence section, doesn't believe the 4 were suspects back in 2009. "It's a piece of the puzzle. As you know, these kinds of cases are really complex," he said. Lt. Chavez added they were getting tips 7 years after the murder. He tells us, in the last few months, the case was turned over to gang intelligence detectives, who gave a fresh set of eyes and perspective to the case. "The linchpin of this case was when it was assigned to the gang intelligence detectives. They had an intricate amount of knowledge when it comes to these parties that were going on back then, to the types of people that were present, to the teenagers that were there," said Lt. Chavez. "As things began to develop and unravel these last few months, it was pretty clear to us who the suspects were in the murder." He says the detectives interviewed the suspects over the last few months. "Some of the suspects involved in this crime are providing information. They want to help themselves. We'll see where that takes us. That information has been given to the District Attorney's office and will be shared with the jury when the trial begins," he said. "I'm just glad to finally get a look at these creeps and let them know we're not afraid of them," said father, Donald Brill. "I don't want to seem hateful here but they murdered a 16-year-old boy. They shot him in the back. They continued that behavior robbing other people," said mother, Karen Brill Kelly. As for Wolfson, he wants families waiting for justice in other cold cases to know, neither detectives nor prosecutor ever give up. The Brill case could be the first of many to move forward. "Right now, there is a new push for DNA testing and there's money made available to do a bunch of DNA testing on specimens that weren't otherwise examined. And this might result in prosecutions of cases that have been lying dormant for years and years and years," said Wolfson. Police think the 4 suspects, in this case, were part of a gang, committing street robberies. Aric Brill was a random victim caught in the wrong place. (source: KSNV news) CALIFORNIA: Critics of California's death penalty launch the campaign to pass Proposition 62 A group of advocates and exonerated inmates gathered in Los Angeles on Thursday to officially launch a campaign in favor of a ballot proposition repealing California's death penalty. "What we have here is a coalition of people from very different walks of life, from very different perspectives, who want to let you know why we should be out of the business of killing," former "M*A*S*H" actor Mike Farrell, author of the initiative, told the audience. Proposition 62 would replace capital punishment in California for 1st-degree murder with life in prison without the possibility of parole. It is 1 of 2 competing measures on the future of the death penalty that voters will weigh on Nov. 8. Both ballot measures would require current death row inmates to work and pay restitution to victims. But the opposing measure, Proposition 66, aims to speed up executions through limited and expedited appeals. Anti-death penalty advocates on Thursday criticized the competing ballot measure as misguided and costly. And they called the current death penalty process dysfunctional and barbaric. Ron Briggs, who with his father led the campaign that 38 years ago brought the death penalty to California, said they believed then that the law would serve as a deterrent, provide swift justice for families and save taxpayers money. "We couldn't have been more wrong," Briggs said."What we did was we created an industry for death in California, costing taxpayers $187 million a year." Beth Webb, who lost her sister and several friends in a 2011 mass shooting at a Seal Beach hair salon, said more violence did not bring peace. "Neither me or my mom will find closure in the death of another human being," she said. (source: Los Angeles Times) From rhalperi at smu.edu Thu Jul 14 19:08:14 2016 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Thu, 14 Jul 2016 19:08:14 -0500 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide Message-ID: July 14 GHANA: 2 death sentences in Tamale----Ghana is considered to be a democratic country that leads in human rights but unfortunately the entrenched clause in the constitution that allows the death penalty has become rampant, a human rights activist says. The Tamale High Court has sentenced a 33 year old herdsman to death, the 2nd such sentencing in the past 2 weeks. Ghana is considered to be a democratic country that leads in human rights but unfortunately the entrenched clause in the constitution that allows the death penalty has become rampant, a human rights activist says. Ghana still has laws that allow the death penalty - it has become an entrenched clause only because the government nor presidency alone cannot take that away unless there is a referendum, Director of Amnesty International Ghana Lawrence Amesu says. This week, the Tamale High Court sentenced a 33-year old Fulani herdsman to death by hanging. The court, presided over by His Lordship Mr. Charles Gyamfi Danquah handed down the sentence of death after all 7 judges came out with an unanimous decision of guilty of murder. The convict and the deceased were brothers and lived in the same house at Soma village near Tuna in the Sawla-Tuna-Kalba District of the Northern Region with other members of their family. Ghanaweb reports that in November 2008, there was a family dispute which lead the convict to assault his siblings. Later, the convict followed the deceased who was herding their father's cattle to the bush to graze where he stabbed him in ribs resulting in his death. It was reported that when he realized he had killed his brother, he went home packed his belongings and left the village undetected, however the convict's father became suspicious about the disappearance of the deceased and after failing to find the deceased lodged a complaint with police. Mumuni Adama was arrested in Kalba village while he attempted to escape with his wife. He then confessed to the police about killing his brother and led them to the body. This sentence comes a week after a 22-year-old trader was also sentenced to death after being found guilty of murder by a 5-member jury at the Tamale High Court. Zeila Sulemana was convicted and sentenced after stabbing nursing student Rawdia Aminu, in 2014 after the 2 argued. (source: pulse.com.gh) THAILAND: Disabled man murder suspects plead not guilty in court The 7 youths accused of killing a disabled bread deliveryman in the Chokchai 4 neighborhood in May pleaded not guilty at the Criminal Court in their 1st trial this morning. The suspects - including 6 young men aged 18-23 and their 19-year-old female friend - denied all 3 charges including murder, possession of knives, and intrusion of the bakery. The next trial is set for Sept. 19. Anantachai Chaidech, the lawyer who represents the victim's family, said the suspects' denial of the charges will benefit his side since the court can now consider giving them the highest punishment, which is death penalty, Post Today reported. Previously, the family of the victim, Somkiat Srichan, 36, requested that the police charge the 7 suspects with 1st-degree murder, which is only punishable by death. That request was denied but, with the suspects' plea of not-guilty, that sentence could come back into play. On May 1, the 7 suspects were arrested for allegedly taking part in killing Somkiat outside of the bread shop where he worked. The victim had reportedly been teased by 4 of the men, which led to an argument. The 4 men then called 2 friends, who arrived with knives. Together, they allegedly beat and stabbed Somkiat, according to an eyewitness. The suspects are brothers Arin and Peerapol Yodponganan, 20 and 21 respectively, Monmanat Sangpho, 22, and Mek Polkraisorn, 19, Akkaradet Thatsana, 22, and an 18-year-old boy, whose identity was withheld. Natnicha Ritlamlert, the 19-year-old girlfriend of 1 of the 6 suspects, turned herself in days later after a warrant was issued for her arrest. A witness said she cheered on the 6 assailants and yelled "Kill him!" (source: coconuts.co) PAKISTAN: COAS approves death sentence of 12 terrorists Chief of Army Staff (COAS) General Raheel Sharif Thursday confirmed death sentence awarded by military courts to 12 terrorists. According to Inter Services Public Relations (ISPR), the convicted terrorists included Muhammad Qayyum, Asif, Muhammad Bacha and Shahadat Hussain, Samaa reported. The terrorists were involved in attacking security personnel and civilians, the ISPR said. Pakistan reinstated the death penalty and established military courts as part of a crackdown after suffering its deadliest ever extremist attack, when gunmen stormed Army Public School in Peshawar in 2014 leaving more than 150 people dead. (source: thenewstribe.com) *************** Flowers from the muck----A well-observed account of Pakistan's death penalty and how it works Pakistan's death row is one of the grimmest places on earth. The sordid conditions of its condemned - stowed away for decades, 8 men to a 120-square-foot cell, sustained on filthy gruel and constantly recontaminating one another with disease - are the least of its horrors. When this book begins in 2013, an estimated 8,000 people were awaiting execution. A former minister estimates that 2/3 were innocent. "Trials" is about a foreign lawyer's plunge into this swirling injustice. The surprise is the flowering of virtue that she finds at its centre. Isabel Buchanan was somehow drawn to this mess. Just months after finishing her law degree in Scotland, she decided to learn Urdu, move to Lahore and bury herself beneath a mountain of files in a stifling room. She says modestly little about her reasons, save for a self-effacing remark about her love for Pakistani sweets. The 1st pattern to emerge is the way Pakistan's penal system is wielded against British-raised expatriates who return to their homeland. Jealous neighbours easily suborn the police into arresting them. Ms Buchanan took up the victims' cases to provide them with legal aid. Her guide is another crusading misfit, Sarah Belal, whom she introduces with great charm ("one of Pakistan's least successful lawyers ... unemployed, depressed" and yet glamorous). Along the way, she cobbles together a handbook to a mad system. Together, the 2 lawyers plough into a field of perversity. The police routinely begin their investigations by torturing suspects into unreliable confessions. This is so well known that Pakistan's courts have ruled statements made in police custody to be inadmissible as evidence, unless corroborated. So the torture goes on, in co-ordination with police who plant evidence to validate the forced confessions. In one case the same man is sentenced to death twice: once by hanging, once by firing squad. But the most perverse judgments arise from an unholy hybrid of antiquated British rules and Islamic law: the law against blasphemy. An Islamist reinterpretation of sharia demands the ultimate punishment, while colonial-era criminal procedures short-circuit traditional Islamic opportunities for apologies and mercy. More than 1,200 people have been sentenced to death for blasphemy, but none has been executed. Ms Buchanan attributes that oddity to "a quiet, subtle act of objection" on the part of Pakistan's higher courts, which do what they can to lessen the law's damage. Instead, convicted blasphemers are murdered routinely outside the court system, as are those who might protect them. Yet many continue to brave the murderers' threats. Other bravery shows itself through tenderness, as when an innocent prisoner devotes himself to comforting panicked men on their way to the gallows. Ms Buchanan dedicates her book to him. She manages to keep aloft several such stories at once, with a fine eye for machinery behind the scenes: like the black typewriters that judder under candlelight during a summertime blackout. In an elegant final chapter, Ms Buchanan makes the point that Pakistan is hardly alone in subjecting Pakistanis to inhumane treatment. Ms Belal's ragtag team turns to arguing for the repatriation of Pakistani civilians dragged by American special forces across the border into Afghanistan and stored like meat in a locker at an American prison near Bagram. Its inmates have been denoted by serial numbers, and years of their lives have been stolen, on a mere guess that they may be terrorists. Eventually the courts in Pakistan agree to recognise the prisoners near Bagram as people, and Ms Buchanan gives them their due. "It was Pakistan's legal system that championed fundamental rights where 2 great Western democracies [Britain and America] had denied them." In a triumph against appearances, some Pakistanis refuse to submit to pressure to dispense with the niceties of justice. (source: The Economist) PHILIPPINES: 'I'm not perfect but I'm no drug dealer': Australian man facing the death penalty in the Philippines for 'selling cookie monster ecstasy' pleads his innocence - as his girlfriend expects their 1st child----Damian Berg was arrested in Manila in June accused of selling ecstasy; The engineer from Adelaide protested his innocence to Daily Mail Australia An Adelaide man arrested for allegedly selling 'cookie monster' drugs in the Philippines has pleaded his innocence from jail as he faces the death penalty. Damian Berg, 34, spoke exclusively to Daily Mail Australia via his pregnant girlfriend to insist he was the victim of a set-up on Thursday. Protesting that he did not attempt to sell a horde of blue ecstasy tablets in Manila, as accused by Philippine authorities, Mr Berg said he was 'not perfect' but had never been 'a drug dealer'. He instead laid the blame squarely with Canadian native Jeremy Eaton who was also taken into custody in June when police claim to have found them with 170 of the pills. 'It's lies,' he said of the allegations against him. 'Marvie and I had been arguing while I was at work,' he said, explaining why he was not at the couple's shared home but at a hotel nearby when he was arrested with Eaton on June 21. Mr Berg, 34, claims he was named to police by a local drug addict who once saw him drinking in a bar with his co-accused. The engineer said he had no reason to engage in criminal activity after finding work and a happy life with his girlfriend, who is pregnant with their 1st child, since leaving Australia several years ago. 'I was lucky to secure the role in the Philippines as Marvie and I intended to start a family. 'Why would I do this stuff ? No need. I am not perfect but I am no drug dealer.' If found guilty of drug dealing, Mr Berg could face the death penalty under a new, harsher crime crackdown introduced by the country's new leader, Rodrigo Duerte. Duerte has a notoriously tough stance against drugs, once claiming he would kill his own son if he ever caught him taking them. Speaking to Daily Mail Australia upon his arrest last month, Ms Zanelucas broke down as she contemplated life without him. 'We were planning on getting married until this happened,' she said. 'We had a plan and now this everyone is saying he's a drug dealer and I said: "What the hell". It's not true. I'm not scared, we know the truth. He is a good man. He doesn't belong there. 'I am talking to his family on Skype. As of now I am OK. I am strong, I have the support of my family.' She added her partner was not close friends with Eaton but that the pair were merely acquaintances. Ms Zanelucas, who is 29, is due to give birth to their 1st son in November. Mr Berg's parents, who remain in Adelaide, said in June they were aware he had been taken into custody. 'What we do know is that Damian is in custody in Manila and is being treated OK. 'It will take time before his case is heard, and until then we can't comment any more. As a family, we dearly love him and will be supporting him as much as we can,' they said. The 34-year-old's case has been postponed for a month, leaving him to wait in a Manila prison until facing trial when proceedings resume. The Department of Trade and Foreign Affairs is providing consular assistance to the Berg family, a spokesman said last month. 'The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade is providing consular assistance to an Australian man arrested in the Philippines, in accordance with the Consular Services Charter. 'Due to privacy obligations, we are unable to provide further comment.' (source: dailymail.co.uk) From rhalperi at smu.edu Fri Jul 15 09:41:40 2016 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Fri, 15 Jul 2016 09:41:40 -0500 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----PENN., GA., FLA., ARK., CALIF. Message-ID: July 15 PENNSYLVANIA: Death penalty sought for couple The Elk County district attorney is pursuing the death penalty for a Ridgway boy's aunt and uncle. Scott Murphy, 25, Ridgway, and Kristy Murphy, 35, Ridgway, are charged with homicide. Police say they were in charge of O'Ryan Murphy, 5, in December when he died from trauma to the head. Records show that DA Shawn McMahon filed notice on June 28 that seeks death due to aggravating circumstances. If the Murphys were convicted, a jury would likely decide their punishment, according to court administrator Martha Masson. (source: wearecentralpa.com) GEORGIA----execution Georgia executes John Wayne Conner for 1982 murder Georgia has executed John Wayne Conner by lethal injection for the 1982 murder of J.T. White during a drunken fight over Conner's girlfriend. Conner was put to death at 12:29 a.m. Friday - 34 years and 1 day after he was convicted in Telfair County. He is the 6th murderer executed in Georgia this year - a record for the 4 decades the current death penalty law has been in place. The U.S. Supreme Court denied a stay shortly before midnight, clearing the way for the lethal injection of pentobarbital. The punishment had been scheduled for 7 p.m. Thursday, but the appeals process was still playing out. Conner ate his last meal after spending several hours earlier in the day with 3 relatives, 3 friends, 2 members of the clergy and 4 from his legal team. At 3 p.m. he was given a physical and then his wait began. A federal court rejected an appeal from Conner's legal team Thursday afternoon. The Georgia Supreme Court said no to mercy Thursday morning, and the State Board of Pardons and Paroles denied clemency on Wednesday. Conner, then 25, and White, 29, had spent the evening of Jan. 9, 1982, at a party but wanted to keep drinking once they returned to Conner's house in Milan. They walked to a neighbor's house in search of a ride to the liquor store, but the neighbor refused. Walking back to Conner's house, the 2 got into a fight because White said he wanted to have sex with Conner's girlfriend, Beverly Bates. Conner beat White with a quart bottle and an oak tree branch. Conner quickly went home to get Bates so they could leave town. Planning to go to Gainesville, Conner and Bates stopped at the ditch where he had left White just to make sure he was dead. Conner beat him with a tree limb and then stabbed him with a stick. Conner and Bates were arrested the next day in Butts County. Conner's lawyers told the Parole Board and wrote in appeals to the court that Conner had learned to be violent from his father. Based on that they asked for mercy, arguing that evidence about his upbringing was not presented to the jury that sentenced him to death. They said Conner grew up in a household where there were stabbings, shootings, alcohol and drug use, and some sexual abuse. In the years since, they said, he has done well in prison and is reformed. District Attorney Timothy Vaughn, the head prosecutor in Telfair County, reminded the board, however, that Conner had killed 3 people in 10 years, though he was sentenced to die for only 1 of them. At 15, Conner was convicted of manslaughter for fatally shooting another teenager, Randy Smith. Conner also was convicted of murdering another friend just months before he killed White; he was sentenced to life in prison for killing Jesse Smyth. Conner becomes the 6th condemned inmate to be put to death this year in Georgia and the 66th overall since the state resumed capital punishment in 1979. Conner becomes the 15th condemned inmate to be put to death this year in the USA and the 1437th overall since the nation resumed executions on January 17, 1977. (sources: myajc.com & Rick Halperin) FLORIDA: U.S. judge delays bail ruling in Spaniard's retrial for murder A Florida judge on Thursday said he would decide in the coming days whether to grant bail to Spaniard Pablo Ibar, whose death sentence for a 1994 triple murder was vacated earlier this year by that state's Supreme Court. Broward County Circuit Court Judge Raag Singhal said in the hearing that he would issue the ruling via "electronic order" in a period of between 24 hours and a week. The judge also said that on Aug. 5 he would evaluate 2 motions filed by the defense: 1 to have the death sentence in Ibar's case declared in violation of the Florida Constitution and the other to suppress the testimony of a witness who identified the defendant as one of the perpetrators of the triple homicide. One of Ibar's attorneys told EFE they were confident their client would be released while awaiting the retrial, but prosecutors oppose allowing Ibar to go free on bail, arguing that he would pose a risk to the community. State prosecutors will once again seek the death penalty for Ibar, who has been behind bars for nearly 22 years, 15 of them on death row. Nightclub owner Casimir "Butch Casey" Sucharski, 48, and models Sharon Anderson and Marie Rogers, both 25, were killed during a June 1994 home invasion in the South Florida city of Miramar. The now-45-year-old Ibar was initially tried for the triple homicide along with co-defendant Seth Penalver in 1997, but a mistrial was declared. Penalver was convicted 2 years later and sentenced to death, but that conviction was subsequently annulled and he was acquitted in a new trial in 2012. Ibar was convicted in 2000, but the Florida Supreme Court overturned that verdict by a 4-3 vote in February of this year based on, among other things, the fact that his DNA was not found on a T-shirt that was recovered from the murder scene and which one of the perpetrators had used to partially cover his face. During much of Thursday's hearing, in which Ibar was very attentive and communicated frequently with his attorneys, the defense and prosecution argued over witness testimony, evidence and the Florida Supreme Court's Feb. 4 ruling. (source: Fox News) ARKANSAS: Arkansas says death row inmates not entitled to new hearing Government lawyers said Thursday that 8 death row inmates who lost a challenge to secrecy provisions within Arkansas' execution protocol aren't entitled to another review and that further filings by the prisoners would delay justice for victims and their families. The Arkansas Supreme Court, in a 4-3 decision, ruled against the inmates June 23. Their lawyers subsequently asked justices to reconsider their decision, and requested stays of execution pending a review by the U.S. Supreme Court. Assistant Attorney General Jennifer Merritt wrote Thursday that justices not let the men cause additional delays. Arkansas has not put a prisoner to death since 2005 due to various court challenges and its inability to obtain lethal drugs. Last summer, it obtained midazolam to render the inmates unconscious, vecuronium bromide as a paralytic and potassium chloride to stop the heart, but the paralytic expired as the inmates challenged whether it was proper to keep execution procedures secret. Arkansas has since found a new supply of vecuronium bromide. But the clock is ticking again: The potassium chloride expires in January; the midazolam expires in April. "The state is in a position to carry out, in a constitutional manner, the lawful death sentences in place against the prisoners," Merritt wrote. "Delaying ... would only serve to delay justice for the victims and their families, and would potentially result in the expiration of the state's remaining supply of the other drugs in the protocol." The inmates argue that the Arkansas Constitution requires the release of detailed information about state expenditures and that legislators lacked the authority to change that. Merritt on Thursday pointed the justices back to their initial decision. "At some point, endless litigation and creative litigation tactics must yield to the lawful imposition of society's considered punishment for the most heinous murders," she wrote. "We have reached that point." Executions are on hold while the inmates' request is pending. State Supreme Court rulings don't take effect for 18 days or until after requests for new hearings are heard and dismissed. If the inmates' requests for stays and a rehearing are dismissed, the attorney general would certify to the governor whether the inmates have exhausted their appeals and are eligible for execution. The governor would then sign death warrants. (source: Associated Press) CALIFORNIA: Woodland police make second arrest in fatal shooting Police have made a second arrest in connection with the shooting death of a 35-year-old Woodland man that occurred earlier this month. Hernesto Jose Loza, 30, was taken into custody on murder and attempted murder charges during a vehicle stop at about 5:40 p.m. Tuesday, Woodland police Sgt. Brett Hancock announced Thursday. According to Hancock, Loza is the brother of another suspect in the fatal shooting, Alejandro Loza Quezada, 33, who pleaded not guilty in Yolo Superior Court on Wednesday to murder and other charges that have him facing the death penalty. Court records show Quezada has a troubled past as well, his criminal record dating back to at least 1999. Both Loza and Quezada - who once lived in the Davis area but was staying in Woodland at the time of his arrest last week - stand accused of fatally shooting 35-year-old Geovanny Yabet Gomez during a July 1 vehicle chase in a residential neighborhood. Which brother allegedly pulled the trigger, however, remains under investigation, Hancock said. The murder count filed against Quezada carries a special-circumstance allegation that he carried out the shooting to further the activities of a criminal street gang - a charge that, if proven, qualifies him for either the death penalty or life in prison without the possibility of parole. Yolo County Deputy District Attorney Robin Johnson said in court Wednesday that her office has not determined whether it will seek capital punishment in the case. The 8-page criminal complaint filed against Quezada also charges him with attempted murder - for a passenger in Gomez's vehicle who was shot and injured - shooting at an occupied vehicle, possession of a firearm by an ex-felon, drug possession and participation in criminal street gang activity. Quezada also faces a case enhancement for serving a prior prison term for transportation of narcotics. According to Yolo Superior Court records, Quezada was prosecuted as an adult in 1999 on charges of kidnapping, attempted rape, assault and false imprisonment, eventually making a plea deal in which he admitted to false imprisonment and attempted rape counts. Police arrested him again in 2005 for being a felon in possession of a firearm, carrying a concealed dagger and resisting arrest, a case in which he was sentenced to probation. Court records show he violated that probation with subsequent arrests for driving with a suspended license in 2008 and transportation of marijuana for sales in 2009. After numerous court hearings his probation was revoked, and Judge David Reed sentenced him to state prison in 2012. An online arrest report lists Quezada's address on Harvey Way in the Royal Oak manufactured home community - which is adjacent to South Davis but is within county jurisdiction - though Hancock said he has not lived there for several years. A preliminary in the current homicide case is scheduled for July 27 before Judge Samuel McAdam. Gomez's death occurred just 2 days after another shooting that killed Arnulfo Bermudez Jr., 31, though police have not confirmed whether the 2 homicides are connected. No suspects have been arrested or publicly named in connection with Bermudez's death, which marked Woodland's 1st homicide since December. Loza, meanwhile, is being held without bail at the Yolo County Jail, his court arraignment scheduled for 1:30 p.m. Friday. (source: Davis Enterprise) From rhalperi at smu.edu Fri Jul 15 09:42:23 2016 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Fri, 15 Jul 2016 09:42:23 -0500 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide Message-ID: July 15 RUSSIA: Politician demands terrorists get death penalty in the wake of Nice attack Leader of the Just Russia political party Sergey Mironov has reiterated the need to impose capital punishment on terrorists and their accomplices in the wake of the truck rampage in Nice. "Amid the growing worldwide terrorist threat facing civilization, now more than ever the death penalty must be meted out to those who carry out acts of terror and their accomplices," he said in a statement posted on the party's Telegram account. "However, it is more important to pool together the efforts of the international community to survive and emerge victorious in this ruthless war." Mironov offered his condolences to the victims' families. Last November, Mironov forwarded a bill on the death penalty for terrorists to the government and Russia's Supreme Court. He suggested amending Article 205 of the Russian Criminal Code with regard to imposing the death penalty as a distinct punishment for committing, preparing, and aiding and abetting the organization of terrorist attacks. However, the Cabinet and the Supreme Court rejected the bill. At the moment of Thursday evening's attack, thousands were strolling along Nice's Promenade des Anglais, leaving a festive firework display commemorating Bastille Day, when a truck rammed into the crowd at full speed. According to the latest reports, 84 people have been killed, while several dozen sustained injuries. The Russian Foreign Ministry said a Russian woman was killed in the attack, and another Russian woman was wounded. (source: tass.ru) THE MALDIVES: Gangs, extremists: Maldives' secrets come out as 1st person is put on death row in 60 years "I believe in the capital punishment," said Mohamed Kinanath Ahmed. It's a startling admission from a man whose brother has been sentenced to death for the murder of a parliamentarian. If the penalty is carried out, 22-year-old Hussain Humam Ahmed will become the 1st person in the Maldives to be executed in more than 60 years. Ever since the Supreme Court ruled against him in June, several members of the local media and civil society in the country, along with international organisations like the United Nations, European Union and Amnesty International, have been lobbying for suspension of the sentence. In part, theirs is a principled opposition. The death penalty, they say, fails to serve as a deterrent for criminals. In 2014, the government overturned a 6-decade moratorium on death penalty and passed a new regulation on it. But death for murder is specified in shariah (Islamic law), notes Kinanath, and is just as valid as cutting off someone's hands for thievery - the ruling against theft in Islamic law. "At the same time, the law adds that for the sentence to hold, guilt has to be proven without doubt," he said. "In case of this murder, Humam was perfect to be framed. They used to show our pictures on the TV. They called us 'the most dangerous persons in Male'". Dark side of the tropical country The tale of the 2 brothers touches upon a little-known aspect of Maldivian capital: its criminal gangs, fuelled and financed by religious extremists and political interests. In the years that the country built itself as a haven for sun-starved tourists, residents of the capital city of Male and nearly 200 other inhabited islands were ignored. Citizens were also warned against the corrupting influence of the West by the ruling elite - a class that now earned in the American dollar. Humam and Kinanath grew up in a slum hidden behind the rows of glittering buildings that line the seafront. The family of 6 shared a single room, and often quarrelled with their step-grandmother, who lived next door. When not in school, the brothers spent their time on the beaches and streets, hungry for solace, money and power. Kinanath dropped out of school in his mid-teens and formed a gang with his friends. They drank alcohol, sold drugs and settled rivalries with other gangs using machetes. Before long, he was tapped by politicians who recognised his potential as a mercenary. "They made it difficult for us to get out of it," Kinanath said."They would give us money, supply us with drugs, bail us out if we go to jail ... If they do something for you, you were expected to do something for them." At his home, Kinanath showed me all of Humam's mark sheets since kindergarten. "Humam was far better at studies than I was," said Kinanath. The younger sibling had indeed performed well in most subjects, be it languages or Islamic studies. As he entered his teens, a rival gang, seeking to settle scores with Kinanath, assaulted Humam and left him with a bloody face. Until then, Humam had only witnessed gang culture from the fringes. This would leave a lasting impact. His teachers noticed that there was something amiss. At the end of Class 8, one of them wrote in his quarterly report, "Humam is a student capable of achieving far better results. [He should] try to bring a change to his studies, behaviour and lifestyle." The advice lay unheeded. Like his elder brother, Humam too dropped out of school and formed his own gang. The rise and fall of democracy As the notoriety of the brothers grew, Maldives transitioned from a 1-party regime led by Maumoom Abdul Gayoom, the longest-serving dictator in Asia who had been in power since 1978 to a democracy in 2008. The turn of the decade saw a rise in Islamic fundamentalism in the country. The elected President Mohamed Nasheed from Maldivian Democratic Party was even accused of trying to destroy the Islamic faith in the country. By February 2012, Nasheed resigned under controversial circumstances and was succeeded by Mohammed Waheed Hassan of the National Unity Party. That same year, Kinanath checked himself into a rehabilitation centre at a neighbouring island. On the completion of his treatment, he decided to stay back, afraid of relapsing on his return to Male. On October 2, 2012, he received a phone call from his father, telling him that Humam had been arrested for murdering Dr Afrasheem Ali, a Member of Parliament from Gayoom's Progressive Party of Maldives. But Humam was sleeping at the time of the murder, his father said, so there was nothing to worry about. A few days later, the police declared that Humam had confessed to the murder - a confession he later retracted, saying he had been coerced. The police also arrested 5 others for the murder, at least 3 of them from the Maldivian Democratic Party. Afrasheem's assassination turned into a melting pot of conspiracy theories. The police said the murder was political in nature. Humam was allegedly promised an equivalent of Rs. 1.6 crore by members aligned to the Maldivian Democratic Party. On its part, the Maldivian Democratic Party alleged that it was a plot to malign its image. Fingers were also pointed at Gayoom's half-brother, Abdulla Yameen, who sought a ticket for the Presidential elections in 2013. Afrasheem was rumoured to be a threat to his candidature. This claim was bolstered when Umar Naseer, who led a bitter fight with Yameen in the party primaries, said he had seen one of the suspects in Yameen's office. His rival, added Naseer, also had links to criminal gangs. Over time, every one of those arrested - except for Humam - was released for lack of evidence. Yameen was elected president in 2013 and continues in that post till this day. He appointed his former rival Naseer as the home minister. On being asked about the president's links to the murder, Naseer dismissed his own claims as "political rhetoric". In 2014, fulfilling a promise he made in the run up to the elections, Yameen lifted the moratorium on death penalty. Naseer helped draft the law. Allowing death penalty The assassination of Afrasheem was the 1st murder case to reach the Supreme Court. Although the police could never establish who the masterminds were, the Supreme Court upheld a lower court's conviction of Humam on June 24. The next week, the government amended the law to include death by hanging in a provision that had allowed only lethal injections. On July 6, Foreign Minister Dunya Maumoon resigned, citing differences over death penalty. Towards the end of June, Home Minister Naseer, a vocal supporter of the death penalty, resigned from the cabinet and declared that he will be contesting for Presidency in 2018. When I interviewed him a week later, he reiterated the claims that the murder had links to the Maldivian Democratic Party. Even though he couldn't establish it in the criminal court, "the information was enough to satisfy the investigators". Naseer admitted that he still doesn't know the motive behind the murder. "But after being the home minister, I can confirm that there is no link of Yameen to the Afrasheem case," he said. Afrasheem's family, however, doesn't seem to share his certainty. In a letter to the Supreme Court, the family cited an incomplete investigation to request that the death penalty to Humam be delayed. It was a breakthrough for Humam. According to the shariah, a sentence can be commuted to life imprisonment if the family of the victim exempts the culprit from the death penalty. This process, known as Qisas, is yet to formally take place. Unfazed by the increasing criticism across the world, the Supreme Court, in the last week of June, upheld a second death sentence, for a 32-year-old man convicted of killing a lawyer. Even as Humam's case is being debated, this opened up another avenue for the president to realise his pledge for the implementation of death penalty. President Yameen justified his stance in the annual address on Eid. "Such efforts are among the things we are doing to bring the youth on the right path," he added. Mushfique Mohamed, a human rights lawyer in Male, sees the government's eagerness in implementing the penalty as the president exploiting the rise of the Salafist movement, a set of ultra-conservative doctrines shared by Saudi Arabia. In the recent years, Maldives has established ties with the Saudi government to attract investment and maintain "religious unity". "This is a clear case of the government and judiciary working together," said Mohamed. "Maldives is closer to Saudi Arabia than ever before. This has coincided with the rise of extremism. The policy to resume the implementation of death sentences is only a sign of our times." Kinanath realises the political forces that his brother's case has been swept up in. However, he has a simpler explanation. The president, he says, wants to spread fear. "But I will keep going. I have nothing else to live for." (source: scroll.in) INDONESIA: Attorney General Should Not Hesitate on Executions: Lawmaker House of Representatives Commission III member Ruhut Sitompul said all state institutions partnering with the commission, which oversees legal affairs, have made the maximum effort to enforce the law, despite some having failed to prosecute suspects or fulfill their legal mandates. He said one example is the performance of the Attorney General's Office (AGO) under the leadership of H.M. Prasetyo, who has hesitated to order the execution of death-row inmates convicted for drug offences. "I call on the attorney general, in regard to drug crime, that if there has been a legal review, there is no need for another. One review, then execute," Ruhut said in Jakarta on Thursday (14/07). He reminded the attorney general that legal reviews should not be used to block executions, as the death penalty is still considered legal punishment in Indonesia. The Democratic Party lawmaker also criticized the AGO's losses in pretrial motions, specifically with regard to those cases that have been in the public spotlight. "I think Mr. Prasetyo has also worked hard, but when it comes to pretrial motions, as I have always said, [prosecutors] should present two forms of strong evidence when declaring someone a suspect. If they don't [have any evidence], don't [declare someone a suspect]," Ruhut said. He said President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo should assess law enforcement efforts, based on the fact that every state institution should abide by his decisions. (source: Jakarta Globe) JORDAN: Baqaa terror attack suspects enter 'not guilty' plea 2 men indicted in a terrorist attack that claimed the lives of security personnel at the General Intelligence Department (GID) office near the Palestinian refugee camp of Baqaa on Thursday pleaded "not guilty" to charges in the 1st hearing of the case. The attack on the GID office took place on June 6 and left 5 personnel dead, including three officers who guarded the office. The main defendant has been indicted for committing an act of terror and murder, while the other is an alleged accessory accused of selling weapons to the former, aware in advance of his alleged intentions. The State Security Court (SSC) adjourned the trial of the 2 to the middle of next week to give the defence lawyers time to prepare their statements, according to SSC Prosecutor General Brig. Gen. Ziad Odwan. According to the charge sheet, the 1st defendant is indicted of committing terrorist acts that led to the death of human beings, and committing terrorist acts using automatic weapons, while the other suspect is charged of selling weapons for illegal use, Odwan added. The head of the court panel verified the presence and identities of the defendants and recited the bill of indictment. The panel also listened to the testimonies of 12 prosecution witnesses, and appointed a lawyer to the primary defendant who, if convicted, faces a death penalty. (source: The Jordan Times) INDIA: Rape-murder of 4-yr-old: SC to hear plea of death-row convict Supreme Court today agreed to examine the plea of a death row convict, whose conviction has been upheld by it for raping a 4-year old girl and stoning her to death in Maharashtra in 2008, that he was not accorded a fair chance to put forth his arguments by the trial court which sentenced him to death. "We will grant you an opportunity of hearing but that should be on practical applicability (of legal proposition). What will happen in future, we don't know," a 3-judge bench headed by Justice Dipak Misra said while hearing the revision plea of death row convict Vasanta Sampat Dupare. The apex court in a recent historic verdict had held that a 3-judge bench would accord an open-court hearing for a period of half-an-hour to hear and decide the review pleas of the convicts facing death penalty. However, this court-mandated rule of limited hearing was breached while hearing the plea of Yakub Abdul Razak Memon, the sole death-row convict of the 1993 Bombay blasts case, as the hearing had gone on much longer than 30 minutes. Senior advocate Anup Bhambani, appearing for Dupare, alleged that the accused was not heard at the point of sentence by the trial court which was a serious legal flaw that needed to be rectified. He also sought some documents pertaining to the testimonies of three prosecution witnesses in the case besides few exhibits produced in the lower court. The bench, which also comprised Justices R F Nariman and U U Lalit, asked Maharashtra government to provide requisite documents to the counsel for the convict within 3 weeks and asked the state counsel to be ready with his submissions on August 31, the next date of hearing. The court, which had used strong words in its 2014 verdict while upholding the death penalty of Dupare, later stayed the execution of the 55-year-old convict. Dupare had ravished a 4-year old girl of his neighbourhood and stoned her to death in 2008. Upholding his conviction and death penalty, the bench had said "the rape of a minor girl child is nothing but a monstrous burial of her dignity in the darkness. It is a crime against the holy body of a girl child and the soul of the society and such a crime is aggravated by the manner in which it has been committed." (source: The Echo of India) From rhalperi at smu.edu Fri Jul 15 15:56:51 2016 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Fri, 15 Jul 2016 15:56:51 -0500 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----FLA., CALIF., USA Message-ID: July 15 FLORIDA: New video shows murder suspect escaping Broward County Courthouse Deputies are searching for a murder suspect who escaped the Broward County Courthouse. Authorities say Dayonte Resiles slipped out of his jail jumpsuit and handcuffs and escaped at 9:30 a.m. from the courthouse in Fort Lauderdale. Courthouse officials say he was in the process of being unshackled when he broke free. The courthouse is on lockdown, according to the Broward County Sheriff's Office. Deputies are reviewing surveillance video and K-9 units can be seen searching the courthouse. Resiles was last seen wearing a white T-shirt and black shorts. Authorities say he killed a woman in Davie in 2014. Police found her in her home with her hands and feet bound. She had multiple stab wounds. He was in court for a hearing over whether the death penalty applies to his case, according to media reports. (source: WWMT news) CALIFORNIA: Abolish the death penalty; Vote yes on Proposition 62 California's death penalty has been a failure on every level. Capital punishment is barbaric, unfairly applied and does not prevent crime any more effectively than the prospect of life in prison. Since it was reinstated in 1978, the state has spent more than $4 billion on just 13 executions: Imagine if, instead, the money had been spent on education, on rehabilitating young offenders or on catching more murderers, rapists and other violent criminals. That's how to reduce crime and prevent more people from becoming victims. Proposition 62 in November would make California the 20th state to abolish the death penalty in favor of life in prison with no chance of parole. It's time. No, past time. Vote yes. A competing ballot measure, Proposition 66, aims to remedy some of the costs and delays in the current system by speeding up the process of killing convicts. Speed is the hallmark of places like China, where the average length of time on death row is estimated at 50 days. It is the opposite of what nations concerned with actual justice would do. In the United States, for every 10 prisoners who have been executed since the death penalty was reinstated in 1973, 1 person on death row has been set free. One in 10. California has 748 inmates on death row, and the likelihood of uncovering mistakes continues to grow with advances in DNA and other forensics. Why not just lock up killers for life? Costs will plunge. The guilty will never see the daylight of freedom again. District attorneys throughout the state argue that the death penalty is a tool to condemn society's most vicious criminals. But this claim flies in the face of actual evidence: For every year between 2008-2013, the average homicide rate of states without the death penalty was significantly lower than those with capital punishment. Those same district attorneys have unfairly applied the death penalty in California. In the past 10 years, Riverside County has condemned murderers to death row at more than 5 times the statewide rate. Residents of Alameda County are nearly 8 times as likely to be sentenced to death than residents of Santa Clara County. And juries in California are much more likely to recommend a death sentence for a black defendant than a white defendant. The independent Legislative Analysts Office estimates that abolishing the death penalty would reduce state costs by $150 million every year. The money could be used to prevent crime by, as one example, solving more homicide and rape cases, putting away predators who otherwise would claim more victims. It could be used for education -- lack of a high school diploma is one of the best predictors of a life of crime -- and for addiction and mental health programs that keep people out of the penal system, giving police more time to deal with serious crime. Donald Heller wrote the 1978 proposition that brought back capital punishment. He now favors abolishing it. He knows that it costs California $90,000 a year more per prisoner on death row than it costs to jail our worst criminals for life. No other Western nation has the death penalty. California shouldn't share the values of places such as North Korea, China, Pakistan, Libya, Iran and Saudi Arabia. It should shed this dehumanizing and costly practice -- and not speed it up, as Proposition 66 aims to do. That would actually magnify the inequity and sometimes outright injustice in the death penalty's application. Vote no on Proposition 66 -- and vote yes on Proposition 62. Abolish the death penalty in California. (source: Editorial, Mercury News) USA: Mike Pence's Stance On The Death Penalty Rubs A Growing Number Of Americans The Wrong Way With Donald Trump's recent announcement of Mike Pence as his 2016 running mate, people are rushing to scrutinize the Indiana governor's policy positions and voting record. One position that has not received much attention, however, is Pence's stance on the death penalty - perhaps because it appears to fairly predictably fall in line with the rest of his conservative views. In a televised CNN governor's panel in February of 2014, Pence expressed his perspective on the death penalty in his home state of Indiana. In response to the question of the death penalty ever being removed from the law there, Pence responded: I don't see that prospect in the state of Indiana. I support the death penalty. I believe justice demands it in our most heinous cases. This may not be pleasing to the increasing number of Americans over the past decades that, as noted by a Pew Research Center study, do not support the death penalty. According to the study, in 2013, 55 % of Americans supported the death penalty. While that marks a majority, it was down from 62 % just 2 years earlier in 2011. Meanwhile, by 2013, 37 % of Americans opposed the death penalty, up from 31 % in 2011. Advocates against capital punishment contend that capital punishment results in the execution of innocent people each year, has been shown to cost taxpayers more money than it saves, and has not been proven to deter crime in any significant way. What is also significant is that in his response on CNN, Pence explained his stance on the death penalty in Indiana as an extension of his passion for states' rights, in true Republican style. He says that Indiana's protection of the death penalty is supported by the "part of the American experiment" that allows states to craft their own policies, and be "laboratories of innovation" independent of the federal government. (source: bustle.com) ********************* Rutland hearings begin death penalty review 2 weeks of hearings on the constitutionality of the death penalty opened Monday, July 11, in U.S. District Court in a case that has the potential to lead to the 1st-ever U.S. Supreme Court ruling on the legality of capital punishment. Defense lawyers for Donald Fell, who is facing his second trial in the murder of North Clarendon resident Terry King almost 16 years ago, are seeking to strike down the death penalty on the grounds that it is cruel and unusual punishment. Vermont has no state death penalty - it was abolished in 1965 - but because the victim was taken across state lines into New York, the case comes under federal jurisdiction. Fell was convicted of murder and sentenced to death in 2005. However, the verdict was overturned after revelations of juror misconduct. A retrial is scheduled for early next year. U.S. District Judge Geoffrey Crawford said Monday that the hearings have the potential to "create a rich factual record for higher courts with broader authority to rule on the big questions." "The death penalty is one of those handful of topics in the law where morality, our common history, our views on life and death, and crime and punishment all come together," said Crawford. "It is a kind of intellectual tinderbox with an influence on our national discourse somewhat in disproportion to its actual application." The case could reach the nation's top court. "Some people feel this could be queuing up the issue for review by the U.S. Supreme Court," said Allen Gilbert, former executive director of the Vermont chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union. The significance of the hearing lies in the fact that it is before a federal judge. Although similar arguments are routinely made by attorneys defending death penalty clients across the country in state courts, this could have broader implications and lead to the Supreme Court's 1st opportunity to consider abolishing capital punishment altogether. The high court has ruled in the past on aspects of capital punishment. "It could be a very significant series of arguments that are made over the next two weeks in Rutland," Gilbert added. Fell and an accomplice were accused of killing King, 53, who worked at a Price Chopper in Rutland, after hijacking her car and driving it across state lines in 2000. In hearings preceding Fell's 1st trial, Judge William K. Sessions III ruled the federal death penalty law unconstitutional. The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals overturned that ruling, and Fell was sentenced to die. King's sister Barbara Tuttle said she and other family members have attended every court hearing over the past 16 years. "I hope that the judge rules appropriately in our favor. Donald Fell should've been executed years ago," she said outside court Monday. "It's just like reliving the whole thing over." Fell wasn't present for the hearing. He is imprisoned in New York City. Since King's death in 2000, seven states have abolished the death penalty. In 2005 the Supreme Court ruled that executing anyone younger than 18 was unconstitutional. Fell was 20 when King died. Much of Monday's hearing focused on the impact of solitary confinement on inmates such as those on death row and issues surrounding the selection of jurors in death penalty cases. Craig Haney, a social psychologist at the University of California Santa Cruz and the author of "Reforming Punishment: Psychological Limits to the Pains of Imprisonment," testified on conditions at the U.S. Penitentiary in Terre Haute, Ind., where Fell was held while on death row. Haney toured the facility last week and presented a series of photographs, several of which were marked confidential. There were 3 photos Haney said were of the cell Fell occupied in 2012. It was a rare glimpse inside the walls of a maximum-security solitary confinement unit. Haney described the Terre Haute penitentiary as especially restrictive even among solitary confinement units, with prisoners allowed only 1 hour of exercise a day, 5 days a week. Some prisoners are also allowed up to 2 hours of leisure time a week, he said. The cells, about 60 square feet, have solid steel doors with a narrow rectangular window. Meals are eaten in the cells, which also contain showers and toilets - thus minimizing contact with other inmates or staff. When family members visit, they are separated from the inmates by glass and communicate by phone. As of 2015, according to Haney, 39 of the 62 prisoners on death row at the Terre Haute facility had been in solitary confinement for 10 years or longer, and 10 had been in solitary for 18 years. Fell's attorney Michael Burt described it as a "prison within a prison." (source: mountaintimes.info) From rhalperi at smu.edu Fri Jul 15 15:57:35 2016 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Fri, 15 Jul 2016 15:57:35 -0500 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide Message-ID: July 15 LEBANON: Lebanon charges 3 over suicide bombings Lebanon's military prosecutor has charged 3 people, including 1 Syrians, with links to the Islamic State group and involvement in suicide bombings in a village on the Syrian border. A judicial source told AFP on Thursday that 1of the 3, a Syrian, had been arrested last week during the dismantling of an IS-linked cell suspected of planning attacks across Lebanon. The 2 others, one Syrian and another believed to be Lebanese, are still at large. The 3 are alleged to have links to 2 waves of deadly suicide bombings that hit the border village of Al-Qaa in a single day on June 27. 8 suicide bombers blew themselves up in the village, killing 5 people and wounding dozens. Al-Qaa lies on a main road linking the Syrian town of Al-Qusayr to the Bekaa valley in eastern Lebanon. Its 3,000 residents are predominantly Christian, but the Masharia Al-Qaa district is home to Sunni Muslims and some 30,000 Syrian refugees live in a makeshift camp on the edge of the village. The indictment accuses the 3 suspects of "murder and attempted murder of civilians, sowing terror and discord, and undermining stability." The charges carry the death penalty. The attacks were not claimed by any group, but bore characteristics of both IS and Al-Qaeda. At the end of June, the Lebanese army announced it had arrested 5 IS members accused of planning attacks in Beirut. Lebanon has been hit by a string of deadly attacks since the conflict in neighbouring Syria began in 2011. (source: Agence France-Presse) INDIA: Bilkis case: HC begins final hearing on appeals by 11 convicts The Bombay High Court today commenced the final hearing on the appeals filed by 11 people convicted in the 2002 Bilkis Bano gangrape case and also on the petition by CBI seeking death penalty for 3 of them. 11 men, who were convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment by a special court on January 21, 2008 for gangraping Bilkis and murdering 7 of her family members in the aftermath of the 2002 Godhra riots, had approached the high court challenging their conviction and sought quashing of the trial courts order. The prosecuting agency CBI had also filed an appeal in the high court seeking death penalty for three of the 11 convicts. A division bench of Justices V K Tahilramani and Mridula Bhatkar started final hearing on the appeals while rapping CBI counsel Hiten Venegaonkar for not being "prepared". "You (Venegaonkar) are not prepared. Please take proper charge of the case. Read the case papers over the weekend. Prepare a chart of witnesses, victims, deceased persons, convicts and acquitted accused," the bench said. The rap came after Venegaonkar while arguing kept fumbling and confusing names of the witnesses, victims and convicted people. During arguments when the court sought to know the cause of death of the 7 people, he said he did not know as the post-mortem report was in Gujarati. "How can you (Venegaonkar) say so? You should have prepared yourself before we start hearing the appeals," the court said. According to the prosecution, on March 3, 2002, Bilkis Banos family was attacked by a mob at Randhikpur village near Ahmedabad during the post-Godhra riots and 7 members of her family were killed. Bilkis, who was 5 months pregnant at the time, was gangraped while six other members of her family managed to escape from the mob. The trial in the case had begun in Ahmedabad. However, after Bano expressed apprehensions that witnesses could be harmed and CBI evidence tampered with, the Supreme Court had transferred the case to Mumbai in August 2004. (source: India Today) MALAYSIA: 'Secret' moratorium on executions in M'sia must be made public Malaysians Against Death Penalty and Torture (Madpet) is happy that Malaysia have in place a moratorium on executions, especially for those languishing on death row for drug trafficking. Edmund Bon Tai Soon, Malaysia's current Asean Intergovernmental Commission on Human Rights (AICHR) representative, was recently reported saying "...Malaysia's moratorium, I understand, is only for drug trafficking cases' (The Star, July 10, 2015). It must be noted that the Human Rights Commission of Malaysia (Suhakam), also did reiterate on March 29, 2016 their recommendation that a moratorium on the use of the death penalty be put in place in Malaysia. Madpet is of the opinion that this positive development should not be kept secret, but should have long been proudly announced by the Malaysian government. In fact, Nancy Shukri, the de facto Law Minister, should have proudly announced Malaysia???s moratorium on executions when she took the stage at the 6th World Congress Against Death Penalty in Malaysia. At the said congress in Oslo, Norway on June 21, 2016, the Minister in the Prime Minister's Department did state that Malaysia will soon be amending the laws to do away with the mandatory death penalty. Although, no time frame was mentioned, Madpet and others have called that these long overdue amendments be tabled at the upcoming sitting of Parliament in October 2016. In November 2015, the same minister has said that the amendments would be tabled in the March 2016 sitting of Parliament. Madpet urges Malaysia to extend the moratorium on executions to all persons on death row, not just those convicted for drug trafficking. This only makes sense, since Malaysia is now in the process of abolishing the death penalty, beginning with the mandatory death penalty. In May 2016, Malaysia disclosed that there are 1,041 persons on death row. Based on the statistics revealed in 2011, when the number on death row was 696 (as Feb 22, 2011), 479 (69 %) were for drug trafficking, 204 (29 %) were for murder and 13 (2 %) for illegal processions of arms. It looks like almost all that may be on death row are for mandatory death penalty offences. There are at least 10 offences in Malaysian laws that carry the mandatory death penalty, whereby only 3 are for offences that result in the death of the victim - murder [Section 302 Penal Code], committing terrorist acts where the act results in death [Section 130C (1)(a) Penal Code]; and hostage taking where the act results in death [Section 374(a) Penal Code]. For all the other mandatory death penalty offences, death does not result, namely Drug Trafficking (Section 39B Dangerous Drugs Act 1952) and 6 types of offence listed in the Schedule of the Firearms (Increased Penalties) Act 1971, which includes robbery, kidnapping, extortion and house trespass. The existence of the mandatory death penalty for offences that do not result in death, as in the Firearms (Increased Penalties) Act 1971, only unnecessarily increase the risk of victims and/or witnesses to these crimes being killed by perpetrators to avoid the mandatory death penalty. Global trend is towards abolition Malaysia's moratorium on execution will be most welcome by everyone including the international community, as it will be seen to be in compliance with the now 5 existing United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) Resolutions, the 1st in 2007 and the last being in 2014, that urged 'a moratorium on executions with a view to abolishing the death penalty'. Every time, these UNGA Resolutions have been tabled, the number of countries that have voted in favour have been increasing, demonstrating that the global trend is towards abolition. Malaysia has every reason to be proud of the fact that they have been considering abolition, have in fact carried out serious studies which have now been concluded, and will be soon be taking the 1st step by abolishing the mandatory death penalty. Attorney-general Apandi Ali, also the public prosecutor, is also for the scraping of the mandatory death penalty, and he was reported saying in 2015, that the "...mandatory death sentences were a 'paradox', as it robbed judges of their discretion to impose sentences on convicted criminals..." Madpet also urges Edmund Bon to emulate his predecessor, Muhammad Shafee Abdullah, in publicly declaring his personal position for the abolition of the death penalty. AICHR representatives should also at the very least take a stand for the abolition of the death penalty in Asean, as had been done by Suhakam. Madpet urges Malaysia to immediately extend the moratorium on executions to all, not just only for those convicted for drug trafficking. Madpet urges that Malaysia tables in the upcoming sitting of the Malaysian Parliament in October 2016, amendments and/or legislations that will see the abolition of the mandatory death penalty; and Madpet urges Malaysia to abolish the death penalty. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Charles Hector is coordinator for Malaysians Against Death Penalty and Torture (Madpet). (source: malaysiakini.com) From rhalperi at smu.edu Sat Jul 16 08:20:51 2016 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Sat, 16 Jul 2016 08:20:51 -0500 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, N.C., FLA., ALA., NEB., ARIZ., CALIF., WASH. Message-ID: July 16 TEXAS----revised impending execution schedule Barney Fuller has been given an execution date for October 5; it should be considered serious. Executions under Greg Abbott, Jan. 21, 2015-present----19 Executions in Texas: Dec. 7, 1982----present-----537 Abbott#--------scheduled execution date-----name------------Tx. # 20---------August 23----------------Robert Pruett---------538 21---------August 24----------------Jeffrey Wood----------539 22---------August 31----------------Rolando Ruiz----------540 23---------September 14-------------Robert Jennings-------541 24---------October 5----------------Barney Fuller---------542 25---------October 19---------------Terry Edwards---------543 26---------November 2---------------Ramiro Gonzales-------544 (sources: TDCJ & Rick Halperin) ************************ TEXAS STATE PRISONS are not air-conditioned. Prisoners and guards suffer in cells and halls above 110 degrees. 20 buys a small fan that can save a life. TX-CURE, Citizens United for Rehabilitation of Errants provides free fans to poor and needy inmates who have no family or friends for financial support. Donate online at http://www.texascure.org [www.texascure.org] http://www.gofundme.com/TEXAS-PRISONERS-NEED-FANS [www.gofundme.com] or mail to: Tx-CURE Fans P. O. Box 381 Dallas, TX 75238 Michael W. Jewell, President mikewaynejewell at hotmail.com Tx-CURE is a 501(c3) (source: TX-CURE) NORTH CAROLINA: Raleigh man charged with death of 2-year-old faces judge A 22-year-old Raleigh man had his 1st court appearance Friday after being charged with the death a 2-year-old boy. Police were dispatched to a "code blue" call at a home in the 5200 block of Somerset Mill Lane on May 19. 2 days later, Raleigh police said the death of Chase Jordan Eaddy was a homicide. William Lee Bell was charged with murder in Eaddy's death. Bell lived at the location where the crime occurred and surrendered to authorities Thursday at the Wake County Detention Center. On Friday, Bell faced a Wake County judge. The judge told Bell, "You are charged with 1 count of 1st-degree murder. The maximum penalty for that would be the death penalty or life imprisonment." Several family members, including Bell's parents were in court. When the court hearing was finished, they quickly walked out. Bell is being held on no bond and is expected to be back in court Aug. 4. (source: WNCN news) FLORIDA: Death row inmate seeks execution A case TV20 has been following on a man requesting to die by the electric chair, took another turn today. TV20's Rebecca Woolard reports from the Bradford County Courthouse with the latest. It's the case of a death row inmate who is arguing not that he shouldn't be executed, but that it should be done sooner, and by an electric chair. Wayne Doty is a 2-time convicted murderer. He admits to those killings and says he deserves the punishment he was given. There's only 1 problem. In January, Hurst v. Florida found the way the state issues the death penalty to be unconstitutional. In light of that case, Doty is now withdrawing his motion to dismiss his counsel and waive his appeals. He hopes in doing so he can have a "new" penalty phase trial and his sentence can be determined in a constitutional manner. But Doty still wants the option of dismissing his attorney later. There was a lot of uncertainty in the courtroom today as the attorneys and judge weren't sure if Doty could have his attorney just argue constitutionality. But the judge did allow Doty's attorney to be reinstated today. There will be another hearing next month to hear DOC objections. (source: WCJB news) ALABAMA: Life of exonerated death row inmate celebrated----James 'Bo' Cochran laid to rest Friday A Tarrant man exonerated after 2 decades on death row has been laid to rest. Funeral services for James "Bo" Cochran were held at Christ's Ministries Church Friday. Cochran was originally convicted of the murder of a grocery store manager in the late 1970s and sentenced to die. Then in February 1997, a Jefferson County jury acquitted Cochran at the end of his 4th trial. After 2 decades on death row, Bo Cochran was a free man. Dr. Mel Glenn worked on Cochran's defense team for that 1997 retrial. "Despite what happened to him, he took it with a grain of salt and didn't have any bitterness, didn't have any malice," Glenn remembered. He said since then, Cochran has flown all over the nation and world speaking out against the death penalty. Glenn believes Cochran has impacted countless lives since he was freed nearly 2 decades ago. "He touched elderly people's lives. He touched elderly people's lives and he pointed people to the Lord. So this day is a day that I will always treasure," Glenn concluded. Cochran died Tuesday. He was 73 years old. (source: WVTM news) NEBRASKA: Murder victim family members kick off 10-day, 20-city statewide tour Religious leaders representing the three largest church denominations in Nebraska were planning a news conference in Omaha today announcing their support for ending Nebraska???s death penalty. They will be joined by murder victim family members who are beginning a 10-day, 15-city statewide tour addressing alternatives to the death penalty. Religious leaders from Roman Catholic, Evangelical, and United Methodist churches had planned to attend. Also attending the news conference were speakers from Journey of Hope from Violence to Healing, an organization led by murder victim family members, death row exonerees, and the family members of death row inmates. Ten speakers will caravan across Nebraska July 15-24, addressing alternatives to the death penalty. The tour is scheduled to be in Kearney at 7 p.m. July 23 at Faith United Methodist Church, located as 1623 Central Ave., with speaker Bill Babbit. Nebraskans for Alternatives to the Death Penalty was founded in 1981 after Gov. Charles Thone had vetoed a bill passed by Nebraska's Legislature that would have repealed the death penalty. Since its founding, Nebraskans for Alternatives to the Death Penalty has been a politically active organization that has supported death penalty abolition efforts in the Nebraska Legislature. For more information call 402-477-7787 or visit www.nadp.net/Journey. (source: Kearney Hub) ARIZONA: Court upholds conviction, death sentence in 1989 Pima County double murder A divided federal appeals court Friday upheld the conviction and death sentence of a Pima County man in a 1989 drug deal turned double murder. The full 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that Eric Mann's claims of ineffective counsel during his trial and sentencing were not sufficient to reopen his case. Judge Richard R. Clifton wrote that there may have been questions about lower courts' decisions in the case, but the law allowed the appeals court to get involved "only if no fairminded jurist could conclude" that the lower court had not acted fairly. That was not the case here, he wrote. But in 1 of 2 partial dissents, Chief Judge Sidney R. Thomas said that Mann's lawyer had been ineffective at his sentencing and should have presented evidence of that a 1985 car accident may have caused brain damage in Mann. "Any reasonable attorney would further investigate whether a car accident that left 2 out of 3 passengers dead resulted in any permanent physical or psychological damage to Mann, the sole survivor," Thomas wrote. Mann's attorneys said the dissent "was absolutely correct, and that, as Judge Thomas concluded: Eric Mann's death sentence was imposed in violation of his Sixth Amendment right to effective assistance of counsel." The attorney, Arizona Federal Public Defender Cary Sandman, said in an email that they plan to take the case to the U.S. Supreme Court. The Arizona Attorney General's office declined to comment on the ruling. The case began when Mann offered to sell Richard Alberts a kilogram of cocaine for $20,000. The sale was a ruse, the court said, with Mann intending to give Alberts a shoebox full of newspaper and then shoot him after taking the money. Alberts showed up at Mann's home on Thanksgiving Day 1989 with another man, Ramon Bazurto. After first hesitating because of Bazurto's presence, Mann went ahead with the deal - and shot both men. Alberts died "almost instantly," but Bazurto lingered and Mann stood over him as he died. Mann got a friend, Carlos Alejandro, to help get rid of the bodies. The case went unsolved for 4 years until Mann broke up with his girlfriend, Karen Miller, who had been at the home during the killings. Miller turned him in to police, and she and Alejandro were granted full immunity in the case in exchange for testifying against Mann. He was convicted in 1994 of both murders and sentenced to death in 1995. In his latest appeal, Mann claimed his attorney was ineffective both at trial and at sentencing. The court rejected the claim for his trial, but split on whether his attorney served him at sentencing. A key element of that disagreement was over whether his attorney should have more aggressively pursued evidence that the 1985 car accident could have affected Mann, which could have been used as a mitigating factor against the death penalty. While Thomas said it should have been considered, Clifton noted that Mann's criminal behavior changed little from before the accident to after, a fact noted by the trial judge. "Even if the accident had an effect on Mann's personality, it hardly changed an altar boy into a callous criminal," Clifton wrote for the majority. (source: Cronkite News) CALIFORNIA: California's bishops back measure to repeal death penalty California's Catholic bishops announced their support July 14 for Proposition 62, a voter initiative on the November ballot that would repeal the death penalty. The bishops timed their statement to coincide with the launch of the "Yes on 62" campaign that took place at a Los Angeles news conference. Speakers there included former death penalty advocates, victims' families, law enforcement officials, faith leaders and wrongfully convicted former death-row prisoners. "During this Jubilee Year of Mercy, we, the Catholic bishops of California, support Proposition 62 which would end the use of the death penalty in California," the bishops said in their statement. Proposition 62 - called "The Justice That Works Initiative" by its authors - would replace the death penalty with a sentence of life without the possibility of parole and would require convicted murderers to work and pay restitution to their victims' families. The bishops also announced their opposition to Proposition 66, also on the November ballot, which would expedite executions in California. "All life is sacred - innocent or flawed - just as Jesus Christ taught us and demonstrated repeatedly throughout his ministry. ... Each of us holds an inherent worth derived from being created in God's own image. Each of us has a duty to love this divine image imprinted on every person," the statement said. If approved by voters, California would become the 20th state to ban the death penalty. The initiative faces a divided electorate. In 2012, California voters defeated Proposition 34, a ballot measure to repeal the death penalty, 52-48 %. With 747 people on death row, California has the largest population of death-row inmates in the nation. It would save $150 million a year by halting the practice, according to the "Yes on 62" website. However, no one has been executed in California since 2006 because of court battles over the use of lethal injection and the decades-long wait from sentencing to execution. The existing law was approved by voters in 1978. The bishops said their opposition to the death penalty also is rooted in "our unshakeable resolve to accompany and support all victims of crime" for whom the suffering over the loss of a loved one by a criminal act rarely ends with the execution of the convicted. "Their enduring anguish is not addressed by the state-sanctioned perpetuation of the culture of death," they said. "As we pray with them and mourn with them, we must also stress that the current use of the death penalty does not promote healing. It only brings more violence to a world that has too much violence already," the bishops said. Beth Webb, the sister of a woman gunned down by her ex-husband in a Seal Beach hair salon with 8 others in 2011, said as much. She was 1 of 9 speakers at the news conference. "I'm here to say that neither me nor my mom will find closure in the death of another human being," she said. "That makes us like him. For us to want his blood, to say that we will only be satisfied by his death brings us to his level." Speakers at the "Yes on 62" campaign launch included former death penalty proponents Ron Briggs, who led the campaign to bring the death penalty to California in 1978, former California Attorney General John Van de Kamp, and former Los Angeles District Attorney Gil Garcetti. Rabbi Jonathon Klein, executive director of CLUE, a Los Angeles nonprofit that organizes the faith community around issues of economic justice, spoke about the death penalty and all religious traditions. "This is a compassion-driven measure that also makes sure that justice is served," he said. "We know that all of our religious traditions are pointed in the same direction. And that is to move away from the death penalty, to move away from a justice system that has killing and violence at its core." The California bishops quoted Pope Francis who said during his Angelus address Feb. 21 in Rome: "In fact, modern societies have the ability to effectively control crime without definitively taking away a criminal's chance to redeem himself," the pope said. "The commandment 'thou shall not kill' has absolute value and pertains to the innocent as well as the guilty," he said. (source: cruxnow.com) WASHINGTON: Victim's family reacts to delay on death-penalty decision in double-homicide case Although it's been months since 2 women were killed outside the Yakima Moneytree, there's still no decision on whether the suspect will face aggravated charges which would include the death penalty as consideration. Yakima County Prosecutor Joe Brusic delayed making a decision Friday morning on whether the death penalty will be considered in the case. 26 year old Manuel Verduzco was arrested after Karina Morales-Rodriguez and Marta Martinez were found dead on their way to work at the Moneytree in March. "I'd like for this to be over and grab my children and try to make a life without Karina, but it's really hard. We all miss her," said Gabriel Pinon, one victim's husband. "We have full faith that the prosecutor's office is doing to do his best to make sure that this individual pays for his crime." Brusic said he wanted to give more time for the defense to come up with evidence. (source: KIMA TV news) From rhalperi at smu.edu Sat Jul 16 08:22:09 2016 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Sat, 16 Jul 2016 08:22:09 -0500 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide----NIGER., INDON., TURK., GUY. Message-ID: July 16 NIGERIA: Lawyers advocate capital punishment for kidnapping----The lawyers decried the increasing cases of kidnapping cases in the country, saying that death sentence would serve as a deterrent to those who want to venture into the crime Some Abuja-based lawyers have called on the Federal Government to enact a law making kidnapping a capital offence punishable with death. They told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in separate interviews that the law when enacted should be domesticated by the states and local governments. The lawyers decried the increasing cases of kidnapping cases in the country, saying that death sentence would serve as a deterrent to those who want to venture into the crime. Mr Maxwell Akoh-Onoja, a lawyer, advocated an amendment to the law as it relates to kidnapping. "The current law should be amended, kidnapping is too rampant in the country now and there should be stiffer punishment for the crime. "The judiciary cannot act outside what is in the law book," Akoh-Onoja said. Akoh-Onoja expressed regrets that many convictions had not been secured in kidnap cases, and called on judges to ensure that such cases were heard expeditiously in their court. According to him, kidnapping is one of the signs of a failed state. Another lawyer, Mr Joe Okete, said that it was the inability of government to put some things in place that caused the issue of kidnapping. Okete outlined unemployment and the breakdown of moral instructions as some of the major causes of kidnapping. "The only way the judiciary can come in to curb kidnapping is by implementing the law. "There should also be stringent legislation against possession of firearms by the general public. "Criminals like kidnappers should be given long term jail against capital punishment if possible," he said. Okete called on the government to enact a legislation that would empower the educational system in the area of entrepreneur to give loan to deserving graduate. According to Okete, if the education system is empowered in the area of entrepreneurship with loans, it will reduce the rate of crime. Also, Mr Boniface Udeh, supported death penalty for any person who found guilty of kidnapping. Udeh also advocated for family value, saying that parents should teach their wards well with the moral laws of the land. He called on the government to create employment opportunities for the youths to dissuade them from being targets for recruitment by kidnappers. (source: pulse.ng) INDONESIA: AGO waits for Supreme Court ruling to set date for executions The Attorney General's Office (AGO) is waiting for a Supreme Court ruling to set the date of the third round of executions of drug convicts, an AGO official said on Friday. The Supreme Court will soon announce its decision on a case review and cassation submitted by a number of death row convicts, Attorney General Muhammad Prasetyo said. "We are still coordinating [the details of the executions] and we hope they will be carried out soon," Prasetyo told journalists. Despite the public outcry from those opposed to the death penalty, the government's resolve to execute drug dealers and distributors will not waver, as they have brought a huge threat to the country, Prasetyo asserted. He said he hoped convicted drug lord Freddy Budiman, who ran his narcotics business from behind bars, would be included on the list of death row convicts that would be executed in the next round. President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo's administration has executed 14 death-row convicts in two rounds both of which were carried out last year. (source: Jakarta Post) TURKEY: Turkey's PM: Constitution Council to consider death penalty after coup attempt ---- 161 died, 1,440 got injured in the military coup attempt in Turkey, the country's Prime Minister Binali Yildirim said 161 died, 1,440 got injured in the military coup attempt in Turkey, let alone the killed among the plotters, the country's Prime Minister Binali Yildirim said in an interview with the Haberturk television channel on Saturday. A group of insurgents staged a military attempt coup in Turkey on the night from Friday to Saturday. Bombs were dropped on the parliament building and the presidential palace in Ankara. More than 2,800 military were detained after the military coup attempt in Turkey, Binali Yildirim said. "The total of arrested is 2,839," he said. "Among them are high-ranking military, officers." According to Yildirim, Turkey will consider introduction of death penalty after the attempt of a military coup in the country. "Death penalty is banned in Turkey," he said. "Today the Constitution Council will have a meeting to discuss jointly with parties whether it is reasonable to return to this form of punishment." A country, sheltering oppositionist Gulen, is not a friend of Turkey, the country's Prime Minister said. "Gulen is a leader of a terrorist organization," he said. "I am not looking now at the country, which shelters him. If this country hides a terrorist, this country is not a friend of Turkey and it leads a hidden war against Turkey. The coup attempt's organizer must be punished." Earlier, the Turkish government said the coup was inspired by supporters of the Hizmet pro-Islamic movement, opposing Erdogan. The movement is connected with Fethullah Gulen, who lives in the U.S., and whom Ankara accused of destabilizing the situation in the republic in summer of 2013 and of other attempts to undermine the authorities. Gulen's supporters ruled out accusations they are involved in the events in Turkey. In a statement they called the accusations "highly irresponsible." A group of insurgents staged a military attempt coup in Turkey on the night from Friday to Saturday. Bombs were dropped on the parliament building and the presidential palace in Ankara. (source: tass.ru) ********************* Turkey coup: Erdogan government could restore death penalty, deputy leader warns The Turkish government is considering bringing back the death penalty so it can execute those involved in the attempted military coup against President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Mehmet Muezzinoglu, the ruling Justice and Development Party's Deputy Leader, said the government will introduce a bill calling for the execution of rebel soldiers. "We will put forward a motion, which will demand the execution of those who have been involved in the coup attempt," Mr Muezzinoglu wrote on Twitter. Following his comments, #Idamistiyorum ("I want death penalty") has become the top trend on Twitter in Turkey. The hashtag has been used more than 23,000 times. The call for the death penalty came as the government appeared to be regaining control after a coup which left more than 260 dead and 1,000 wounded. At one point it looked as if the coup would succeed, with Turkey's military chief of staff General Hulusi Akar having been taken hostage and a TV news anchor forced to keep repeating: "The political administration that has lost all legitimacy and has been forced to withdraw." President Erdogan appeared to have been caught off guard while on holiday. He had to resort to giving interviews via mobile phone and FaceTime to insist he was still in control. But citizens took to the streets in support of the president, lying down in front of tanks or climbing on top of them in Istanbul. Mr Erdogan succeeded in returning to Istanbul, and General Akar was reportedly rescued after an operation at an air base on the outskirts of the capital Ankara. As pictures emerged of soldiers involved in the coup surrendering, while being punched by civilian supporters of President Erdogan, a senior Turkish official said 1,563 military personnel were now in custody across the country - awaiting an increasingly uncertain fate. (source: The Independent) GUYANA: Guyana hosts judicial colloquium on abolishing death penalty Guyana will next week host a judicial colloquium on the abolition of the death penalty. The European Union (EU) Delegation to Guyana is facilitating the July 20th conference in partnership with the International Commission against the Death Penalty, the Chancellor of the Judiciary of the Government of Guyana, the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, and the Embassy of the Netherlands in Suriname. According to a statement issued by the European Union Delegation to Guyana, Navi Pillay, former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights and current Commissioner of the International Commission against the Death Penalty, Ivan Simonovic, UN Assistant Secretary-General for Human Rights, and Emeritus Professor Marc Bossuyt, Emeritus President of the Constitutional Court of Belgium, will participate in the colloquium. The statement added that the colloquium, which will include members of the local judiciary, will consider the following subjects: The Role of the United Nations in the Abolition of the Death Penalty; The Experience of Other Countries in Abolishing the Death Penalty; The Second Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights; and The Role of Judges in Abolishing the Death Penalty. It noted that the European Union, the International Commission against the Death Penalty and the United Nations advocate for the universal abolition of the death penalty. This is based on the fundamental nature of the right to life; the unacceptable risk of executing innocent people; and the absence of proof that the death penalty serves as a deterrent to crime. The abolition of the death penalty is essential for the protection of human dignity, as well as for the progressive development of human rights, the statement added. The venue for the colloquium is the Marriott Hotel. (source: Stabroek News) From rhalperi at smu.edu Sun Jul 17 08:31:36 2016 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Sun, 17 Jul 2016 08:31:36 -0500 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----FLA., TENN., NEB., CALIF. Message-ID: July 17 FLORIDA: Detectives fear escaped Florida death row inmate is armed A Florida death row inmate who escaped from a courtroom remained on the lam Saturday amid fears he was armed. Broward County sheriff's investigators said they have received information that accused murderer Dayonte Resiles, 21, may have obtained a weapon. They declined to give further details, saying it could harm their search. Resiles burst out of the Broward County Courthouse Friday morning in a daring escape. He was sitting in a 4th-floor courtroom crowded with defendants and lawyers when he somehow escaped his shackles, jumped over a courtroom barrier and ran past bailiffs. He shed his jail jumpsuit and ran out of the courthouse. The Broward County Sheriff's Office said Resiles is the subject of an intense manhunt. At 3 p.m. deputies searched a Fort Lauderdale apartment complex after getting a tip that he had been spotted there, Fox affiliate WSVN-TV in Miami reported Saturday. After more than 2 hours, deputies called off the search. Residents were allowed to return to their apartments. Resiles faces murder and other charges in the Sept. 8, 2014, killing of Jill Halliburton Su, grand-niece of Halliburton Co. founder Erie P. Halliburton. Her body was found, bound at the hands and feet and stabbed multiple times, in the bathtub of her home in Davie, Florida. Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty in the case. (source: Fox News) TENNESSEE: Judge denies new trial for convicted Hamilton County cop killer Since his 2003 conviction for murdering a sheriff's deputy, Marlon Kiser has appealed his case, been denied a new trial, had his death sentence upheld, filed motions for post-conviction relief, had his death sentence delayed, and hired new counsel. Last week, after years of back-and-forth between Kiser's defense and state attorneys, a judge denied his plea for another new trial in the 2001 slaying of Hamilton County Deputy Donald Bond. Criminal Court Judge Don Poole reviewed Kiser's 35 claims of ineffective assistance of counsel and answered them 1 by 1 in a 92-page ruling released Wednesday. Even though Kiser, a death row inmate at the Riverbend prison in Nashville, lost this round, he can still take advantage of a multifaceted appeals process. Rachel Harmon, general counsel for the Administrative Office of the Courts, said Kiser now may appeal to Poole's denial to the Tennessee Court of Appeals based on the post-conviction petition. And if he continues to appeal, he might not be put to death any time soon. "He's got a ways to go if he wants it," said Harmon, adding that Kiser doesn't appear to have a new execution date. "There are lots of filings ahead of him if he wants to utilize them." Kiser's listed attorney, Paul Bruno, of Nashville, could not be reached for comment Friday. As Poole pointed out, the Tennessee Court of Criminal Appeals upheld Kiser's 2003 conviction. The Tennessee Supreme Court did the same, even though it returned his case to Hamilton County to merge the judgments into one conviction for 1st-degree murder. According to police and prosecutors, Kiser ambushed Bond early on the morning of Sept. 6, 2001, spraying bullets from a high-powered rifle when the deputy interrupted Kiser's attempt to set fire to a fruit stand on East Brainerd Road. A jury found him guilty of murder and sentenced him to death. In 2009, about a year before his scheduled execution, Kiser filed a petition for post-conviction relief. A judge granted a delay and Kiser, assisted by an attorney, amended his petition four times before it got into Criminal Court in 2014. Throughout numerous hearings on the petition, multiple witnesses testified they believed a different man, Mike Chattin, had killed Bond and then threatened them into silence. They said Chattin's wife was having affair with Bond. Chattin, then Kiser's roommate, has since died. The hearings carried into March 2015, when Kiser's attorneys requested that previously untested palm and fingerprints on Bond's flashlight and patrol car door be run through a state system. The prints came back as Kiser's. Still, the testimony struck to the heart of his attorneys' argument: Kiser was convicted in 2003 because his lawyers at the time failed to dig up evidence that would have showed Chattin framed him. Ultimately, Poole wrote, if Kiser wanted post-conviction relief for this argument, he needed to present "clear and convincing" evidence. He must establish a factual basis for his allegations, since he now carried the burden of proof. In a trial, a prosecutor carries that burden and must prove beyond a reasonable doubt a defendant committed the crime. On nearly every point, Poole wrote, Kiser's claims failed to do that. (source: Chattanooga Times Free Press) NEBRASKA: 'Retain A Just Nebraska' looks to educate the public on anti-death penalty stance Many political decisions will be made this November for the state of Nebraska. One of which will be whether or not to reinstate the death penalty. In an effort to educate the public on its stance, the organization "Retain A Just Nebraska" will be kicking off a 10-day, 20-city tour to make a case for its cause. 5 teams of speakers working with "Journey of Hope" will be taking sections of the state where guest speakers who come from various walks of life will present their personal experience with the death penalty. Journey of Hope co-founder George White said the biggest form of education they use is personal experience. "We use personal stories to help educate folks. Some of us come from the perspective of being exonerated. Some of us lost loved ones to the death penalty. Some have worked in the justice system and just understand that it's a broken system," said White. White's personal experience with capital punishment started in 1985 when he had gone to a store he owned with his wife after hours to help a customer who called his home with an emergency. White said when they arrived they weren't met by a grateful customer but instead a man with a gun. White was shot 3 times and his wife was fatally shot twice. The murderer escaped the scene and White was convicted of his wife's murder. Facing death row, he appealed the case. 7 years, 16 appeals and a hearing with the Alabama Supreme Court later, 104 pieces of evidence were found proving White's innocence and he was acquitted of all charges. "Up until that point ,I had never even thought about the death penalty. But I did at this point, I wanted that man dead. Ultimately though, I had to confront that and how I felt. But I knew that without a doubt an innocent man or woman could be convicted and wrongly given the death penalty," said White. "That should give us all pause. I wanted to still support the death penalty out of hate but I just couldn't, around every corner, I found that there is no reason to support it." The event in Scottsbluff will take place on Wednesday, July 20 at 6:30 p.m. and will be held at the Midwest Theater. Some locations such as Scottsbluff will not just have guest speakers but will also show the academy award nominated film, "The Last Day of Freedom," featuring Bill Babbit. The film is an animated documentary narrated by Babbit himself that looks at a time when he realized his brother Manny had committed a crime and his decision on whether or not he should call the police. It tells the story of Babbit's decision to stand by his brother in the face of war, crime and capital punishment. After the film, Babbit will be on hand along with White to discuss not only the film and their personal stories, but to host a Q&A on the death penalty. Dan Parsons, who is doing public relations for the events, said that he is pleased with the response so far. "We have had a broad spectrum of supporters. A lot of people who are more conservative and Republicans are starting to join our team," said Parsons. "I think the reason for that is, that it is a broken system. We haven't used it for 20 years in Nebraska, and we don't want to keep spending money on a broken system." At the end of the day, however, Parsons' number 1 goal is to start a dialogue on what he calls a complicated issue issue before the election. Though the organization is hoping to see members from the Scotts Bluff County Democratic Party come out and support the event they are not an official sponsor. For more information, or to see other events state wide, you can visit their website at http://retainajustnebraska.com/events/. (source: Scottsbluff Star Herald) CALIFORNIA: Abolish death penalty; pass Proposition 62 California's death penalty has been a failure on every level. Capital punishment is barbaric, unfairly applied and does not prevent crime any more effectively than the prospect of life in prison. Since 1978, the state has spent more than $4 billion on just 13 executions: Imagine if, instead, the money had been spent on education, on rehabilitating young offenders or on catching more murderers, rapists and other violent criminals. That's how to reduce crime and prevent more people from becoming victims. Proposition 62 in November would make California the 20th state to abolish the death penalty in favor of life in prison with no chance of parole. It's time. No, past time. Vote yes. A competing ballot measure, Proposition 66, aims to remedy some of the current costs and delays by speeding up the process of killing convicts. Speed is the hallmark of places like China, where the average length of time on death row is estimated at 50 days. In the United States, for every 10 prisoners who have been executed since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976, one person on death row has been set free. One in 10. California has 748 inmates on death row, and the likelihood of uncovering mistakes continues to grow with advances in DNA and other forensics. Why not just lock up killers for life? Costs will plunge. The guilty will never see the daylight of freedom again. District attorneys throughout the state argue that the death penalty is a tool to condemn society's most vicious criminals. But this claim flies in the face of actual evidence: For every year between 2008-2013, the average homicide rate of states without the death penalty was significantly lower than those with capital punishment. Those same district attorneys have unevenly applied the death penalty in California. In the past 10 years, Riverside County has condemned murderers to death row at more than 5 times the statewide rate. Residents of Alameda County are nearly eight times as likely to be sentenced to death than residents of Santa Clara County. The independent Legislative Analysts Office estimates that abolishing the death penalty would reduce state costs by $150 million every year. Donald Heller wrote the 1978 proposition that brought back capital punishment. He now favors abolishing it. He knows that it costs California $90,000 a year more per prisoner on death row than it costs to jail our worst criminals for life. No other Western nation has the death penalty. California shouldn't share the values of places such as North Korea, China, Pakistan, Libya, Iran and Saudi Arabia. Vote no on Proposition 66 -- and vote yes on Proposition 62. Abolish the death penalty in California. (source: Editorial, East Bay Times) From rhalperi at smu.edu Sun Jul 17 08:32:20 2016 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Sun, 17 Jul 2016 08:32:20 -0500 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide Message-ID: July 17 PAKISTAN: Isabel Buchanan: 'In Pakistan, law was literally a matter of life and death'----The Scottish lawyer talks about her book recalling her time as a 23-year-old working on death-row cases in Pakistan Pakistan has around 8,000 people on death row. What kinds of crimes have these people "committed"? Isabel Buchanan Yes, I'd be careful saying "committed"; it's more accurately crimes that people have been convicted of. The most common is charges of murder, but there's a really large number of offences that are capital offences in Pakistan. I think it's more than 20 and these include non-lethal offences, so non-murder and manslaughter offences. Blasphemy is one of the main, most controversial ones, kidnapping as well, drug-related offences. You first became involved in working for prisoners in Pakistan through British nationals - of whom more than 20 are on death row. What's their situation? There's something of a pattern to these cases. Many Pakistanis moved to Britain in the 20th century and often their children or their children's children will go back to Pakistan for long periods of time to meet their cousins or aunts or extended family. It's during those visits that they can find themselves caught up in the criminal justice system, often over land disputes. Those who left Pakistan will often be more affluent than their neighbours back home, and the absentee landlord becomes the object of much envy for neighbours. They are also not necessarily connected so closely to the community so they lose the defences that a very interconnected person has available to them. The reliance on witnesses and knowledge of the police system and those sorts of things puts them at a significant disadvantage if they are then accused of a crime in Pakistan. It makes it a very difficult situation for them. It's not unknown for lawyers in Pakistan to be assassinated. Does this make them more wary of taking on death row cases? It's fair to say that not many lawyers take on blasphemy cases. More lawyers take on death-penalty cases for other crimes. But yes, there are a number of very high-profile instances of lawyers being assassinated by people walking into their office and simply shooting them at point-blank range. Or those who are outspoken being assassinated in other ways. It has a real chastening effect. When you moved to Pakistan in 2011 it was to work with a young Pakistani lawyer called Sarah Belal. In May 2015, she was told by a friend at the Ministry of Interior to leave the country immediately. How dangerous was her situation? Well, she's extraordinarily brave, far more than I am, so she makes light of that situation, but I think it was very dangerous and she's quite defiant in the face of that danger. She's very committed to these cases and she believes it's right to do them and it's wrong that those people are facing a death sentence. That's where her reasoning stops. She doesn't take the danger into account, but it is very real. When you first arrived in Pakistan you were 23. Were you fearful yourself? Oh, I played a very minor role. I was really an intern and then an assistant to Sarah for most of it. I was not a target in any way, and so no, in short. There remain all the risks of being in the wrong place at the wrong time; quite apart from working on these legal cases, Pakistan itself is not the most stable of countries. I worried about Sarah a bit, but I wasn't at the forefront of anything. Why did you want to go to Pakistan? There was certainly an element of chance, but I was also particularly drawn there. I graduated in law from Glasgow University in 2010 and didn't really know what to do with myself. So I started to volunteer at Reprieve, who work on behalf of death row prisoners around the world. This seemed to me an uncomplicatedly good thing to do; the one thing I did know was that I was anti-death penalty. So I worked on the Pakistan death-penalty desk and then I realised that I wanted to understand Pakistan itself better so I asked Sarah if she'd have me as an intern in Lahore. Did you have a previous connection to the country? I grew up in Scotland, which is not particularly ethnically diverse as a country. The one minority community of which there are quite a number is Pakistanis, particularly in Glasgow. There are between 20,000 and 30,000 Pakistanis in Glasgow. So Pakistan was at once very familiar to me - my neighbours were Pakistanis, my local shop was run by a Pakistani man who just stocked different foodstuffs to the ones that other shops might. And, being really quite parochial and knowing nothing beyond Scotland, I loved Pakistani puddings from the age of 19. Yet the news coverage particularly and the cases I came across at Reprieve showed a place that looked quite foreign and hostile. I was intrigued by the relationship between those 2 things. There was a big change in Pakistan in 2014 and 2015, after Taliban militants killed 132 children and 9 staff at Peshawar's army public school. The government began executing prisoners on death row at a much higher rate, including some of Sarah Belal's clients. What impact did that have on you? It was really horrifying. In the 1st year [after the attack] about 350 people were executed, almost a person per day, so the rate was extraordinary and unrelenting. Sarah and I used to joke about the fact that she and I were being hard as nails and thick-skinned, because when you're working on the cases, your job is not to be sad, your job is to do everything you can to overturn the sentence or get some point on which the death penalty can be rescinded. But the really difficult stage is in those last few hours and the hours afterwards, when there is actually absolutely nothing you can do or it's already happened. At that point it's impossible to escape the horror of it and also it feels right to embrace that sadness, because it becomes a sign of respect, rather than you shirking your duties as a lawyer. There's a vogue at the moment for true crime, miscarriages of justice, such as The Jinx and Making a Murderer on TV, and the podcast Serial. There must be hundreds of those kinds of stories in Pakistan. Are these shows too close to your day job for you to really enjoy them? No, I think they are brilliant. There's a difference between being a lawyer on a case and being a journalist looking into a case and it's something people like Janet Malcolm draw out really well in their writing. Law - at least in Britain, Pakistan and America - is an adversarial process, so there's a give and take of argument the whole way through these cases. When it's investigated, that's quite a different process, so I find it really interesting to see the 2 different approaches to the same story, as it were. Away from work, how was living in Pakistan? I really loved it. Lahore is an unbelievably beautiful city and it's quite unvisited. One comparison is Delhi, which is another great Mughal capital that is of course thronged with tourists for most months of the year, and Lahore is really quite untouristy. It's very vibrant, there are people everywhere in Lahore, it's a very living place. I would wear local clothes, which I did most of the time, and sit in the back of the rickshaw, which actually opened up the city to me in a whole new way, because you're the most discreet traveller sitting in the back of a rickshaw, no one can really see you. Whereas if you're in a car with tinted windows, everybody notices you driving around. You learned to speak Urdu in Pakistan. Do you keep it up now you're back? Since coming back to England, whenever I hear someone in a shop speaking Urdu I always join in with them. I've got very Scottish pasty skin and fair hair, so I look very British really - by that I mean Caucasian female - and the last thing people are expecting is for me to speak Urdu. It always leads to really fun conversations. You are about to start working as a barrister in London. Will your experiences in Pakistan stay with you? Yes, it was something of a forging in the fire. I was given far more responsibility by Sarah than I would have had in Britain, mostly because it was a very small charitable organisation where it was all hands on deck. So I really experienced the responsibility of being a lawyer and emotionally, too, because in Pakistan it was literally a matter of life and death in a way that not many cases are. Also just working in real adversity. Now even a late night in chambers when you are making yourself a cup of tea at 2am and have just bought some sushi from Itsu looks pretty cosy compared to writing the final-day application at 2am in Lahore where it's 50C and you've got no AC and someone's threatening to kill your boss. It's good to have that perspective. (source: The Guardian) PHILIPPINES: If proposed laws are passed, 9-year-old children could be hanged A few weeks ago, the Philippines and the world that care for children's rights and human dignity learned that the new Speaker of the House of Philippine Congress has filed two proposed laws, which would lower the age of criminal liability for children in conflict with the law to 9 years old and reintroduce the death penalty by hanging. This is draconian and oppressive for children and not worthy of the Duterte administration and the Philippine people. The children are innocent, most are illiterate, abandoned, neglected and failed by society and government. The children, younger than 15, are being used by criminals to commit crimes because they cannot be prosecuted, proponents of the law say. This is baloney. If it is true that they are being used (there is no research data or evidence to support this), the children are controlled, used and exploited by criminals and cannot act with free will or be held liable for wrongdoing. So what's the point of criminalizing them? The children are scapegoats of uncaring authorities and an indifferent society. The Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD), through the Juvenile Justice and Welfare Council, has strongly opposed such a move to exact criminal liability on children and the civil society is also adamantly against it. The Catholic Church has strongly spoken against the death penalty and we await a statement from the Catholic Bishops' Conference of the Philippines to support the retention of the age of liability for children to 15. It is very wrong to blame children for the crimes of adults. The proposed laws are anti-poor and anti-child, and violate international conventions. If adult gangsters do use children to further their crimes, say, on illegal drugs, they are guilty of child abuse and exploitation, and they ought to be arrested and tried for child abuse and drug possession. The children, with the appropriate help and support, can easily testify against the criminals. The courageous police should arrest the drug lords, not the children. If children are ever used as drug "mules" or carriers of illegal drugs as some law enforcers contend, then children at nine years old could be meted the death sentence. It is not likely, but the implications are that children and teenagers could, according to the proposed laws, face the death penalty. The proposed laws see the said children as pests to be eliminated. This deplorable attitude gave rise to the death squads in Davao City over the past 20 years, and the use of vigilantes and assassins has spread to other cities and many youth and minors were assassinated (see Human Rights Watch reports "You Can Die Anytime" and "A Shot to the Head: Death Squads in Tagum"). In 1999, the Preda Foundation (www.preda.org) social workers and this writer had opposed the killing of the street children by death squads. I wrote articles about it in the press and ran a letter-writing project that called on the then-mayor of Davao City to take the responsibility to stop the killings. I was branded a suspected criminal and charged with libel, so I had to defend myself in court. No lawyer in Davao had volunteered to help me. After 2 years of legal battles, I finally appealed to the Department of Justice, in Manila, for a reconsideration of the charges brought by the Davao prosecutor. There was no answer and I was to be arraigned in court in Davao City. I flew to Davao with some fear and trepidation of the notorious death squads that might be waiting for me at the airport to greet me with a shot to the head. When I arrived at the airport and walked out the exit, I was met by a group of about 50 cheering, boisterous street children and their community workers. They had made welcome posters and placards. They blew wildly on plastic bugles and beat tin cans in place of drums, and they surrounded me as my guard of honor and protection. With great noise and fanfare, I made it safely across the car park to a waiting jeepney and to safety in a secret location. It was a great moment. On the day of the arraignment, I appeared in the courtroom filled with media and TV cameras. I explained to the media that I had libeled no one but had asked the government to protect the children from the death squad. The official line then was that the death squad did not exist. Claiming that it did was not acceptable. The authorities had no explanation for the alleged 1,000 dead other than to say they killed each other in a gang war. I told the media I would not pay bail and I would fight from behind bars for the children's right to live and for everyone's freedom of speech. The mayor at that time (not President Rodrigo Duterte) chose to withdraw the charges at the last minute in what seemed like a courtroom drama, as I was about to be arraigned. 6 months later, the decision from the DOJ stated that I was innocent and should not answer to any case leveled against me, and formal charges were dropped. But now the death squads have reappeared and police are given shoot-to-kill orders. The bodies are piling up. We all have to speak out without fear and call for a society that respects human dignity and the rights of all. (source: FR. SHAY CULLEN, SSC, The Manila Times) INDONESIA: Indonesian AGO Set to Carry Out 3rd Wave of Executions Any move to execute convicts on the death row continues to draw strong criticism since many NGOs strongly oppose and criticize such an approach. Last year, the Indonesian government was flooded with criticisms from within the country as well as by other nations for having executed 14 drug convicts on death row. Notwithstanding the lack of popular support, Attorney General HM Prasetyo has decided not to flinch this year, and instead indicated that the 3rd wave of executions would be carried out soon. "You see the preparations that we made yesterday. I have even seen the activities in Nusakambangan where arrangements are being made to carry out the executions," Prasetyo said on July 15. Like last year, the prisoners would be brought to Nusakambangan to face executions, he said. Nusakambangan is an island off Cilacap, southern coast of Central Java, notorious for its exile prison where hard core criminals are housed. "The Central Java police has also tightened security. They have agreed to coordinate with us," Prasetyo said. He declined to disclose the names of death row inmates who will be facing the firing squads, but confirmed that there would be more than 2 convicts, and will include Indonesian, Nigerian and Zimbabwe citizens. The attorney general said he would later inform the embassies of the convicts concerned through the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Among Indonesian and foreign death row inmates in Indonesian jails are Ozias Sibanda and Fredderikk Luttar from Zimbabwe; Obina Nwajagu and Humprey Ejike from Nigeria; Seck Osmane from South Africa; Zhu Xu Xhiong, Cheng Hong Xin, Gang Chung Yi and Jian Yu Xin from China; A Yam, Jun Hao alias A Heng alias Vass Liem, Freddy Budiman, Suryanto, Agus Hadi, and Pujo Lestari from Indonesia; and Zulfikar Ali from Pakistan. Earlier, the Attorney General said that inmate Freddy Budiman, a drug kingpin, will be among the convicts, scheduled to die in this 3rd wave of executions. "I will push for the execution of Budiman. Freddy Budiman is our target," Prasetyo had affirmed on May 10. However, the Attorney Generals Office (AGO) is waiting for Budiman to seek a review of his case in the Supreme Court. The AGO will set a deadline for the same. "Budiman said he will use his legal rights to seek a review of the case. The review should be confirmed soon, (we) cannot wait for a long time," Prasetyo remarked. He said the move by Freddy Budiman is more of an attempt to delay his execution. Indonesia had executed 14 drug convicts on January 18, 2015, and April 29, 2015. Among the executed convicts were a 62-year-old Dutch citizen Ang Kim Soei, 48-year-old Malawian Namaona Denis, 53-year-old Brazilian national Marco Archer Cardoso Mareira, 38-year-old Nigerian Daniel Enemua, 38-year-old Indonesian citizen Andriani alias Melisa Aprilia, and 37-year-old Vietnamese national Tran Thi Bich Hanh. 2 members of the "Bali 9" drug ring --- Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran --- were also executed in April last year. The 1st and 2nd rounds of execution of the drug convicts were carried out on the Nusakambangan Island. President Widodo had emphasized that he would not grant clemency to drug convicts, who were responsible for the deaths of 50 Indonesians every day, despite protests from several countries and parties at home. The Institute for Criminal Justice Reform has, however, urged the government to delay its plan to execute death row inmates, till the amended Criminal Code (KUHP) is approved. "The image of being a strongman that President Joko Widodo (Jokowi) has earned for himself by carrying out these executions has seemingly become popular among Indonesian prosecutors and judges," Executive Director of the Institute for Criminal Justice Reform, Supriyadi Widodo, noted in a statement. The country's legal enforcement agencies have been competing in imposing capital punishment through courts, citing the need to have a deterrent effect, he pointed out. However, in the current KUHP Bill being deliberated in the Parliament, it has been agreed that death penalty would be imposed only as an alternative sanction in case of special crimes. Based on data collected by the NGO, 37 people were given death sentences by district courts in 2015. This year, until June, the district courts had issued capital punishment verdicts to 17 defendants, mostly for major drug trafficking and premeditated murder cases. The NGO believes that death penalty should no longer be imposed as it has failed to serve as a deterrent. A similar view was shared by the Chairman of the Setara Institute, Hendardi, who said execution of drug convicts would not have any deterring effect and would not solve any problem. Death sentence to a number of drug convicts is a punishment meted out on the basis of a logic of retribution, instead of serving as a correctional measure, the NGO activist said. "The governments plan to execute more drug convicts is a pragmatic way of dealing with drug related crimes in Indonesia," Hendardi claimed. (source: tempo.co) TURKEY: Erdogan says Turkey may discuss death penalty after coup attempt Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan told a crowd chanting for the death penalty on Saturday that such demands may be discussed in parliament after a coup attempt by a faction in the military killed at least 161 people overnight. Looking relaxed and smiling, giving an occasional thumbs up to his supporters in Istanbul, Erdogan said the coup attempt had been carried out by a minority in the army. "The army is ours, not that of the parallel structure. I am chief commander," he said, referring to the network of his arch enemy Fethullah Gulen, a U.S.-based cleric he accuses of fomenting the coup plot and previous attempts to oust him. (source: Reuters) ************** Crowds plead with Turkey PM for death penalty for coup plotters: 'The necessary will be done' As Prime Minister Binali Yildirim addressed crowds who gathered outside parliament, some of those assembled began to shout, "We want the death penalty! We want the death penalty!" They were referring to plotters of the attempted coup. Yildirim responded: "We got your message. The necessary will be done." Turkey scrapped the death penalty more than a decade ago. The prime minister also asked the crowds to walk to Ankara's main square nearby and remain in the streets to keep a 2nd night of "watch for democracy." Yildrim said 2,839 people have been detained in connection to the failed coup, which resulted in more than 250 people dead and 1,440 wounded. Russia's Foreign Ministry is expressing concern about tensions in Turkey in the wake of the attempted military coup, urging the country to stray from a violent reaction. "The aggravation of the political situation in the context of the terrorist threats existing in the country and armed conflict in the region carry a high risk to international and regional stability," the ministry said in a statement Saturday. "We call on the government and people of Turkey to solve the existing problems without violence, to respect the constitutional order." Tensions between Russia and Turkey have been strong since last year when Turkey shot down a Russian warplane near the border with Syria. However, relations appeared to be moving toward repair after Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan issued an apology for the incident last month. The Italian Foreign Ministry was quick to usher the same warnings. Paolo Gentiloni says Turkish authorities must do their utmost to ensure "respect for the rule of law, of fundamental rights and of parliament's role" following the failed military coup. In a statement Saturday evening, Gentiloni expresses relief that Turkey thwarted a "military adventure that would have brought the country into chaos with the return of ghosts of the past." Gentiloni says the prompt return to stability is urgent but must occur without "indulging in the logic of violence." Italy is also an outspoken opponent of the death penalty. (source: Associated Press) ****************** Amnesty urges Turkey to reject death penalty after coup attempt Turkey should not use the death penalty after crushing an attempted putsch, Amnesty International says, amid some calls for the use of capital punishment against top coup plotters. "Turkey has united to defend rights against a would-be junta. Return to death penalty and crackdown on dissent and victory will be lost," Andrew Gardner, Amnesty's Turkey researcher, said on his Twitter feed. "Grave threat of military rule averted. Now coup plotters must face justice and the rule of law respected for everyone." Government supporters have chanted during demonstrations for the use of capital punishment while local media has cited an official as saying this could be considered. (source: DPA) THE MALDIVES: see: https://secure-web.cisco.com/1LkmqSK8dadG-UcA7S_cGttmPj8Z0qCNsPN9QOT8hhlgtA00-EHzTFPHKmddR5W7bQ2xVOWjgpZHawEi42dP5Q4JJeSQtx0mX-FQsqASf0k1jBPhAJ1vTxiz 2_NIwRwKxViSxWnfCIAnensjr-VQZfHUBgXECaThkd8I5fvzrbecJB8s8N8eScVO7Ss6u_NpkqDcb7Ui95NM4FgVUhvYNKg/https%3A%2F%2Freprieve.bsd.net%2Fpage%2Fspeakout%2F execution-imminent-in-maldives (source: reprieve.bsd.net) From rhalperi at smu.edu Sun Jul 17 15:16:19 2016 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Sun, 17 Jul 2016 15:16:19 -0500 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide Message-ID: July 17 EGYPT: Egypt court hands death sentences to 6 Brotherhood members over 2013 violence----The 9 Muslim Brotherhood members were sentenced in absentia meaning that if they turn themselves into the authorities a retrial will be granted A Cairo criminal court handed death and life imprisonment sentences in absentia on Sunday to nine members of the now banned Muslim Brotherhood over violence related events that took place in Giza governorate in 2013. On Sunday, the court sentenced 6 people to death and three others to life imprisonment over their participation in violent attacks referred to as the "Omraneya events" in November 2013. Life in prison sentences carry up to 25 years in jail, according to the Egyptian penal code. They were referred to court after prosecution accused them of illegally gathering, protesting, cutting off roads, and possessing firearms. The prosecution also charged them of committing assaults, including murdering a child and the attempted murder of others. The 9 convicts were tried in absentia, and thus given the maximum penalty for their crimes. If they turn themselves into the authorities, they can appeal their initial death and life imprisonment sentences. (source: ahram.org) SAUDI ARABIA----execution Saudis carry out first execution since Ramadan Saudi authorities executed a murderer in the holy city of Mecca on Sunday, the 1st death sentence to be carried out since before the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan. Fahd al-Hasni, a Saudi, was put to death after being convicted of stabbing dead a fellow citizen, the interior ministry said in a statement published on the official SPA news agency. Most people executed in Saudi Arabia are beheaded with a sword. It was the 96th execution of the year in the ultra-conservative Muslim kingdom, which imposes the death penalty for offences including murder, drug trafficking, armed robbery, rape and apostasy. The last execution in the Gulf country took place on May 29, more than a week before Ramadan began. There were no beheadings during the fasting month and the following Eid'l Fitr feast. Rights group Amnesty International says the kingdom carried out at least 158 death sentences last year, making it the third most prolific executioner after Iran and Pakistan. Its figures do not include secretive China. The London-based watchdog has said that the rate of executions this year is "higher than at the same point last year." Murder and drug trafficking cases account for the majority of Saudi executions, although 47 people were put to death for "terrorism" offences on a single day in January. They included prominent Shiite cleric Nimr al-Nimr, whose execution prompted Iranian protesters to torch Saudi diplomatic missions triggering the severing of relations between the Middle East???s leading Sunni and Shiite powers. (source: Agence France-Presse) IRAN----executions Iran regime hangs 18 people over the weekend Iran's fundamentalist regime hanged 18 prisoners over the weekend, including 2 cases in public. A woman was among those hanged on Sunday. 11 prisoners were hanged en masse in Qezelhesar Prison in Karaj, north-west of Tehran, on Sunday. 2 of the prisoners were identified as Saeed Saberi and Moslem Bahrami. At least 1 of the 11 prisoners was a woman. 2 men, identified only by their initials Q. J. and M. R., were hanged in public in Karaj on Sunday. The 2 men were hanged in a public square in the city's Mehshahr District, the state-run Tasnim news agency reported on Sunday. Another 3 men were hanged in prison in the city of Birjand, eastern Iran, on Sunday. They were identified as Mansour Zafarani, Yousef Barahoui and Qassem Delshad. They were accused of drugs-related charges. 2 prisoners, whose names were not given but who were said to be 40 and 49 years old, were hanged on Saturday in Lakan Prison in Rasht, northern Iran, according to the state broadcaster IRIB which quoted Ahmad Siavosh-Pour, the provincial head of the judiciary. They were accused of drugs-related charges. Also it emerged over the weekend that 5 men were hanged on July 11 in the Central Prison of Arak, central Iran. They were identified as Masoud Taqi-Pour, Hassan Faraj-Pour, Mehdi Baqeri, Baqer Jalili and Hamid Haqvin. They too were accused of drugs-related charges. The mullahs' regime hanged 9 prisoners collectively on July 13 in Gohardasht Prison in Karaj. 3 of the executed prisoners were identified as Seyyed Mohammad Taheri, Amir Khadem Rezaiyan and Saeid Ahmadi. More than 270 Members of the European Parliament signed a joint statement on Iran last month, calling on the European Union to "condition" its relations with Tehran to an improvement of human rights. The MEPs who were from all the EU Member States and from all political groups in the Parliament said they are concerned about the rising number of executions in Iran after Hassan Rouhani took office as President 3 years ago. Amnesty International in its April 6 annual Death Penalty report covering the 2015 period wrote: "Iran put at least 977 people to death in 2015, compared to at least 743 the year before." "Iran alone accounted for 82% of all executions recorded" in the Middle East and North Africa, the human rights group said. There have been more than 2,500 executions during Hassan Rouhani's tenure as President. The United Nations Special Rapporteur on the human rights situation in Iran in March announced that the number of executions in Iran in 2015 was greater than any year in the last 25 years. Rouhani has explicitly endorsed the executions as examples of "God's commandments" and "laws of the parliament that belong to the people." (source: NCR-Iran) From rhalperi at smu.edu Mon Jul 18 09:25:35 2016 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Mon, 18 Jul 2016 09:25:35 -0500 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----FLA., LA., UTAH, USA Message-ID: July 18 FLORIDA: 2 cases delayed by new death penalty to be in Duval County court 2 death penalty cases affected by the new death penalty ruling will be in Duval County court Monday morning. The recent ruling stated that the death penalty law in the State of Florida is unconstitutional. The ruling that affects two Duval County cases has families in the courtroom longer, which can be tiring for the family. James Rhodes is accused of killing Shelby Farah at a Metro PCS store in 2013. Rhodes' court appearance is expected to include motions regarding death penalty. Rhodes was charged in connection to the death of Farah, 20. Farah's mother has been candid about her disagreement with the State Attorney's Office to seek the death penalty for her daughter's accused killer. Farah's mother said it will only keep the case going, but State Attorney Angela Corey said the law requires her to seek death. In the Michael Shellito case, he was convicted in the murder of 18-year-old Sean Hathorne. Hathrone was shot in the chest in 1994 and Shellito was sentenced to death. But the Florida Supreme Court unanimously overturned his death sentence back in 2013 citing mental issues and that he may have suffered from brain damage from child abuse. Shelitto has a final pretrial hearing Monday morning. His case isn't scheduled to go to trial until 2017. As of today, there are 388 people in Florida on death row. (source: actionnewsjax.com) LOUISIANA: Inmates' lawyers: A/C only way to prevent heat-related illness, death at Angola With south Louisiana's summer heat and humidity kicking into high gear, the legal battle rages on over how to best protect 3 ailing condemned killers from extreme heat indexes on Angola's death row. In the most recent federal court filings in the 3-year-old case, attorneys for Elzie Ball, Nathaniel Code and James Magee insist air conditioning is the only way to shield them from the substantial risk of heat-related illness or worse. "Public health agencies as well as the medical community agree that exposure to air-conditioning is the only method of preventing heat-related illness and death in extreme heat," the inmates' attorneys, including lead lawyer Mercedes Montagnes with The Promise of Justice Initiative in New Orleans, argue in documents filed July 11 at Baton Rouge federal court. Attorneys for state corrections officials, however, claim their second heat remediation plan - which calls for a daily cool shower and additional ice and fans for the prisoners - adequately remedies a violation of the constitutional protection against cruel and unusual punishment that Chief U.S. District Judge Brian Jackson and the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals found in relation to the Louisiana State Penitentiary's death row. The state's lawyers, in documents filed July 11 as well, contend the heat remediation plan's measures "are sufficient to cure the constitutional violation." They argue further that the relief "extends as far as is necessary to correct the constitutional violation in this matter." Jackson opined last month at a hearing on the state's second remediation plan that corrections officials have done "little if anything" to prevent heat indexes on death row from topping 88 degrees, something he ordered them to do 2 1/2 years ago. The state's 1st court-ordered heat remediation plan included air conditioning for the inmates, but the 5th Circuit ruled last summer the prisoners are not entitled to mechanical cooling. But the appellate court said they do deserve some relief. In their latest court filing, the state's attorneys - a combination of private lawyers and assistant state attorney's general - say they interpret the 5th Circuit ruling to mean the state is not required to maintain the heat index in the inmates' cells below 88 degrees. "The Fifth Circuit noted ... that a permanent injunction requiring (the state) to develop a plan to keep the heat index at or below 88 degrees would 'effectively' require (the state) to install air conditioning," the state's attorneys point out. "It is (the state's) position that the Fifth Circuit ruled that (the state) must implement sufficient remedial measures ... when the heat index reaches 88 degrees - not that (the state) must maintain the heat index below 88 degrees." In its ruling last year, the New Orleans federal appeals court suggested the state could divert cool air from the air-conditioned guard pods into the death-row tiers or allow the inmates access to air-conditioned areas, but corrections officials rejected those suggestions for security and other reasons. The inmates' lawyers acknowledge that while no 5th Circuit case has previously upheld an order requiring air conditioning to remedy a violation of the Eighth Amendment prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment, no authority explicitly bars the use of air conditioning as a remedy. "The Fifth Circuit itself suggested remedies which included exposure to air conditioning," the prisoners' attorneys note. "The Fifth Circuit plainly contemplated the need for remedial measures beyond ice, showers and fans." "The Fifth Circuit has not - and could not - categorically bar the use of air-conditioning to remedy the Eighth Amendment violation," they add. The state's first heat remediation plan remedies the constitutional violation and does not disrupt the effective administration of the prison, the inmates' attorneys say. Code is on death row for the slaying of 4 people at a house in Shreveport in 1985. Magee received the death penalty for the 2007 shotgun killing of his estranged wife and their 5-year-old son in a subdivision near Mandeville. Ball was condemned to die for fatally shooting a beer delivery man during the 1996 armed robbery of a Gretna lounge. (source: The Advocate) UTAH: Debating the Death Penalty in Utah A debate over the death penalty is expected to return to Utah's Capitol Hill during the next legislative session. We could see a bill to abolish it all together, and another one to speed up the process. I sat down with Robert Dunham this morning, he's the Executive Director of the Death Penalty Information Center, to give us a look at the possible legislative pieces we could see next year. Dunham wanted to be clear that the Information Center takes no stance on the death penalty. Their focus is ensuring the death penalty is administered properly. (source: Glen Mills, good4utah.com) USA: 'Dr. Death' In just a few months, Donnie Myers's long and lethal tenure as a top prosecutor in South Carolina will come to an end. If past is precedent, so will the bumper crop of death sentences in his jurisdiction. Mr. Myers, known locally as "Dr. Death," has personally secured 39 death sentences against 28 defendants - some were tried twice - in a 38-year career as solicitor of South Carolina's 11th Judicial District. He is notorious for keeping a paperweight model of the state's electric chair on his desk, for his race-baiting courtroom histrionics, and for playing fast and loose with legal rules. According to an analysis by Harvard Law School, courts have found he committed misconduct in 46 % of his capital cases, and 6 death sentences he secured were subsequently overturned. Mr. Myers, who has been convicted of drunken driving and, recently, charged again for the same offense, could usher in a big change when he retires this year. If South Carolina's 11th Judicial District follows what has become a pronounced pattern, the exit of one overzealous prosecutor could bring about a sharp drop in the imposition of the death penalty. That is among the findings of Harvard Law School's Fair Punishment Project, which surveyed the wildly disproportionate impact of a handful of fanatical state prosecutors. Even as the frequency of death sentences and executions in the United States has plummeted in recent decades, the Harvard study shows how the nation's death rows, which currently house about 2,900 convicts, have been populated by the efforts of a very few, death-penalty-loving men (and, notably, 1 woman) like Mr.?Myers. The report's findings underscore the grossly arbitrary nature of capital punishment in this country and undercut whatever legitimacy it may retain. If imposition of the ultimate punishment is to a great extent driven by personality and a hunger for notoriety, then it is the antithesis of justice. How else to think about prosecutors such as Dale Cox, just retired as the top prosecutor in Caddo Parish, La., who declared, upon learning of the exoneration of a man who spent 30 years on death row for a crime he did not commit, "I think we need to kill more people." Mr. Cox, who secured 1/3 of Louisiana's death sentences in a 5-year period ending in 2015, had a simple rationale: "Revenge brings to us a visceral satisfaction." The good news is that the number of states allowing capital punishment has shrunk and, in states where the penalty remains active, U.S. juries have mostly lost their appetite for it. Just 49 death sentences were handed down last year, an 84?% drop from the modern-era high of 315 in 1996. Nonetheless, in the shrinking numbers of counties where the capital punishment remains in fashion, it's striking how few prosecutors dominate death-sentencing statistics. They are evidence, the Harvard study concludes, "that the application of the death penalty is - and always has been - less about the circumstances of the offense or the characteristics of the person who committed the crime, and more a function of the personality and predilections" of a very few prosecutors. (source: Washington Post) From rhalperi at smu.edu Mon Jul 18 09:26:14 2016 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Mon, 18 Jul 2016 09:26:14 -0500 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide Message-ID: July 18 TURKEY: EU reminds Turkey it bound by treaty not to use death penalty The European Union reminded Turkey on Monday that it is bound by its commitments under the European Convention on Human Rights and as a member of the Council of Europe not to reintroduce the death penalty. "No country can become an EU member state if it introduces the death penalty," EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini told reporters when asked about suggestions that EU accession candidate Turkey might execute leaders of the failed coup. She also noted that Turkey was a member of the Council of Europe and a signatory of the European Convention on Human Rights, which bans capital punishment across the continent: "Turkey is an important part of the Council of Europe and is bound by the European Convention on Human Rights, which is very clear on the death penalty," she said. (source: Reuters) *************** Germany tells Turkey return of death penalty would end EU accession talks Turkey cannot join the European Union if it reinstates the death penalty, a spokesman for the German government said on Monday, sending a clear message to President Tayyip Erdogan who has raised the possibility after a failed military coup. The government also urged Turkey to maintain the rule of law in investigating and bringing those behind the weekend coup attempt to justice, and raised questions about Turkey's decision to round up thousands of judges. "Germany and the member states of the EU have a clear position on that: we categorically reject the death penalty," government spokesman Steffen Seibert told a news conference. "A country that has the death penalty can't be a member of the European Union and the introduction of the death penalty in Turkey would therefore mean the end of accession negotiations." Turkey abolished capital punishment in 2004, allowing it to open EU accession talks the following year, but the negotiations have made scant progress since then. With pro-government protesters demanding that the coup leaders be executed, Erdogan said on Sunday that the government would discuss the measure with opposition parties. Even before the coup attempt, many EU states were not eager to see such a large, mostly Muslim country as a member, and were concerned that Ankara's record on basic freedoms had gone into reverse in recent years. Turkey widened the crackdown on suspected supporters of the coup on Sunday, taking the number of people rounded up in the armed forces and judiciary to 6,000. German officials said they had seen no evidence of any conspiracy in the events beyond an effort by parts of the Turkish military to seize control of the government. Erdogan and the Turkish government have accused the U.S.-based Muslim cleric Fethullah Gulen, a former ally of Erdogan, of orchestrating the coup. Seibert said German and EU officials would emphasize the need to maintain the rule of law in all their conversations with Turkey. He said he expected EU foreign ministers to address their concerns about the revival of the death penalty and disproportionate punishment in a joint statement about the situation after a meeting in Brussels later on Monday. "Everyone understands that the Turkish government and the Turkish justice system must bring those responsible for the coup to justice, but they must maintain the rule of law, and that always means maintaining proportionality ... and transparency." German Foreign Minster Frank-Walter Steinmeier spoke to his counterpart early on Sunday, but Chancellor Angela Merkel has not spoken to Erdogan since the attempted coup, government spokesmen said. (source: The Daily Star) **************** No Country Can Become EU Member if Reintroduces Death Penalty - Mogherini Late on Friday, Turkish authorities said that an attempted coup d'etat took place in the country. The coup was suppressed several hours later. Soon after the coup attempt, both Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Prime Minister Binali Yildirim said that capital punishment could be reinstated in the country. "Let me be very clear on one thing ... No country can become an EU member state if it introduces death penalty," Mogherini told a briefing when asked about the situation in Turkey, a state that abolished capital punishment in 2004 to bring its legislation in line with the EU standards. Late on Friday, the Turkish authorities said that an attempted coup d'etat took place in the country. The coup was suppressed several hours later. The coup attempt was suppressed by early Saturday, with Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim stating that all coup supporters were identified and would be apprehended as the country was returning to normal life. At least 208 people have been killed and at least 1,400 injured during the attempted coup, according to the country's foreign ministry. (source: Sputnik News) ***************** Turkey's pro-Kurdish opposition would not support death penalty - spokesman Turkey's pro-Kurdish Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) would not support any proposal put to parliament on the reintroduction of the death penalty following a failed coup attempt, party spokesman Ayhan Bilgen told Reuters. "No, we will not support it," Bilgen said, adding that in any case new laws could not be applied retroactively and that it was the responsibility of politicians to communicate this to the people. Responding to crowds of supporters calling for the death penalty for the plotters on Sunday, President Tayyip Erdogan said such demands could not be ignored. (source: Reuters) ***************** The death penalty must not be the legacy of Turkey's quashed coup The military coup that was launched, and that failed, between Friday night and Saturday morning, showed the two faces of today's Turkey in sharp relief. On the one hand, there was the old tendency of the military to take responsibility for the nation, with officers casting themselves as the guardians of law and order and the secular state. On the other, there was a new sense of pride in even flawed democracy that brought people, young and old, religious and not, into the streets to oppose an illegal seizure of power. The people won; so far, so good. The aftermath is starting to look a lot less palatable. If the failure of the coup can be seen as a victory for modern, European, democratic Turkey - or at least aspirations in that direction - it is not at all apparent that the trend will continue. There are now believed to be 6,000 people under arrest, including senior members of the armed forces and - more surprisingly - of the judiciary. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan appears to be exploiting his position to eliminate his enemies, far beyond those actually responsible for the plot against him. Nor is "eliminate" necessarily too strong a word: he has called for the return of the death penalty and whipped up enthusiastic crowds in his support. The proposition could be put to parliament. Turkey abolished the death penalty in 2004, when it joined the Council of Europe. The move was part of its pursuit of European credentials at a time when its ambitions to join the EU were at their height. Reinstating the death penalty would be a highly retrograde step, doubly so if it were done as a response to a particular event. Asking parliament to decide, in such circumstances, could be seen as an improvement on summary justice - which also appears to be a possibility - but not by much. With the Turkish state as fragile as it is, any appeal to the president to stay his hand could be difficult Beyond making the strongest possible diplomatic representations, is there anything either the Council of Europe, in the shape of the European court at Strasbourg, or the EU can do? The first move might be a little self-examination. Even as stable a state as the UK retained the death penalty for treason until 1998, though it had been abolished for other crimes decades earlier. It is hard to regard the coup attempt in Turkey as anything other than treason. With the Turkish state as fragile as it evidently still is, any appeal to the president to stay his hand could be difficult. Attempts should nonetheless be made. On a hierarchy of priorities, the first should be opposition to summary justice. The second should be a demand for due process: no mass trials or convictions. Rank-and-file conscripts cannot be held accountable for the plotting of their superiors. The failed coup should not provide a pretext for the president to purge his political enemies more broadly. Any moral superiority he might now command would soon dissipate. It has to be recognised, however, that the persuasive power of Strasbourg is restricted to the moral plane, while the bargaining clout of Brussels is limited. The EU is more dependent on Turkey's goodwill than it was before the agreement on repatriating migrants, however questionable that deal was and however imperfectly it is operating. The ray of hope is that Turkey entered into that agreement at all, which suggested that Erdogan and his government had an interest not just in the money, but in keeping the country's EU application alive. With the survival of democracy at risk, the Turkish president's priorities may have changed. But the EU's priorities for aspiring members - including respect for the rule of law - should not. (source: The Guardian) BANGLADESH: Bangladesh war crimes: 3 get death penalty, 5 jailed for life----The verdict came as the prosecution accused all the 8 of 5 charges relating to crimes like mass murders, abductions, tortures and lootings. 3 Islamists were handed down death penalty while 5 others jailed until death by a special tribunal in Bangladesh for committing crimes against humanity during the 1971 liberation war with Pakistan. A 3-member panel of judges of Bangladesh's International Crimes Tribunal (ICT-BD) led by Justice Anwarul Haque pronounced the judgement as 2 of the convicts appeared on the dock while 6 others were tried in absentia as they were on the run to evade justice. The verdict came as the prosecution accused all the eight of five charges relating to crimes like mass murders, abductions, tortures and lootings. Prosecution lawyers said 6 of the convicts were members of infamous Al-badr auxiliary force of the Pakistani troops during the war and carried out atrocities in northern Jamalpur district. The 2 others belonged to Razakar, another Bengali-manned armed group raised by Pakistanis during the war. Manned by activists of fundamentalist Jamaat-e-Islami, which was opposed to Bangladesh's 1971 independence from Pakistan, the Al-Badr appeared as an extremely notorious force by carrying out ruthless atrocities siding with Pakistani troops. The verdict came amid a nationwide tension following the recent 2 back-to-back Islamist terror attacks in the country following which Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina hinted that Jamaat could be behind the assaults. Bangladesh has so far executed 4 war crimes convicts since the process began to try the top Bengali perpetrators of 1971 atrocities in line with the electoral commitment of Prime Minister Hasina in 2008. (source: indianexpress.com) ******************* Man gets death penalty for killing brother A Gazipur court has handed down maximum penalty to a man for killing his elder brother in 2013. District Session Judge AKM Enamul Haque also slapped a total of Tk15,000 fine on the convict, 25-year-old Md Borhan Uddin, on Monday. Public Prosecutor Haris Uddin Ahmed said, Borhan stabbed his elder brother Jahirul and dumped him in a septic tank on April 12, 2013 over a family feud. Locals rescued Jahirul and rushed him to the upazila health complex where doctors pronounced him dead. Jahirul's wife Fahima Akter filed a murder case accusing her brother-in-law Borhan. The court delivered its verdict after recording depositions of 10 witnesses. (source: Dhaka Tribune) INDONESIA: National scene: Isolation cells ready for death row inmates The Central Java Law and Human Rights Agency, which holds authority over the prisons on Nusakambangan Island, confirmed that it recently built a number of isolation cells for inmates who are facing the death penalty. The isolation cells will be used to separate death row inmates and other prisoners ahead of planned executions on the island. "We have just completed a new 2-story block at the Batu Penitentiary on Nusakambangan with more than 10 cells. Later, the death row inmates will be placed in the isolated cells," the head of the Central Java Law and Human Rights Agency's corrections division, Molyanto, told The Jakarta Post on Sunday. He said a number of preparations have been made, including a security task force, an execution site and the isolation cells that will be used by the prisoners to meet their families, lawyers and spiritual guides. "Everything will be ready in the near future. We're just waiting for the order," said Molyanto. The official order on when the executions will take place has not yet been made. "Various agencies are still coordinating. It's a matter of time before the Attorney General's Office issues the order," said Molyanto. (source: Jakarta Post) KENYA: Nairobi tout gets death penalty for killing infant A tout who murdered a 4-month-old girl and dumped her body in a pit latrine is on death row after being convicted. The child's only "crime" was that her mother had conceived her from a previous relationship. Peter Kinyua Mwangi was sentenced to hang on February 26, 2015, for killing the infant whose mother was his lover. He was cohabiting with the child's mother, Monica Wanjiku, at the time. In her testimony, Ms Wanjiku said she had known Mwangi for 3 months before she delivered her baby. On the night of April 22, 2009, in Kiangombe village in Embakasi, Nairobi County, Mwangi strangled the child, placed her on the bed and then pushed Wanjiku to the bed. However, Wanjiku managed to free herself. In anger, the accused hit the baby, who died. He then dumped her body in a pit latrine. "He implored her to forget about the baby because they could have their own later. He even invited her to go back to bed," the prosecution told the court. Wanjiku screamed for help but neighbours did not make it in time to rescue the child. The High Court judge at the time, Nicholas Ombija, said in his judgement that Mwangi, 30, turned his anger on Wanjiku, noting he went for her neck, pulled her braids and tried to strangle her, claiming the baby was a 'jini' (evil spirit) in the house. But Wanjiku managed to disentangle herself from the man. Moments later, when she asked him where the baby was, he said he had thrown the 'rat' in the latrine. The court heard that Mwangi asked Wanjiku to sober up because they were going to have a human child seeing as the one he had killed was an "evil spirit". Prosecutor Mercy Ikol asked the court to pass a harsh penalty, noting that the accused had earlier been charged in another court for giving false information. The prosecution called 7 witnesses. Malice Aforethought Justice Ombija said the prosecution had proved its case beyond reasonable doubt and that Mwangi had malice aforethought. The judge agreed with the prosecution assertions that the accused committed the offence. "After carefully analysing the evidence, I find and hold that it is the accused who caused the death of the deceased by strangling her, apart from lying on top of the mother with the child below her on the bed," he said. Ombija added: "The prosecution has proved its case beyond reasonable doubt and I sentence the accused to suffer death in the manner prescribed under the law. He is inhuman, brutal and heartless and he therefore does not deserve mercy from this court." The judge also said the fact that Mwangi had earlier been charged with giving false information reinforced the prosecution case against him. "I had the advantage of assessing the demeanour of the accused. He appeared to me as a person who is economical with the truth while on the other hand the wife appears as the witness of the truth and, accordingly, I rest my judgement on her testimony," he said. The woman said on the fateful night, they retired to bed at around 11pm but Mwangi woke up at 2am, lit a candle then put it off, claiming there were "evil spirits" in the house. She said Mwangi lifted her and placed her on top of the child as she struggled to free herself. She managed to free herself and that is when he strangled the baby despite her pleas. In mitigation, Mwangi's lawyer, Daniel Mathenge, pleaded for a lenient sentence, arguing that his client had already spent 5 years in custody. (source: standardmedia.co.ke) From rhalperi at smu.edu Mon Jul 18 09:27:10 2016 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Mon, 18 Jul 2016 09:27:10 -0500 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide Message-ID: July 18 IRAN----executions 16 prisoners including a woman hanged in 1 day, 2 in public ---- 30 prisoners executed in less than a week in cities across the country In a new wave of executions, the Iranian regime executed 30 prisoners in various cities from July 11 to 17. 16 were executed Sunday, July 17, in Karaj and Birjand. In Karaj, 11 prisoners including a woman were executed en masse in Ghezel Hessar Prison and another 2 were hanged in public in Mehrshahr district. 2 prisoners were executed in the Central Prison of Lakan, in Rasht (northern Iran) on July 16. 6 prisoners were hanged on July 13, in Gohardasht Prison of Karaj. 5 more prisoners were hanged on July 11, in the Central Prison of Arak (central Iran), and another prisoner was executed also on July 11, in the Prison of Maragheh (East Azerbaijan Province in northwest Iran) after enduring 8 years in prison. Beset by various crises, the Iranian regime is unable to respond to the most basic needs of the Iranian people, especially the deprived and low income strata. To confront growing public dissent and protests across the country, it has resorted to a new wave of executions. 1 year after the nuclear deal, these crimes reveal the claims of moderation in the clerical regime as hollow and expose the falsehood of promises of improvement under the mullahs' rule. It was thus proved that appeasement of the mullahs' medieval regime will not bring about change. The Iranian Resistance calls on human rights organizations to condemn the rising number of executions in Iran and to immediately undertake measures to send the dossier of violations of human rights in Iran to the UN Security Council. All relations with the Iranian regime must be made conditional on an end to executions and an improvement of the human rights situation in Iran. (source: Secretariat of the National Council of Resistance of Iran) INDIA: Final hearing in December 16 gang rape case to begin from today The Supreme Court will from today begin its hearing in the appeals filed by the four accused in the December 16 gang rape case. A special bench of the apex court hearing the plea of death convicts in the case has decided to sit 2 hours beyond its working time to ensure speedy disposal of the case that has been pending in the court for more than 2 years. The convicts Vinay Sharma (23), Akshay Thakur (31), Mukesh (29) and Pawan Gupta (22) were awarded death sentence by a trial court in September 2013 and 6 months later the Delhi High Court upheld their conviction and sentence. All the convicts then approached the Supreme Court which had in 2014 stayed their execution and the matter is pending in the top court since then. The Delhi High Court had upheld their conviction and award of death penalty by terming the offence as 'extremely fiendish' and 'unparalleled in the history of criminal jurisprudence' and said the 'exemplary punishment' was the need of the hour. Though arguments started in April before a three-judge Bench headed by Justice Dipak Misra, arguments will have to be made afresh since the combination of judges in the bench has been changed. The bench comprises Justices Dipak Misra, C. Nagappan and Ms. R. Banumathi. 23-year old Nirbhaya was brutally assaulted and gang-raped by 6 people in a moving bus in south Delhi on the night of December 16, 2012, and thrown out of the vehicle with her male friend. She died in a Singapore hospital on December 29. (source: Business Standard) THE VATICAN: Why the Church Cannot Reverse Past Teaching on Capital Punishment----If Pope Francis were to teach that capital punishment is ???absolutely??? immoral, he would be contradicting the teaching of scripture, the Fathers, and all previous popes, and substituting for it "some new doctrine." Editor's note: This is Part 1 of a 2-part article on Catholicism and the death penalty. Part 2 will be posted later this week. Pope St. John Paul II was well-known for his vigorous opposition to capital punishment. Yet in 2004, then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger -- the pope's own chief doctrinal officer, later to become Pope Benedict XVI -- stated unambiguously that: [I]f a Catholic were to be at odds with the Holy Father on the application of capital punishment ... he would not for that reason be considered unworthy to present himself to receive Holy Communion. While the Church exhorts civil authorities ... to exercise discretion and mercy in imposing punishment on criminals, it may still be permissible ... to have recourse to capital punishment. There may be a legitimate diversity of opinion even among Catholics about ... applying the death penalty ... (emphasis added) How could it be "legitimate" for a Catholic to be "at odds with" the pope on such a matter? The answer is that the pope's opposition to capital punishment was not a matter of binding doctrine, but merely an opinion which a Catholic must respectfully consider but not necessarily agree with. Cardinal Ratzinger could not possibly have said what he did otherwise. If it were mortally sinful for a Catholic to disagree with the pope about capital punishment, then he could not "present himself to receive Holy Communion." If it were even venially sinful to disagree, then there could not be "a legitimate diversity of opinion even among Catholics." The fact is that it is the irreformable teaching of the Church that capital punishment can in principle be legitimate, not merely to ensure the physical safety of others when an offender poses an immediate danger (a case where even John Paul II was willing to allow for the death penalty), but even for purposes such as securing retributive justice and deterring serious crime. What is open to debate is merely whether recourse to the death penalty is in practice the best option given particular historical and cultural circumstances. That is a "prudential" matter about which popes have no special expertise. We defend these claims in detail and at length in our book By Man Shall His Blood Be Shed: A Catholic Defense of the Death Penalty, forthcoming from Ignatius Press. What follows is a brief summary of some key points. Sacred Scripture The Church holds that scripture is infallible, particularly when it teaches on matters of faith and morals. The First Vatican Council teaches that scripture must always be interpreted in the sense in which the Church has traditionally understood it, and in particular that it can never be interpreted in a sense contrary to the unanimous understanding of the Fathers of the Church. Both the Old and New Testaments teach that capital punishment can be legitimate, and the Church has always interpreted them this way. For example, Genesis 9:6 famously states: "Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed; for God made man in his own image." The Church has always understood this as a sanction of the death penalty. Even Christian Brugger, a prominent Catholic opponent of capital punishment, admits that attempts to reinterpret this passage are dubious and that the passage is a "problem" for views like his own.i St. Paul's Letter to the Romans teaches that the state "does not bear the sword in vain [but] is the servant of God to execute his wrath on the wrongdoer" (13:4). The Church has always understood this too as a warrant for capital punishment, and by Brugger's own admission, there was a "consensus" among the Fathers and medieval Doctors of the Church that the passage was to be understood in this way.ii But in that case, attempts to reinterpret the passage cannot possibly be reconciled with a Catholic understanding of scripture. Not only Genesis 9:6 and Romans 13:4 but also passages like Numbers 35:33, Deuteronomy 19: 11-13, Luke 23:41, and Acts 25:11 all clearly regard capital punishment as legitimate when carried out simply for the purpose of securing retributive justice. The lex talionis ("law of retaliation") of Exodus 21 and Leviticus 24 is also obviously a matter of exacting retribution for its own sake. Deuteronomy 19:19-21 talks of execution as a way of striking "fear" in potential offenders, and deterrence is clearly in view in Romans 13:4. Hence scripture clearly teaches that capital punishment can in principle be legitimate for the sake of deterrence. The Fathers and Doctors of the Church The Church has always regarded the Fathers as having an extremely high degree of authority when they are agreed on some matter of faith or morals. Now, some of the Fathers preferred mercy to the use of capital punishment. However, every one of the Fathers who commented on the subject nevertheless also allowed that capital punishment can in principle be legitimate. For example, in his Homilies on Leviticus, Origen teaches that "death which is inflicted as the penalty of sin is a purification of the sin itself." Clement of Alexandria says that "when one falls into any incurable evil ... it will be for his good if he is put to death." In his commentary On the Sermon on the Mount, Augustine writes that "great and holy men ... punished some sins with death ... [by which] the living were struck with a salutary fear." Jerome taught that ???he who slays cruel men is not cruel." It is sometimes claimed that Tertullian and Lactantius were exceptions to the patristic consensus on capital punishment as legitimate at least in principle, but even Brugger admits that this is not in fact the case.iii And again, the Fathers also uniformly regarded scripture as allowing capital punishment, and the Church teaches that the Fathers must be followed where they agree on the interpretation of scripture. Like scripture, the Fathers also speak of capital punishment as in principle legitimate for purposes like the securing of retributive justice and deterring others. (Indeed, neither scripture nor the Fathers refer to protection against immediate physical danger even as a purpose of capital punishment, let alone as the only legitimate purpose.) The Church has also regarded the Doctors of the Church as having a very high degree of authority when they are agreed on some matter of faith or morals. Like the Fathers, these Doctors - including thinkers of the stature of St. Thomas Aquinas, St. Robert Bellarmine, and St. Alphonsus Ligouri - are all in agreement on the legitimacy in principle of capital punishment. Aquinas even dismissed as "frivolous" the suggestion that capital punishment removes from offenders the possibility of repentance, arguing that "if they are so stubborn that even at the point of death their heart does not draw back from evil, it is possible to make a highly probable judgment that they would never come away from evil to the right use of their powers" (Summa Contra Gentiles III.146). The popes No pope from St. Peter to Benedict XVI ever denied the legitimacy in principle of capital punishment, and many popes explicitly affirmed its legitimacy, even as a matter of basic Catholic orthodoxy. For example, Pope St. Innocent I taught that to deny the legitimacy of capital punishment would be to go against biblical authority, indeed "the authority of the Lord" himself. Pope Innocent III required adherents of the Waldensian heresy, as a condition for their reconciliation with the Church and proof of their orthodoxy, to affirm the legitimacy in principle of capital punishment. Pope St. Pius V promulgated the Roman Catechism, which states that: Another kind of lawful slaying belongs to the civil authorities, to whom is entrusted power of life and death, by the legal and judicious exercise of which they punish the guilty and protect the innocent. The just use of this power, far from involving the crime of murder, is an act of paramount obedience to this Commandment which prohibits murder. The 1912 Catechism of Christian Doctrine issued by Pope St. Pius X says in the context of discussion of the Fifth Commandment: "It is lawful to kill ... when carrying out by order of the Supreme Authority a sentence of death in punishment of a crime." Pope Pius XII taught that "it is reserved ... to the public authority to deprive the criminal of the benefit of life when already, by his crime, he has deprived himself of the right to live." It is sometimes alleged that while Pope John Paul II did not contradict past teaching, he did modify doctrine on capital punishment in a more restrictive direction in the catechism which he promulgated. In particular, it is claimed by some that John Paul taught that it is in principle immoral to resort to capital punishment except for the purpose of protecting others against the immediate physical danger posed by an offender. However, then-Cardinal Ratzinger explicitly denied that there was any change at the level of doctrinal principle. He affirmed that "the Holy Father has not altered the doctrinal principles which pertain to this issue" and that the revisions to the catechism reflected merely "circumstantial considerations ... without any modification of the relevant doctrinal principles."iv Moreover, as Cardinal Avery Dulles has pointed out, had the pope made such a modification to doctrine, he would have been partially reversing or contradicting previous teaching rather than merely modifying it.v For as we have noted, scripture and the Fathers teach that capital punishment can be legitimate specifically for purposes of retribution and deterrence, and not merely for the purpose of counteracting some immediate physical threat. Pope Francis Like other recent popes, Pope Francis has opposed the use of the death penalty. But there are indications that, unlike any previous pope, Francis may be inclined to declare capital punishment intrinsically immoral. For example, in a recent statement, Pope Francis said that "the commandment 'Thou shalt not kill' has absolute value and applies both to the innocent and to the guilty" (emphasis added). It has also been reported that he has set up a commission to explore changing the Catechism of the Catholic Church so that it will "absolutely" forbid capital punishment. Does Catholic doctrine permit a pope to make such a change? It very clearly does not. The First Vatican Council explicitly taught that: [T]he Holy Spirit was promised to the successors of Peter not so that they might, by his revelation, make known some new doctrine, but that, by his assistance, they might religiously guard and faithfully expound the revelation or deposit of faith transmitted by the apostles. (Emphasis added) And the Second Vatican Council explicitly taught that: [T]he task of authentically interpreting the word of God, whether written or handed on, has been entrusted exclusively to the living teaching office of the Church ... This teaching office is not above the word of God, but serves it, teaching only what has been handed on ... (Emphasis added) If Pope Francis were to teach that capital punishment is "absolutely" immoral, he would be contradicting (rather than "religiously guard[ing]," "faithfully expound[ing]," and "hand[ing] on") the teaching of scripture, the Fathers, and all previous popes, and substituting for it "some new doctrine." He would be overruling the many scriptural passages that support capital punishment, thereby putting himself "above the word of God." If he were to claim warrant for this novel teaching in the commandment against murder, he would be contradicting the way every previous pope who has addressed the subject has understand that commandment. As we have seen, Pope Pius XII teaches that the guilty person "has deprived himself of the right to live," and the catechisms promulgated by Pope St. Pius V and Pope St. Pius X explicitly affirm that capital punishment is consistent with the commandment against murder. Moreover, if Pope Francis were to teach that capital punishment is intrinsically immoral, he would undermine the authority of Catholic teaching in general. As Cardinal Dulles wrote: The reversal of a doctrine as well established as the legitimacy of capital punishment would raise serious problems regarding the credibility of the magisterium. Consistency with Scripture and long-standing Catholic tradition is important for the grounding of many current teachings of the Catholic Church; for example, those regarding abortion, contraception, the permanence of marriage, and the ineligibility of women for priestly ordination. If the tradition on capital punishment had been reversed, serious questions would be raised regarding other doctrines ...vi Indeed, a change vis-a-vis the death penalty would undermine the pope's own credibility as well. Cardinal Dulles continues: If, in fact, the previous teaching had been discarded, doubt would be cast on the current teaching as well. It too would have to be seen as reversible, and in that case, as having no firm hold on people's assent. The new doctrine, based on a recent insight, would be in competition with a magisterial teaching that has endured for 2 millennia -- or even more, if one wishes to count the biblical testimonies. Would not some Catholics be justified in adhering to the earlier teaching on the ground that it has more solid warrant than the new? The faithful would be confronted with the dilemma of having to dissent either from past or from present magisterial teaching. It is difficult to avoid the conclusion that, were Pope Francis to condemn capital punishment as intrinsically immoral, he would thereby be joining the ranks of that very small number of popes who have taught doctrinal error (which is possible when a pope does not speak ex cathedra). However, we do not believe that Pope Francis will do this. For one thing, as is well known, the pope is prone in his public utterances to making imprecise and exaggerated statements. He has certainly done so before when speaking about capital punishment. For example, in a statement from March 15, 2015, the pope approvingly cited some lines he attributed to Dostoevsky, to the effect that "to kill one who killed is an incomparably greater punishment than the crime itself. Killing in virtue of a sentence is far worse than the killing committed by a criminal." Consider a serial killer like Ted Bundy, who murdered at least fourteen women. Bundy routinely raped and tortured his victims, and also mutilated, and even engaged in necrophilia with, some of their bodies. He was executed in the electric chair, a method of killing that takes only a few moments. Should we interpret the pope as seriously suggesting that Bundy's execution was "far worse" and an "incomparably greater" crime than what Bundy himself did? Surely not; such a judgment would be manifestly absurd, and indeed, frankly obscene. Surely the pope did not intend to teach such a thing, but was rather merely indulging in a rhetorical flourish. A charitable interpretation of some of his other remarks about capital punishment would lead us to conclude that he does not intend to contradict the tradition. For another thing, if the pope has indeed set up a commission to study revising the catechism, that in itself indicates that he wants to be careful not to contradict past teaching. Presumably, Cardinal Gerhard Muller, current prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, would play a key role on such a commission. Commenting on the controversy the pope's remarks on various subjects have sometimes generated, Cardinal Muller has noted that "Pope Francis is not a 'professional theologian', but has been largely formed by his experiences in the field of the pastoral care."vii Asked if he has sometimes had to correct the pope's remarks from a doctrinal point of view, the cardinal replied: "That is what he [Pope Francis] has said already 3 or 4 times himself, publicly ..." Cardinal Muller also emphasized that the pope himself "refers to the teaching of the Church as the framework of interpretation" for his various remarks. In another interview in which he was asked about Pope Francis's sometimes doctrinally imprecise statements, Cardinal Muller acknowledged that churchmen sometimes "express themselves in a somewhat inappropriate, misleading or vague way," and that not all papal pronouncements have the same binding nature.viii Having shown here that Catholic teaching has always supported the legitimacy of capital punishment, in part 2 of this article we will discuss some of the reasons for believing that it remains necessary for achieving public safety and the larger common good. ENDNOTES: i Brugger, Capital Punishment and Roman Catholic Moral Tradition (University of Notre Dame Press, 2003), p. 73. ii Ibid., p. 112. iii Ibid., pp. 77 and 84. iv Response to an inquiry from Fr Richard John Neuhaus, published in the October 1995 issue of First Things. v Dulles, "Catholic Teaching on the Death Penalty: Has It Changed?" in Erik Owens, John Carlson, and Eric Elshtain, eds., Religion and the Death Penalty (Eerdmans, 2004). vi Ibid., p. 26. vii Cardinal Muller's remarks were made in a March 1, 2016 interview with the German newspaper Kolner Stadt-Anzeiger. The English translation is quoted from Maike Hickson, "Vatican's doctrine chief: Pope is not a 'professional theologian,'" LifeSiteNews.com, March 14, 2016. viii These remarks were made in an interview in the German magazine Die Zeit, December 30, 2015. (source: Catholic World Report) PAKISTAN: Pakistani social media icon's brother arrested in her death Police have arrested the brother of a Pakistani Internet celebrity who said at a press conference that he killed his sister for "family honor" and that he had "no regrets," Al Jazeera reported. After Fauzia Azeem, 26, known online as Qandeel Baloch, was found strangled to death in her family's home near Multan in Pakistan's Punjab province, authorities began searching for her brothers. Police officials told Al Jazeera that Baloch's father had filed a case against Waseem and testified against another of his sons, claiming he encouraged the murder. Akram Azhar, the Multan police chief, said authorities would seek the "maximum punishment" for Waseem. Baloch, who rose to fame in 2014, has over 744,000 likes on her Facebook page and 48,000 followers on Instagram. Her Facebook page described her as a singer, actress and model. With posts that defied conservative social norms, Baloch drew support from those that viewed her as an advocate for women's rights. She spoke openly about the expectations she faced as a woman, discussing issues such arranged marriage in interviews with Pakistani media. "I was 17 years old when my parents forced an uneducated man on me," she said. "The abuse I have been through ... It happens in places like this, in small villages, in Baloch families. This happened to me too." Baloch received widespread criticism for her posts on social media, which some in Pakistan considered inappropriate. "What she (was) doing is a disgrace for Pakistan so she deserve this," said Twitter user Asad Iqbal Orakzai, according to Reuters. She recently appeared in a music video wearing clothing that critics called revealing, and wrote in a recent Facebook post that she was trying to "change the typical orthodox mindset of people." Honor killings consistently target females who male family members feel have tarnished the family's reputation. According to the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, an independent nonprofit that tracks human rights violations, 987 honor crimes occurred in 2015 in Pakistan against 1096 victims. 170 of those victims were minors. Advocates for a law to prevent honor killings took to social media after the news of Baloch's death, speaking out against honor crimes and calling for reforms to existing legislation to ensure perpetrators are punished more consistently. Families, especially those in rural areas, sometimes settle honor killings in tribal councils, which can allow those involved in the murders to avoid jail time. Baloch had recently filed a request with the interior minister, the director general of the Federal Investigation Authority and the senior superintendent of Islamabad asking for protection, according to Dawn, a Pakistani media outlet based in Karachi. Baloch had said she was receiving threatening calls and hoped to gain government security protection, Dawn reported. (source: pbs.org) From rhalperi at smu.edu Mon Jul 18 14:48:07 2016 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Mon, 18 Jul 2016 14:48:07 -0500 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, CONN., USA Message-ID: July 18 TEXAS----impending execution In Texas death row case, punishment does not fit crime Jeff Wood has an appointment he hopes to miss. On Aug. 24, 2016, at about 6 p.m., the Texas Department of Criminal Justice plans to inject a lethal dose of pentobarbital into Jeff???s veins to stop his heart as punishment for the 1996 murder of Kris Keeran. What makes this execution controversial is that everyone, including law enforcement and the prosecution, agrees that Wood, the driver of the getaway car, did not kill Kris Keeran inside a Kerrville convenient store on the morning of January 2, 1996. In fact, Daniel Reneau, the actual and sole killer of Keeran, was executed for his crime on June 13, 2002. Wood was convicted and sentenced to die under Texas' arcane felony-murder law, more commonly known as the "the law of parties" - for his role as an accomplice to a killing, which he had no reason to anticipate. Under the law of parties, those who conspire to commit a felony, like a robbery, can be held responsible for a subsequent crime, like murder, if it "should have been anticipated." The law does not require a finding that the person intended to kill. It only requires that the defendant, charged under the law of parties, was a major participant in the underlying felony and exhibited a reckless indifference to human life. In other words, neglecting to anticipate another actor's commission of murder in the course of a felony is all that is required to make a Texas defendant death-eligible. Texas is not the only state that holds co-conspirators responsible for one another's criminal acts. However, it is one of few states that applies the death sentence to them. There have been only 10 people in the U.S. executed under the law of parties - and 5 of those 10 executions were in Texas. The last such execution was in 2009, where the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles (BPP) recommended, with a 5-2 vote, that Robert Thompson's death sentence be commuted to life. Rick Perry rejected that vote and allowed the execution to proceed. Thompson was executed, even though it was his co-defendant, Sammy Butler, who actually killed the victim. Butler was given a life sentence. When the convenient store robbery took place, Wood was sitting in a car outside, under the impression that Reneau was going into the store to get "road drinks and munchies." Although it is true that Wood and Reneau had talked about robbing the store at the behest of the manager, Wood had backed out of the idea. Wood had no idea Reneau was carrying a gun and was going to attempt to rob the store. Wood also claims he was forced to drive Reneau away from the crime scene at gunpoint. Wood's actions before the murder, namely sitting in a car unarmed and unaware that another person was going to commit a robbery, does not constitute reckless indifference to human life. Even many supporters of capital punishment agree that the Texas law of parties is wholly unfair. In 2009, the Texas Moratorium Network and Wood's family led an advocacy campaign to end the death penalty for people convicted under the law of parties. The Republican-controlled Texas House overwhelmingly voted in favor of the bill. Unfortunately, the bill died in the Senate after Gov. Perry threatened to veto it. Last year, the House Committee on Criminal Jurisprudence voted again in favor of a bill to exclude the death penalty as punishment in law of parties cases. However, the session ended without an opportunity for a floor vote. The Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles should recommend that the governor commute Wood's death sentence to life in prison or a lesser term consistent with Wood's level of participation in the crime. They have made that recommendation in similar cases, including those of Kenneth Foster in 2007 and Robert Thompson in 2009. Wood might deserve punishment for driving away from the crime scene, but he does not deserve to die. He has never taken a human life with his own hands. (source: Opinion; Hooman Hedayati is an attorney and a member of the Texas Moratorium Network Board of Directors----Austin American-Statesman) CONNECTICUT: Connecticut Court Reaffirms Ruling Abolishing Death Penalty The Connecticut Supreme Court has upheld its decision to abolish the state's death penalty, including for the 11 inmates on Connecticut's death row. The Connecticut Supreme Court has reaffirmed its decision that Connecticut's abolition of the death penalty must also apply to those already convicted of a capital felony. Monday's ruling comes in the case of Daniel Webb, who was sentenced to death for the 1989 murder of Diane Gellenbeck. The 37-year-old bank vice president was killed in a Hartford park after being abducted from a downtown parking garage. The court last August found the 2012 state law that banned executions for future crimes did not go far enough, ruling the death penalty was unconstitutional for those already on death row. The court on Monday said the same reasoning applies to Webb's appeal and ordered him to be resentenced. He now faces life in prison without parole. (source: Associated Press) USA: Jury Selection, Other Matters Considered in Church Shooting A federal judge is taking up jury selection and other matters in the trial of a white man charged in the shooting deaths of nine black parishioners at a South Carolina church. U.S. District Judge Richard Gergel holds a motions hearing Monday in the case of 22-year-old Dylann Roof. He's scheduled to stand trial Nov. 7. Roof is charged with hate crimes and other counts and faces the death penalty in the June, 2015, shooting deaths at Emanuel AME Church in Charleston. He will not attend the hearing. A hearing notice said jury selection is being considered, although there is also a motion before the court to dismiss the charges. Defense attorneys say they are willing to have the jury selected from the Charleston area instead of from across South Carolina. (source: Associated Press) From rhalperi at smu.edu Mon Jul 18 14:49:24 2016 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Mon, 18 Jul 2016 14:49:24 -0500 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide Message-ID: July 18 IRAN: 10 Prisoners in Rajai Shahr Prison Scheduled for Execution About 10 prisoners in Karaj's Rajai Shahr Prison (Alborz Province, northern Iran) were transferred to solitary confinement in preparation for their executions scheduled for Wednesday July 20. According to close sources, 2 of the prisoners have been identified as Reza Teimouri and Mohsen Khanmohammadi. A close source tells Iran Human Rights: "Most of these prisoners are on death row for murder charges. They weren't able to obtain consent from the complainants on their case files to stop their executions, so they are scheduled to be hanged on Wednesday morning." On Wednesday July 13, Iranian authorities reportedly executed 6 prisoners at this prison. Since last week, starting from Monday July 11 until Sunday July 17, about 30 executions were reportedly carried out across Iran. (source: Iran Human Rights) BANGLADESH: Bangladesh charges 38 with murder over 2013 garment factory collapse A court in Bangladesh formally charged 38 people with murder on Monday in connection with the 2013 collapse of the Rana Plaza building which killed 1,135 people in the country's worst industrial disaster. A total of 41 defendants face charges over the collapse of the complex, which housed 5 garment factories supplying global brands. Plaza owner Sohel Rana is the principal accused. Public Prosecutor Abdul Mannan said 38 people had been charged with murder while 3 were charged with helping Rana to flee after the incident. Rana was arrested after a four-day manhunt, apparently trying to flee across the border to India. Of the 41 people charged, 35, including Rana, appeared before the court and pleaded not guilty, Mannan told reporters. The other 6 are fugitives and will be tried in absentia. If convicted, defendants could face the death penalty. The collapse of the complex, built on swampy ground outside the capital Dhaka, sparked demands for greater safety in the world's 2nd-largest exporter of readymade garments and put pressure on companies buying clothing from Bangladesh to act. Duty-free access to Western markets and low wages for its workers helped turn Bangladesh's garment exports into a $28 billion-a-year industry that is the economic lifeblood of the country of 160 million people. The minimum monthly wage for garment workers in Bangladesh is $68, compared with about $280 in mainland China, which remains the world's biggest clothes exporter. The Rana Plaza tragedy prompted safety checks that led to many factory closures and the loss of exports and jobs but the industry had begun to recover strongly despite sporadic attacks in Bangladesh claimed by Islamic State and al Qaeda. These have included murders of liberals, gay people, foreigners and members of religious minorities. But a targeted attack on a restaurant in Dhaka on July 1 that claimed the lives of 20 people including 18 foreigners, many of whom worked in the garment business, could pose a fresh threat to the industry. Islamic State said it was responsible for one of the most brazen attacks in the South Asian nation's history, although that claim has yet to be confirmed. (source: Reuters) TURKEY: Turkey's President Erdogan refuses to rule out death penalty Turkey's President has refused to rule out the death penalty for the thousands of people arrested following a violent failed military coup Friday. "There is a clear crime of treason and your request can never be rejected by our government," said President Recep Tayyip Erdogan speaking through his translator in a world exclusive interview with CNN's Becky Anderson at his presidential palace in Istanbul, Turkey. "But of course it will take a parliamentary decision for that to take action in the form of a constitutional measure so leaders will have to get together and discuss it and if they accept to discuss it then I as president will approve any decision that comes out of the parliament." This is the 1st interview given by the president since the attempted military coup on Friday, July 15. If Turkey does reintroduce the death penalty, it won't be joining the European Union, according to EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini earlier Monday. Commenting on people's calls for the death penalty for coup plotters, Erdogan said: "'Why should I keep them and feed them in prisons, for years to come?' -- that's what the people say." "They want a swift end to it, because people lost relatives, lost neighbors, lost children... they're suffering so the people are very sensitive and we have to act very sensibly and sensitively," he added. The comments come in the wake of Friday's failed military coup and the president's vow over the weekend that those responsible "will pay a heavy price for this act of treason." A total of 8,777 officers from the Turkish Ministry of Interior have so far been removed from office, according to the state-run Anadolu news agency. Among the arrested are 103 generals and admirals -- 1/3 of the general-rank command of the Turkish military. A formal written request for the extradition of Turkish cleric Fethullah Gulen, who is in self-imposed exile in the United States, will be submitted within days, Erdogan told Anderson. When asked what he would do if the U.S. refused to extradite Gulen, he said "we have a mutual agreement of extradition of criminals." "So now you ask someone to be extradited, you're my strategic partner I do obey, I do abide by that, but you don't do the same thing -- well, of course, there should be reciprocity in the types of things," the president continued. Erdogan has previously blamed Gulen for the attempted coup -- a claim which Gulen has denied. U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said the U.S. hadn't yet received a formal request from Turkey for Gulen's extradition. (source: CNN) ************** NATO's Stoltenberg to Erdogan: 'Ensure full respect for democracy' in coup aftermath NATO-Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg denounced the military coup attempt in a phone call with Turkey's president. Stoltenberg assured him of NATO's full support, yet reminded Erdogan of the need to observe the rule of law in the coup aftermath. "Being part of a unique community of values, it is essential for Turkey, like all other Allies, to ensure full respect for democracy and its institutions, the constitutional order, the rule of law and fundamental freedoms," Stoltenberg's statement reads. A similar statement was issued earlier by US Secretary of State John Kerry. "NATO also has a requirement with respect to democracy," Kerry said during a joint press conference with EU Foreign Policy chief Federica Mogherini on Monday. Turkey is NATO's 2nd largest member and its Ingirlik air base is used by the US and its allies to launch airstrikes on Islamic State (formerly known as IS, ISIL/ISIS). Kerry reiterated his support for the legitimate Turkish government as well as its efforts "in bringing the perpetrators of the coup to justice," according to the Independent. He cautioned Ankara "against a reach that goes beyond that and stress the importance of the democratic rule being upheld," however. "Obviously a lot of people have been arrested and arrested very quickly," Kerry said, while noting that it's important not to abandon the principles of democracy while investigating the cases. "The level of vigilance and scrutiny is obviously going to be significant in the days ahead. Hopefully we can work in a constructive way that prevents a backsliding," he said. Turkey's Foreign Minister told Kerry that his country would adhere to the principles of democracy and follow the law. On Sunday, Turkey's president vowed to bring back the death penalty as he addressed crowds of supporters in Ankara. The practice was abolished in Turkey in 2004. However, the country's prime minister said that Ankara will not push for the introduction of the punishment. "We are not going to rush the introduction of the death penalty, this issue needs to be discussed; it will not be quick. We intend to act in a legal way," said Turkish PM Binali Yildirim during a government session on Monday. The potential return of capital punishment to Turkey has raised alarm bells in the European Union. EU Foreign Policy Chief Mogherini warned Turkey that the reinstatement of the death penalty would cost the country its chance to join the EU. "No country can become an EU member state if it introduces the death penalty," she said. The official also reminded Ankara that "Turkey is an important part of the Council of Europe and is bound by the European Convention on Human Rights, which is very clear on the death penalty." In the meantime, Turkish officials are trying to verify the final death toll from the coup violence. The latest estimate puts the number of victims at 232, according to country's prime minister, Yildirim. Around 1,400 people have been injured. Figures issued earlier by the Turkish authorities put the number of victims at more than 290. It is unclear why the death toll has been revised. President Erdogan made clear that he intends to do everything necessary to bring the perpetrators to justice. Following the attempted overthrow, he vowed that anyone who had supported the coup "will pay a heavy price for their treason to Turkey." A total of 7,543 civilians and police officers, as well as members of the judiciary and army, including over a hundred generals and admirals, were arrested in the wake of the coup. Addressing his supporters on Friday night, Erdogan said that "This uprising is a gift from God to us because this will be a reason to cleanse our army." On top of that, over 8,000 members of the Turkish Interior Ministry - mostly police officers - have been removed from office over alleged links to the uprising, Reuters says. The outlet adds that 30 governors and dozens of high-ranking civil servants have been sacked. The Turkish Finance Ministry has also suspended some 1,500 of its employees who are suspected of having ties to US based cleric Fethullah Gulen, according a Ministry official, as cited by TASS. Ankara suspects Gulen of being behind the coup against Erdogan and has already asked Washington to hand him over. The US has said it will do so only if enough evidence is provided, however. In an interview with the Kanal 7 broadcaster, Turkish Deputy Prime Minister Mehmet Simsek said on Monday that Ankara hopes for "strong support" for its request to extradite Gulen when enough evidence has been collected. (source: rt.com) From rhalperi at smu.edu Tue Jul 19 07:53:47 2016 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Tue, 19 Jul 2016 07:53:47 -0500 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----CALIF., USA Message-ID: July 19 CALIFORNIA: The Deterrence Myth: Prop 66 Death Penalty 'Reform' is just 'Fools Gold' for Californians When Mike Ramos, the current district attorney for San Bernardino County (and candidate for California Attorney General), pleaded for Californians to send him one million dollars at the end of April -- so he could afford "paid petition gatherers" to collect enough signatures to qualify "the Death Penalty Reform and Savings Act of 2016" for placement on the November 8 ballot -- he asserted, "the threat, and application, of a working death penalty law in California is law enforcement's strongest tool to keep our communities safe." Other than the proverbial bridge in Brooklyn, no bigger, more bald-faced balderdash has heretofore been sold to Californian voters. Eviscerating the myth that the death penalty acts as a valuable deterrent, the Washington Post's Max Ehrenfreund soberly observed in 2014, that "there's still no evidence that executions deter criminals." Delving into scientific studies done on the subject for Newsweek, including a 2012 study by the National Academy of Sciences (comprised of our nation's brightest scientific minds), Stanford Law Professor John Donohue's assessment of the death penalty's deterrent value at the end of last summer was even bleaker. In a column called, "Does the death penalty deter killers?," Donohue resoundingly concluded: "There is not the slightest credible statistical evidence that capital punishment reduces the rate of homicide." Instead of continuing such a deeply flawed policy, Donohue wrote: "A better way to address the problem of homicide is to take the resources that would otherwise be wasted in operating a death penalty regime and use them on strategies that are known to reduce crime, such as hiring and properly training police officers and solving crime." (Formerly a professor at Yale and Northwestern Law School, Donohue is one of the leading empirical researchers in legal academia.) The shibboleth that the death penalty acts as a deterrent is just 1 of many reasons why "Proposition 66, 'The Death Penalty Reform and Savings Act of 2016,' is Fool's Gold for Californians." Savvy, streetwise, sophisticated Californians have a superlatively better, more effective alternative to vote for, called Proposition 62, "The Justice That Works Act of 2016." Proposition 62 would (1) replace the death penalty with life in prison without the possibility of parole; (2) require death row inmates to work and pay wages to their victims' families; and (3) save taxpayers a projected $150 million dollars a year. Apart from finally ending California's ignominious and failed experiment with capital punishment -- making us a standard-bearer for other states where already, "practically speaking, the death penalty is disappearing" - do you know what's best about Proposition 62? Unlike Proposition 66, the prospective benefits of Proposition 62 are not illusory, based on a bunch of baloney, glorified ballyhoo, or like death penalty proponents' deterrence argument - bunk. (source: Stephen A. Cooper is a former D.C. public defender who worked as an assistant federal public defender in Alabama between 2012 and 2015----citywatchla.com) USA: Roof's mental state emerging as key issue in Charleston church killings ---- State of mind would come into play when jurors weight death penalty or life in prison without parole The mental state of Dylann Roof of Columbia, an avowed white supremacist, has emerged as a key issue in his upcoming federal death penalty trial for killing 9 African-American church members. Prosecutors and defense lawyers discussed procedural issues connected to Roof's state of mind at a hearing Monday before U.S. Judge Richard Gergel without revealing details about what conditions he might have. Roof, 22, is scheduled to go on trial Nov. 7 for the hate crime killings at Mother Emanuel AME church in Charleston. Before the June 2015 church shootings, Roof published a manifesto on the Internet in which he said he was going to start a race war. His state of mind would come into play when jurors deliberate whether to recommend the death penalty or life in prison without parole. His lead attorney, David Bruck, has repeatedly said Roof will plead guilty in return for a sentence of life without parole. That offer came after Roof confessed to law enforcement to killing the 9 parishioners during a Bible study meeting, with evidence against him also appearing to be overwhelming. The gun that Roof is said to have used has been recovered. Much of the hearing was devoted to discussing when and how much of the results of separate pre-trial mental tests of Roof conducted by the prosecutors and defense lawyers would be divulged to each other in advance of the death penalty phase of the trial. Evidence offered by defense lawyers against the death penalty is called "mitigation" evidence. Much of that, according to the discussion and filings, will revolve around results of current and future mental health tests of Roof. Bruck agreed when Gergel asked "Am I right to say they (Roof's mitigation defenses) would fall under the broad umbrella of mental health issues?" It is unknown what type of mental health issues will be presented at trial. As part of the pre-trial jockeying by opposing lawyers, the timing of when to give mental health test results to the other side is a key issue. Gergel ordered mental health examinations to be videotaped, but said he will decide later whether to delete some sections of video - as opposed to the audio - if thought to infringe on Roof's right to a fair trial. Jury selection is scheduled to start Nov. 7. The trial is expected to go through Thanksgiving and Christmas seasons. Roof, who waived his right to appear in court Monday, is scheduled to go to trial in state court in mid-January. Solicitor Scarlett Wilson is also seeking the death penalty on murder charges. Gergel ordered Monday that the jury pool in the upcoming federal trial will be drawn from an area roughly south of a line from Georgetown County on the coast to Aiken County. More than 20 relatives of those killed were at the hearing. (source: thestate.com) From rhalperi at smu.edu Tue Jul 19 07:54:34 2016 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Tue, 19 Jul 2016 07:54:34 -0500 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide Message-ID: July 19 VIETNAM: Court upholds death sentence for accomplice in Binh Phuoc massacre The Supreme Court Monday rejected an appeal against the death sentence by a man who, together with an accomplice, killed 6 members of a family in the southern province of Binh Phuoc last year. In dismissing his appeal, the court said Vu Van Tien, 25, was an active accomplice of Nguyen Hai Duong, 25, the mastermind of the murder-robbery in July 2015. "Without Tien's help, Duong couldn't have carries out the crime. So Tien must be responsible for the consequences of the case." The court also dismissed the appeal of Duong's friend Tran Dinh Thoai, 27, to have his 16-year sentence reduced. Thoai bought the knife with which Duong killed the 6 people, and failed to report Duong's conspiracy to the authorities. Duong has not appealed against his death penalty. Shocking case Duong used to be a boyfriend of Le Thi Anh Linh, 22, the daughter of Le Van My, 48, who owned a timber processing company in Binh Phuoc's Chon Thanh District. After Linh broke up with him in March, Duong devised a plan to kill the family and rob them. Early in the morning on July 4 he asked Thoai to accompany him to burgle the family's house. But when they arrived at the house, Du Minh Vy, My's 14-year-old nephew, did not open the gate for them, and so they were forced to leave. Thoai then pulled out and Duong asked Tien, who agreed. To carry out the crime, Duong, with Thoai's help, bought 2 knives, a stun gun, a BB pistol, gloves, masks, plastic cable wire and duct tape. On July 6 Duong again called Vy and asked him to open the gate for him so he could sneak in to steal something. Duong promised to give Vy some money. At around 1:30 a.m. the next morning Duong and Tien rose a motorbike to My's house, situated off National Highway 13. The 2 men killed Vy as soon as the boy opened the gate. They then killed Linh, her father My, her mother Nguyen Le Thi Anh Nga, 42, her brother Le Quoc Anh, 15, and her cousin Du Ngoc To Nhu, 18. Police said the victims sustained fatal stab wounds to their necks and chests. Vy, the 1st victim, was found in the front yard while the other 5 were found tied up in their rooms. However, the life of Linh's youngest sister, 18 months, was spared. Duong later told the court he had been fond of the baby during the time he was still dating Linh. Duong and Tien left the house at around 4.30 a.m. with VND4 million (US$180) in cash, 5 smartphones, a tablet and a laptop. The family's housekeeper discovered the bloody scene 3 hours later and informed the police. Duong was arrested at 3 p.m. on July 10 at the funeral for the victims. Tien was arrested at 10 p.m. the same day in his rented room in Ho Chi Minh City???s Hoc Mon District while Thoai was taken in on August 9 at his rented house in the city's District 12. (source: Thanh Nien News) TURKEY: Erdogan: I will approve death penalty for coup plotters if requested Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan has said he would approve any decision by parliament on reinstating the death penalty as calls grow for executions in the aftermath of a failed coup plot. "There is a clear crime of treason and your request (death penalty) cannot be rejected by our government. Parliament needs to discuss it and if the leaders agree and discuss it then I as president will approve any decision to come out of the parliament," he told CNN International on Monday evening. 'Why should I keep them and feed them in prisons, for years to come?' - that's what the people say," he added. "They want a swift end to it, because people lost relatives, neighbours, children... they're suffering so the people are very sensitive and we have to act very sensibly and sensitively." It is the 2nd time Erdogan has raised the issue in a matter of days. Turkey has arrested more than 100 senior Turkish military officers in the aftermath of Friday's coup attempt, amid growing calls those found guilty should face capital punishment. On Sunday, at a funeral in Istanbul, Erdogan in response to a crowd chanting "we want executions" said: "The people's demands must be respected in democracies. If the people demand something it is their right to be heard. Parliament will discuss this matter." It was Prime Minister Binali Yildirim who first mentioned the death penalty in a speech in parliament on Saturday. "If Turkey still had the death penalty these perpetrators would deserve to be condemned to it," he said. Turkey abolished the death penalty in 2004. The last execution to be carried out in Turkey was in 1984. The deputy leader of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), Mehmet Muezzinoglu, said on Saturday that the government would introduce a bill calling for the execution of rebel soldiers. "We will put forward a motion, which will demand the execution of those who have been involved in the coup attempt," Muezzinoglu said on Twitter. On Saturday, the hashtag #Idamistiyorum [I want death penalty] was the top trend on Twitter in Turkey. Earlier today EU chief Federica Mogherini warned that if Turkey reinstated the death penalty the door to the EU will be shut to it. "Let me be very clear... no country can become an EU state if it introduces the death penalty," Mogherini said when asked about the possible impact on long-stalled accession talks with Ankara. Her comments come after the detention of 7,500 people, including senior military figures, judges and soldiers, in connection with the coup attempt on Friday which Erdogan has blamed on his rival, the US-based cleric Fethullah Gulen. Meanwhile, the former head of the Turkish air force has denied any role in last week's coup plot, a prosecutor's statements says in a contradiction of reports of an alleged confession carried by a state-run news agency. Pictures released by Anadolu news agency showed Akin Ozturk, 64, a general, with injuries to his head and upper body. Anadolu's statement on Twitter said Ozturk had told interrogators he "acted with intention to stage coup". Within minutes that post was deleted, however, as other media organisations including the centrist newspaper, Hurriyet, reported a prosecutor's statement as saying Ozturk denied any role in the putsch. The court formally charged Ozturk and 25 other senior military officers with treason, and will remain in prison without bail. (source: Middle East Eye) ********************* Turkey's Nationalist Party Supports Reintroducing Death Penalty After Coup Following the Friday unsuccessful coup in Turkey, the Interior Ministry sacked close to 9,000 personnel across the country, including members of the armed forces, from foot soldiers to commanders, as well as police officers, governors, military advisers, prosecutors and judges. On Sunday, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan told crowds of supporters gathered outside his residence in Istanbul that parliament must consider the public demand for the death penalty to be applied in the case of the coup plotters. "The issue of return of the death penalty is now raised. If the ruling party is ready, we will stay together and do everything necessary with peace of mind," Bahceli said at his party's weekly parliamentary group meeting at the Grand National Assembly of Turkey. Death penalty was abolished in Turkey in 2004 to bring its legislation in line with the EU standards. On Monday, at a joint news conference, EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini and US Secretary of State John Kerry called on Turkey to respect democracy and human rights in its response to the failed coup. Western politicians said that the introduction of the capital punishment would close the way for Turkey to enter the European Union. (source: Sputnik News) *************** Death penalty in Turkey would 'spell the end of EU membership bid' President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has angered European institutions and sparked fear among NGOs by claiming the death penalty could be restored in Turkey following a failed military coup to oust him from power. A massive crack down on suspected coup plotters and participants among the branches of Turkey's military was still underway on Tuesday, fuelling concerns over the respect of human rights amid the political chaos. In response to demonstrators who chanted "Death Penalty, Death Penalty!" during recent pro-government rallies, Erdogan has promised the demand would be considered in the wake of the short-lived revolt. Turkish lawmakers abolished the death penalty in a 2-fold process between 2002 and 2004 as part of the country's bid to join the European Union, but calls for reinstating capital punishment have surged on social networks in recent days. The hashtag #Idamistiyorum, or "I want the death penalty", has been shared tens of thousands of times. Erdogan, who has previously evoked the possibility of bringing back the death penalty, brandished the threat again during a funeral service for some victims of the coup on Sunday. "You cannot push the wish of the people to one side," Erdogan said in reference to calls for the death penalty, while referring to supporters of his rival, the US-based cleric Fethullah Gulen as a "virus" that had to be cleaned from the state. Almost 20,000 members of the army, police, civil service and justice system - 1/5 of the country's entire judiciary, according to some estimates - have been detained in a purge that started over the weekend. Prime Minister Binali Yildirim also raised the possibility over the weekend, but tempered his remarks on Monday. "It would not be correct to act in haste but we cannot ignore our citizens' demand," Yildirim said in comments following a cabinet meeting, noting that re-establishing the death penalty would require a constitutional change. European scowl Samim Akgonul, a professor at Strasbourg University and an expert on Turkey, said Erdogan and Yildirim's threat should be taken seriously. "The president and prime minister are very interested in getting rid of the coup plotters by reinstating the death penalty, under the cover of meeting voters??? demands." And indeed, European leaders appeared to take umbrage. "Let me be very clear," the bloc's foreign affairs chief Federica Mogherini said on Monday. "No country can join the European Union if it introduced the death penalty". It was a statement that was later echoed by German officials. "Germany and the EU have a clear position: we reject the death penalty categorically," said government spokesman Steffen Seibert. "The introduction of the death penalty in Turkey would spell the end of membership negotiations to the European Union." Turkey's EU membership bid has made little headway amid fears of immigration across Europe and differences on how to deal with the Islamic State (IS) group, but the country is a member of the Council of Europe. Akgonul said membership in that organisation would be in jeopardy if Turkey reinstated the death penalty, since any member of the Council of Europe is bound by the European Convention on Human Rights, which rejects the death penalty. NGOs 'very worried' For non-governmental organisations fighting for the abolition of the death penalty, Erdogan's statement set off alarm bells. Anne Denis, head of Amnesty International France's campaign, told FRANCE 24 her group was "monitoring the situation very closely". Especially since Erdogan "has the means to force parliament, where his supporters have a majority, to call a vote on restoring the death penalty". The London-based NGO Reprieve shared a similar view. "The statements by the Turkish president are extremely worrying," said Maya Foa, who directs the group's death penalty division. "The reintroduction of capital punishment will not bring more justice in Turkey, quite the opposite actually." Asked to what extent Erdogan's threats were to be taken seriously, given his penchant for populist rhetoric, Foa said Western governments should not wait to find out. "It's still unclear if the Turkish president's proposals are serious or mere words. But it is crucial that European countries and others with close relations with Turkey intervene swiftly before this suggestion goes any further," she insisted. Foa believes that it is in Turkey's best interest to also "remain consistent" on this issue, recalling that during a UN summit earlier this year Turkey publicly reaffirmed its clear opposition to the death penalty "under all circumstances". (source: france24.com) IRAN: Maryam Rajavi calls for condemnation of increasing executions, effective action Iranian Resistance President-elect Mrs. Maryam Rajavi described the unprecedented increase in mass and arbitrary executions in various cities across Iran as the religious dictatorship's utter fear of increasing social unrest and escalating popular protests. "An increase in vicious executions has come at a time when 2 weeks ago the mullahs' regime staged a rocket attack against Camp Liberty and was on the verge of killing refugee members of the Iranian Resistance. During the past week at least 30 prisoners in different cities of Iran were mass executed and in some cases hanged in public. 16 of these prisoners were executed on Sunday, July 17th alone," Mrs. Rajavi said. "All signs indicate the mullahs' weakness and utter fragility more than ever before, and it being terrified of its indispensable toppling. This is the same fear that the regime showed hysterically in response to the grand annual gathering held by the Iranian Resistance. During the past few days Tehran has summoned representatives of foreign governments, made ridiculous threats and launched a choir of senior regime officials in all its propaganda organs in this regard," she added. The increasing trend of executions, especially 1 year after the signing of the nuclear agreement, once again proves the defeasance of the reform theory inside the regime. This also shows that the appeasement policies encourages this medieval regime in its criminal policies. Dealing with and appeasing this regime at a time when mass executions, warmongering and its export of terrorism to regional countries are on the rise is considered practical collaboration with the mullahs, Mrs. Rajavi underscored as she called on the United Nations Security Council and member states of the European Union to strongly condemn these criminal executions and adopt effective measures against Tehran. All economic and political relations with the mullahs must be conditioned on abolishing all executions and improving the human rights situation in Iran, she added. (source: Secretariat of the National Council of Resistance of Iran) INDONESIA: Key: Indonesia won't be ending death penalty soon Indonesia is unlikely to drop the death penalty, but is keen to make progress in other areas of human rights, Prime Minister John Key says. Mr Key is in Indonesia to talk business, trade and terrorism and has had his first meeting with President Joko Widodo. He says the discussion was wide-ranging, but included talk about the conflict in West Papua and Indonesia's use of the death penalty. The country of around 255 million people has a chequered human rights record, including the use of firing squads. On Monday, Amnesty International called on Mr Key to bring up the death penalty, which it says was used at least 14 times last year. Indonesia's Attorney-General indicated last month that 16 people were set to face a firing squad this year, and they had a budget to execute another 30 in 2017. Mr Key told Mr Widodo New Zealand was strongly against the use of the death penalty. But he doesn't expect changes any time soon. "We registered our feelings that the death penalty is something we cannot and do not support, despite the severity of the crimes that people may have committed that they get the death penalty. "It's not an issue I don't think the Indonesians are going to change their position on any time soon. They've got a major narcotics issue here in Indonesia, they've got a lot of Indonesians who are addicts and are trying to send a strong message, now we in New Zealand believe that can be said in a different way." But Mr Key says Mr Widodo was more receptive to investigating any human rights breaches in West Papua, which he says was "proactively" raised by the Indonesians in the meeting. Last month, Indonesian police were accused of arresting more than 1000 people at rallies in West Papua, demanding an independence referendum. The conflict over West Papua - part of Indonesia's easternmost Papua province on New Guinea island - has been going on for decades. The population is ethnically distinct from the rest of Indonesia. Prior to the meeting, the Green Party urged Mr Key to discuss the "deteriorating human rights situation" in West Papua. Mr Key said Mr Widodo and was "keen" for him to understand the situation and the issue of human rights. "They raised the point specifically about human rights, and said if there are specific issues with human rights, then they take up those issues, they investigate them and make sure they're not repeated. "They seem to be quite keen to have greater transparency. "We don't dispute the issue of territorial rights of Papua. I think that's been a long-standing New Zealand Government position - that we recognise territorial rights - but on the broader issue of human rights, we said to them that's a matter that's always of great concern to New Zealanders." Mr Key said Mr Widodo and the country's Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi "gave us assurances they were observing human rights there". Asked whether he believed them, Mr Key said they'd made "genuine" progress, and weren't dismissive of New Zealand's concerns. (source: newshub.co.nz) SAUDI ARABIA----executions Saudi Arabia executions near 100 this year ---- The country imposes death penalty for offences including murder, drug trafficking, armed robbery, rape and apostasy. Saudi authorities executed two men on Tuesday, bringing to 98 the number of executions carried out in the ultra-conservative Muslim kingdom so far this year. Saudi citizen Ali Assiri, who was found guilty of stabbing a fellow tribesman to death, was executed in the southwestern region of Asir, the interior ministry said. Pakistani Mohammed Mokhtar, who was convicted of heroin trafficking, was executed in the eastern city of Dammam, the ministry said. Saudi Arabia imposes the death penalty for offences including murder, drug trafficking, armed robbery, rape and apostasy. Most people executed are beheaded with a sword. There were no beheadings during the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan, which began in the kingdom on June 6. However, executions resumed on Sunday when authorities put a Saudi murderer to death. Human rights group Amnesty International says the kingdom carried out at least 158 death sentences last year, making it the 3rd most prolific executioner after Iran and Pakistan. Amnesty's figures do not include secretive China. The London-based watchdog says the Saudi rate of executions this year is "higher than at the same point last year". Murder and drug trafficking cases account for the majority of Saudi executions, although 47 people were put to death for "terrorism" offences on a single day in January. They included prominent Shiite cleric Nimr al-Nimr, whose execution prompted Iranian protesters to torch Saudi diplomatic missions, leading Riyadh to sever relations. (source: Deccan Chroniclec) INDIA: Hazare seeks death penalty for accused in Kopardi rape case Social activist Anna Hazare today sought death penalty for those accused of brutally raping and killing a 15-year-old girl at a village in Maharashtra's Ahmednagar district. "The case should be tried in a fast track court and the guilty be hanged," Hazare said in a statement issued here. The girl was raped last week allegedly by 3 men who inflicted injuries all over her body and broke her limbs before strangulating her at Kopardi village. The incident sparked outrage as well as political slugfest, with the Congress demanding Fadnavis' resignation on "moral grounds". Making a statement after ruckus by the opposition in the Assembly yesterday, the Chief Minister had said the accused in the heinous crime have been arrested and the case will be heard in a fast-track court. Noted lawyer Ujjwal Nikam has been appointed as the public prosecutor in the case and the government has given Rs 5 lakh solatium to the victim's family, he said. (source: State Times) From rhalperi at smu.edu Tue Jul 19 09:59:03 2016 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Tue, 19 Jul 2016 09:59:03 -0500 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide Message-ID: July 19 BANGLADESH: 3 get death penalty for 1971 war crimes A special tribunal in Bangladesh has sentenced 3 members of a militia group to death for their role in killings and other serious crimes committed during the country's independence war against Pakistan 35 years ago. 5 other defendants were sentenced to life in prison in the same case. A 3-member panel of judges announced the verdict Monday with only 2 of the defendants in the docks. The others were tried in absentia. All of them were members of Al Badr, which collaborated with the Pakistani army to commit genocide in Bangladesh's Jamalpur district in 1971. Bangladesh says Pakistani soldiers, aided by local collaborators, killed 3 million people, raped 200,000 women and forced 10 million people to flee to refugee camps in India. (source: Fox News) From rhalperi at smu.edu Wed Jul 20 10:26:56 2016 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Wed, 20 Jul 2016 10:26:56 -0500 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, FLA., LA., ILL., NEB., CALIF., USA Message-ID: July 20 TEXAS: Judge denies request to speak to doctor in Petetan death penalty case A judge denied a request by death row inmate Carnell Petetan Jr. to speak to a state expert Tuesday after McLennan County prosecutors charged his attorneys were on a "fishing expedition" and assured them they had provided all evidence favorable to the defense. Jeremy Schepers and Ashley Steele of the Office of Capital and Forensic Writs filed a motion seeking an order from 19th State District Judge Ralph Strother that they be allowed to interview Dr. Randy Price and that state prosecutors turn over their notes or other communications with the Dallas neuropsychologist. Price consulted with McLennan County prosecutors in the Petetan capital murder case but did not testify at his trial. Price attended the trial and heard defense expert witnesses testify that Petetan has an intellectual disability that should preclude him from the death penalty. Strother sentenced Petetan to death in April 2014 after jurors recommended the penalty in the 2012 shooting death of his estranged wife, Kimberly Farr Petetan. The attorneys from the capital writ office have not filed an application for writ of habeas corpus in Petetan's case but are in the preparation stages while his initial appeal is pending before the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals. The deadline to file the writ application with the state's highest criminal court is Oct. 19. Officials brought Petetan from death row in Livingston, 45 miles east of Huntsville, for the 20-minute hearing. Prosecutors Michael Jarrett and Sterling Harmon objected to the defense's request. They assured the judge that the state had provided to the defense all so-called "Brady" material and all subject matter covered by the Michael Morton Act, evidence favorable to the defense. "Dr. Price consulted on the case," Jarrett said. "He never gave us any exculpatory materials. He just agreed with the state's contention that all of Petetan's life, his actions, thoughts and things he did do not support an intellectual disability finding and, in fact, rebut it." Jarrett reminded Strother that Petetan testified at his trial for hours and said the jury could see he is not intellectually disabled. "This is not a case of test scores," Jarrett said. "It is a case of adaptive behavior." The jury in Petetan's case found that Petetan constitutes a continuing threat to society and rejected his claim that he was exempt from execution because of mental impairment. Kimberly Petetan started writing Carnell Petetan in prison in 2009 after a chance meeting with his brother. A recovering drug addict who was studying to be a drug abuse counselor, Kimberly Petetan shared her story with Carnell Petetan's brother, and he thought Carnell Petetan, then serving a 20-year prison term for 3 violent assaults, could benefit from her kindness. Kimberly Petetan and Carnell Petetan were married and after his release from prison lived together in Port Arthur for a short time. Kimberly Petetan moved back to Waco after reporting that her husband had threatened her and her daughter. Carnell Petetan was convicted of breaking into his estranged wife's Lake Shore Drive apartment in September 2012 - about 7 months after his release from prison - and shooting her in front of her daughter and 2 men who rode from Port Arthur with him earlier that day. Both of those men and the girl told jurors that Petetan shot his wife. Petetan claimed 1 of the men with him fired the fatal shots. Petetan served almost 20 years in prison for shooting 2 men and attacking another man with a chair in separate incidents when he was 16. He has been locked up since he was 13, being placed on juvenile probation for attacking a teacher before continuing to do poorly and being sent to a state juvenile facility in Brownwood. Trial testimony showed that in Petetan's early prison years, he sexually assaulted 3 fellow inmates, assaulted guards and was a member of the 357 Graveyard Crips prison gang. (source: Waco Tribune) FLORIDA: Judge denies Tommy Ziegler's request A judge on Monday denied a new request by Tommy Zeigler to analyze bloodstains on his crime scene clothing, the longtime death row inmate's latest attempt to exonerate himself in the 1975 Christmas Eve killings of his wife, in-laws and customer at his Winter Garden furniture store. In the 30-page ruling, Orange-Osceola Circuit Judge Reginald Whitehead held that Zeigler's petition for DNA testing was too similar to others that he's made previously and that the potential discoveries would not be great enough to rule him out as the perpetrator. "Having carefully listened to the testimony presented at the evidentiary hearing and argument from the parties, the Court finds the authenticity of the DNA is questionable because it may be contaminated based on a lack of protective equipment when it was handled and/or improper storage," the judge wrote. Eunice Zeigler, her parents Perry and Virginia Edwards and store customer Charles Mays were killed in the Christmas Eve attack. Zeigler was also shot in the stomach and maintains they were held up in a store robbery by Mays and others. Prosecutors have argued that Zeigler concocted the plan, luring Mays to the scene as a scapegoat, to pocket a life insurance policy on his wife. In a March hearing, attorneys for Zeigler argued that more sensitive and technologically advanced DNA tests could show he did not shoot, beat and bludgeon the victims to death. The technique, called "Touch DNA" testing, would settle it because it could detect if Zeigler's DNA transferred onto the victims from contact during a physical struggle. Prosecutors with the Orange-Osceola State Attorney's Office opposed the petition, citing two previous opinions from the Florida Supreme Court, which found such evidence wouldn't be enough to exonerate Zeigler. The last round of DNA testing was done in 2001. It proved that Perry Edward's blood was not present on Zeigler's shirt and pants, as prosecutors argued in the original trial, but was found on May's clothing. A judge in 2003 ruled that evidence was not compelling enough to prove Zeigler's innocence because there were multiple sources of blood at the crime scene. In denying the most recent request, Whitehead questioned why Zeigler did not test all the blood stains he wanted to during the 2001 probe. Attorneys for Zeigler asserted that the desired technology to do so was not available then. They also said they would privately finance the testing. "We're obviously disappointed that [the judge] didn't see the merit and the application," said one of Zeigler's attorneys, John Houston Pope of New York. "We'll read what he has to say carefully, and see what the next steps are." (source: Orlando Sentinel) LOUISIANA: 2 Baton Rouge convicted killers want to join lethal injection lawsuit Condemned Baton Rouge police killer Shedran Williams and another local convicted murderer want to join a 2012 federal lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of Louisiana's method of execution. Williams is on death row for the 2004 slaying of Lt. Vickie Wax outside a now-closed Walmart near Perkins Road and Acadian Thruway, where she was working a security detail. Todd Wessinger was sentenced to death in the 1995 killing of two employees, Stephanie Guzzardo and David Breakwell, at the now-closed Calendar's Restaurant on Perkins Road, but a federal judge last July threw out the sentence and ordered a new penalty phase hearing. Williams and Wessinger filed motions June 28 seeking to intervene in the suit filed by condemned killers Jessie Hoffman and Christopher Sepulvado in late 2012. Early last month at the request of Louisiana corrections officials, U.S. District Judge James Brady halted all proceedings in the lethal injection case until January 2018 as the state tries to figure out how it can carry out the death penalty. Louisiana doesn't have the drugs needed to put condemned inmates to death. Drug shortages have forced the state corrections department to rewrite its execution plan several times since 2010, when it carried out its last lethal injection. Williams' and Wessinger's intervention requests are pending before U.S. Magistrate Judge Erin Wilder-Doomes. Allowing Williams and Wessinger to intervene in the case rather than requiring them to file their own suits "will promote judicial economy," attorneys for both men argue in their motions. Kevan Brumfield, who was condemned to die for the 1993 ambush slaying of Baton Rouge police Cpl. Betty Smothers, joined the suit in 2014, but Brumfield will be resentenced Wednesday to life in prison in the wake of federal court rulings that found him to be intellectually disabled and ineligible for execution. Williams is represented by Mercedes Montagnes and Cecelia Trenticosta Kappel with The Promise of Justice Initiative in New Orleans, and New Orleans lawyer Letty Di Giulio. Wessinger is represented by Montagnes, Kappel and New Orleans lawyer Soren Gisleson. Hoffman was sentenced to death for kidnapping, raping and fatally shooting Mary "Molly" Elliot, of Covington, in 1996. Sepulvado is on death row for fatally beating and scalding his 6-year-old stepson, Wesley Mercer, at his Mansfield home in 1992. (source: The Advocate) ILLINOIS: Will the death penalty deter police killings? The Death Penalty Information Center said an Illinois lawmaker's push to bring back the death penalty is likely going nowhere. Illinois abolished the death penalty in 2011. State Rep. Mark Batinick, R-Plainfield, wants to bring it back for anyone convicted of killing first responders. "These are the people that put themselves in harm's way to protect us," he said. "They run into wherever the danger is, and right now I feel like they don't necessarily feel like we have their back and we're protecting them." Batinick said recent police murders could persuade death penalty opponents to get on board. "I think if you look at the incidents that have happened recently and then what the effects of those incidents are after the fact, maybe people will just start changing their mind," he said. Death Penalty Information Center Executive Director Robert Dunham said Louisiana and Texas have the death penalty, and that wasn't a deterrent to recent police shootings. "Both of those states already had the death penalty, so it's clear that the death penalty did not deter the killings," Dunham said. Dunham said every year someone in the Illinois Legislature files a measure to bring back capital punishment. "That doesn't mean it's going to pass because after the initial publicity goes by the legislators take a look at all the reasons why it was that the death penalty didn't work in Illinois and the bills so far have not moved forward," he said. Illinois abolished the death penalty in 2011. (source: Illinois News Network) NEBRASKA: Death penalty opponents to speak in North Platte Journey of Hope...from Violence to Healing, an organization led by families of murder victims, death row exonerees and death row inmates, will speak in North Platte Wednesday. The group is on a 10-day, 20-city tour that ends July 24, spokesman Dan Parsons said. The group will make 2 North Platte presentations: -- 3 p.m. at the First United Methodist Church, 1600 West E. St. -- 6 p.m. at the Espresso Shop downtown, 419 N. Dewey. According to the group's announcement, members will share personal stories of forgiveness, redemption and how they have been harmed by the death penalty system, said Rev. Stephen Griffith, a retired United Methodist pastor and the executive director of another group, Nebraskans for Alternatives to the Death Penalty. "I know that Nebraskans of faith are greatly concerned about the death penalty and these forums will be a chance for them to learn about the issue and get involved in the effort to retain the repeal of the death penalty," Griffith said. The question will come before Nebraska voters in the November general election. The speakers include: -- Bess Klassen Landis, the daughter of a murder victim. Bess' mother Helen was beat, stripped, raped, strangled and shot 4 times in their rural home in Elkhart, Ind. while her daughters were at school and her father was out of state. The murder happened on March 14, 1969, before DNA testing. There was never a conviction. Bess, 13, learned that her home and community were not safe, and neither was it safe to be a woman. In 2005, she joined the Journey of Hope ... >From Violence to Healing in Texas. She met peers who had lost a loved one to murder and some who had forgiven the murderer. By publicly telling her story, she exposed and released her fear and shame, and forgave herself for her failures. She believes that people are instruments in healing the hatred in this world, which can't happen with violence (the death penalty), but by eradicating hunger, poverty, and disease and by reaching out in love to our enemies. "Politicians tell us that the death penalty must be reserved for the worst of the worst. Through the Journey, Bess learned that in reality, the death penalty is reserved for the poorest of the poor. And that many that have been placed on death row have been innocent," the Journey of Hope website says. -- Sandrine Ageorges-Skinner of Paris, France, has spent decades fighting the death penalty. She began communicating with Texas death row inmate Hank Skinner in 1996, visiting him in 2000 and they were married in 2008. According to the Journey of Hope website, Skinner was convicted only on the testimony of a state witness who later recanted. The state of Texas has denied 2 motions for post-conviction DNA testing, citing procedural reasons. The Journey of Hope's website is https://www.journeyofhope.org/home/ Nebraskans for Alternatives to the Death Penalty was founded in 1981 after Gov. Charles Thone vetoed a bill passed by Nebraska's legislature that would have repealed the death penalty in Nebraska, Parsons said. (source: The North Platte Bulletin) ************ SPEAKING FROM PERSONAL EXPERIENCE----Anti-death penalty advocate speaks from personal experience Bill Babbitt told a Grand Island audience Tuesday night that he was in favor of the death penalty "until it came knocking at my door." Babbitt's little brother, Manny, was executed in 1999 after 19 years in prison. Manny Babbitt had been convicted of the 1980 murder of a 78-year-old woman, Leah Schendel, during a burglary in Sacramento, Calif. Bill Babbitt expressed doubt that anyone would support capital punishment if his or her child killed someone. Babbitt, who lives in Elk Grove, Calif., spoke to a gathering of 25 people at Trinity United Methodist Church. He appeared in Grand Island on behalf of an organization called Journey of Hope ... from Violence to Healing. His talk is part of a 10-day, 20-city caravan organized by a group that would like to see Nebraskans pull the plug on the death penalty. Based in Lincoln, the group is called Nebraskans for Alternatives to the Death Penalty. On Nov. 8, Nebraska voters will decide if the state will keep the law that eliminates the death penalty. Babbitt and his colleagues are urging people to retain, rather than repeal, the law. The measure to end the death penalty, Legislative Bill 268, was passed by the Nebraska Legislature in 2015. Babbitt, 73, was accompanied Tuesday night by Alex Kelly of Lincoln. Kelly told audience members that, if the law is to be retained, they are as important as he is. Getting involved in the effort and spreading the word, Kelly said, is crucial. Manny Babbitt joined the Marines in 1967 and served two tours in Vietnam. "Manny was a stand-up Marine," his brother said. He was part of the Siege of Khe Sanh, a 77-day battle that claimed the lives of 700 Marines. During the battle, rocket shrapnel wound up in Manny Babbitt's head. When he came home, he fought another war, Bill Babbitt said. In his home state of Massachusetts, he spent time in the Bridgewater State Hospital for the Criminally Insane. During the burglary, the elderly woman died of a heart attack when Manny broke into her house and beat her. After the crime, some people referred to him as an animal, which set off his mother. "If he's an animal, they made an animal out of him," said the mother of 9 children. When Bill contacted the police, he was assured that Manny would not receive the death penalty due to his mental illness. But that promise was probably not a police officer's to give, he said Tuesday night. Before he was executed at San Quentin State Prison, 50-year-old Manny Babbitt received the Purple Heart. Because of his brother's death, Bill Babbitt's heart continues to grieve. In addition to his work in this country, Bill Babbitt has also spent considerable time in Africa working against the death penalty. (source: The Grand Island Independent) CALIFORNIA: Silicon Valley's Powerful Steer Cash to Death Penalty Repeal Bid Some of Silicon Valley's biggest names are pouring money into an effort to overturn California's death penalty as support for capital punishment has declined to the lowest in decades. Reed Hastings, the billionaire chief executive officer of Netflix Inc., donated $1 million, and Salesforce.com Inc. CEO Marc Benioff gave $50,000 to support a measure on the November ballot that would replace death with a life sentence without parole. 7 wealthy donors from technology companies have contributed the bulk of the $4 million raised so far. "My objection to the death penalty is not based on some abstract principle that it's bad to kill people," said Paul Graham, co-founder of Y Combinator, Silicon Valley's largest startup factory, who contributed $500,000. "It's because so many of the people who get executed are actually innocent. If you look at the way some of these trials are conducted, it's shocking." Technology executives increasingly are using clout and deep pockets to take socially liberal stands on issues such as gun control and same-sex marriage. They're stepping in where efforts by Democratic lawmakers have failed, with contributions to voter initiatives and threats to withdraw business in states passing laws they find objectionable. Their involvement is a reflection of the leanings of their millennial workers and represents a shift from a corporate mindset of avoiding controversy to keep from alienating customers. (source: Bloomberg News) ************* Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom endorses proposition to abolish the death penalty in California California Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom on Tuesday threw his support behind a ballot measure that would repeal the death penalty in California, saying the criminal justice policy did not deter crime and was fundamentally immoral. In a statement, he said Proposition 62 would abolish a system "that is administered with troubling racial disparities." Newsom, who publicly supported a 2012 failed measure seeking to end capital punishment, said the initiative would also save the state millions of dollars. He cited statistics showing that California has spent $5 billion to execute 13 people since 1978. Proposition 62 would replace capital punishment for 1st-degree murder with life in prison without the possibility of parole. It is 1 of 2 competing measures on the future of the death penalty that voters will weigh on Nov. 8. "I realize that this is a controversial issue that raises deeply felt passions on all sides," Newsom said. "But I also believe that decades from now, like with so many other once-contentious issues, America will look back at the death penalty as an archaic mistake. On issues such as this, elected leaders owe it to themselves and to their constituents to speak up and speak out - regardless of political consequences." (source: Los Angeles Times) ******************* Murder Suspect in Homeless Attacks Could Face Death Penalty A man accused of attacking 5 homeless men in various San Diego neighborhoods, killing 3 of them, could face the death penalty, prosecutors announced Tuesday. An allegation that he used a weapon, which she didn't specify, was attached to the charges. The prosecutor said that because of the special circumstance allegation, the defendant could face the death penalty or life in prison without parole if convicted. Prosecutors have not yet decided if they will seek the death penalty. "That's a decision that will be made at a later time," Harvey said. Guerrero did not enter a plea during his 1st court appearance before San Diego Superior Court Judge Frederick Maguire. His public defender, Dan Tandon, asked was granted a delay in the arraignment until Aug. 2. Guerrero was arrested Friday after being spotted by a patrol officer in Park West, not long after the latest assault. San Diego police said the victims were brutalized - 2 of them set on fire - as they slept on roadsides, in open areas and under freeway bridges. According to Harvey, the 2 injured men are expected to survive despite serious wounds. The spree of assaults across the city left San Diegans - particularly those who live on the streets - shaken and on edge since the 4th of July weekend. The 1st attack in the series occurred July 3. About 8 a.m. that day, the burning body of Angelo De Nardo, 53, was found underneath an Interstate 5 offramp near the 2700 block of Morena Boulevard in Bay Park. Witnesses to the disturbing scene described seeing a man running across the freeway near Claremont Drive, carrying a gas can. The following day, Shawn Mitchell Longley, 41, was found dead at a park on Bacon Street in Ocean Beach, and 61-year-old transient Manuel Mason was severely wounded near Valley View Casino Center in the Midway district, according to police. On the morning of July 6, Dionicio Derek Vahidy, 23, was gravely wounded in downtown San Diego by an assailant who fled after leaving a towel burning on top of him. Vahidy died in a hospital 4 days later. Authorities have not released the victims' causes of death or disclosed a suspected motive for the violence. There are no indications that the suspect knew the victims, according to police. The most recent attack came to light Friday, shortly after 4:30 a.m., when two San Diego Harbor Police officers heard someone yelling for help while driving along the 1800 block of C Street, underneath Interstate 5 in the East Village, San Diego police Capt. David Nisleit said. The officers pulled over and found a 55-year-old homeless man suffering from "significant trauma" to his upper body, the captain said. Guerrero, a Coronado native who most recently lived in downtown San Diego, was arrested about 2 miles from the site of the assault. Nisleit said detectives discovered physical evidence at the scene of the Friday attack and at the suspect's residence that "definitively and uniquely links together the recent murders and brutal attacks against our homeless community." Tandon told reporters outside the courtroom that Guerrero's story starts well before the moment the attacks started. "San Diego deserves to hear the truth and the whole story in this case," Tandon said. "We're just beginning the process of gathering the information so the whole story, including Jon's, can be known." Another man was arrested July 7 in connection with the attacks but was cleared when additional evidence was discovered. (source: timesofsandiego.com) USA: Letting Prosecutors Write the Law ---- It's more common than you think. In "Case in Point," Andrew Cohen examines a single case or character that sheds light on the criminal justice system. After we published our "Case in Point" story of Doyle Lee Hamm, an Alabama death row inmate whose judge signed off on a vital 89-page opinion without apparently ever reading it, we received a wave of emails from defense attorneys. Representing clients in Georgia, Louisiana, Kentucky, South Carolina, and Ohio, they wanted us to know that this had happened to them, too, and that they believed from their long experience practicing in their jurisdictions that such "ghostwriting" was a routine part of capital practice in those states. Ghostwriting occurs when prosecutors or state attorneys draft substantive opinions or orders that state judges then quickly sign, often without altering a single word or fixing typos, thus elevating to case law one side's naturally biased view of the facts and the law of a case. The practice exists even though the Supreme Court has frowned on it and state bar officials have disciplined judges for it. It exists even though it undermines one of the more fundamental premises in our justice system; that judges will undertake an independent evaluation of contested issues in a case and not just take one side's word for things. The result is that capital defendants remain on death row, or are executed, based on findings of fact and conclusions of law generated by the very people trying to execute them. We are not talking about instances where a judge asks the attorneys in open court to help expedite the resolution of a case by drafting a brief order memorializing what the judge already has ruled. That type of bureaucratic "ghostwriting" is commonplace and makes the legal system more efficient. In Hamm's case, however, as we reported, an Alabama judge received a complex "Proposed Memorandum Opinion" on a Friday and then signed it the following Monday without even striking the word "Proposed" from the title (or giving defense attorneys any time to react to it). This opinion has been cited as judicial gospel since 1999 to deny Hamm a new sentencing hearing. When Hamm's attorneys tried to hold a hearing to determine whether this judge ever actually read the opinion he had signed, they were blocked from doing so by lawyers for the Alabama attorney general, which was the office that had sent the "proposed" opinion to the judge in the first place. The U.S. Supreme Court now is considered Hamm's appeal, with ghostwriting one of several issues Hamm's attorneys have raised. Our piece noted that this practice routinely occurs in Texas. It turns out Texas is hardly unique. In Ohio, in the case of Donna Roberts, convicted of murder and sentenced to death in 2003, the judge and prosecutor together drafted a sentencing opinion. Roberts' attorneys didn't discover this arrangement until the judge was reading the opinion in open court and the defense counsel noticed that prosecutors were reading along in unison, even though they should not yet have had a copy of what the judge was reading. The judge was sanctioned for violating the state's judicial code of conduct and the death sentence was vacated because the judge's delegation of a basic judicial function was "wholly inconsistent" with his ethical obligations. The same thing happens in South Carolina. In the case of Johnny Bennett, one we've highlighted before because of racist remarks by the prosecutor in the case, the state attorney general wrote the opinion that the state now says the appellate courts should defer to in reinstating Bennett's capital sentence. In that case, the judge signed off on a lengthy order written by state attorneys that included a blank page, countless typographical mistakes, and even a paragraph that mistakenly sought to give custody of Bennett to the state, which, of course, already had him in custody. The legal reasoning was so muddled, defense attorneys alleged, that in some instances it made no sense at all. The issue also arose recently in Kentucky, in the capital case of Samuel Steven Fields. There, the Kentucky Supreme Court permitted the ghostwriting episode only after the trial judge who adopted the state's findings verbatim swore under oath that he had independently evaluated them. A federal court now is reviewing that ruling, which means that the resolution of another death penalty case has been delayed by the practice. It happens routinely in Pennsylvania, too, and has for decades, says Robert Dunham, director of the Death Penalty Information Center, which tracks capital cases around the country. Stephen Bright, the Yale Law School lecturer who is the director of the Southern Center for Human Rights, told me that the problem of ghostwriting in Alabama goes back decades but has never been squarely addressed by higher courts, in part because judges do not want to embarrass one another. He recounted the long-ago capital case of Timothy Davis, whose judge wrote a 1-page order on a substantive matter and was told by a state appeals court to go back and better explain his rationale. The same trial judge then issued a 2nd order that was equally void of analysis so the appellate court suggested he submit something along the lines of what state attorneys had proposed. The trial judge then signed the state's proposed order without changing a word and the appeals court endorsed that order. Bright testified on Capitol Hill nearly 25 years ago on the topic when the Senate Judiciary Committee was considering the nomination of Ed Carnes for the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Bright told lawmakers that Carnes, then an Alabama prosecutor, was notorious for drafting substantive orders for state judges to sign and then arguing that those orders, adopted verbatim as in the Hamm case, were entitled to great deference on appeal. Carnes nevertheless was confirmed to the bench by the Senate in 1992. He is still on the 11th Circuit. It happens so frequently in Georgia, capital attorney Brian Kammer told me, and state judges have so protected each other from criticism for using ghostwriters, that the issue rarely is even litigated any more. One such case, cited by Atlanta Journal-Constitution writer William Rankin, involved a capital defendant named Lawrence Jefferson, whose judge asked state attorneys to prepare an order for him to sign to reject Jefferson's appeal. State lawyers submitted a 45-page order, which the judge immediately signed without even fixing typos - like the misuse of the word "constitutionally" - that peppered the document. The U.S. Supreme Court considered the case, and delayed Jefferson's execution in part because of this egregious episode of ghostwriting, but did not definitively outlaw the practice. The practical problem is that so many judges are so overworked and understaffed that they use ghostwriting by state attorneys to help move along cases that might otherwise take months or years to resolve. The constitutional problem, as the Hamm case illustrates, is that a judge who blithely signs off on a lawyer's work has effectively allowed the prosecutor to serve as judge. (source: themarshallproject.org) From rhalperi at smu.edu Wed Jul 20 10:28:27 2016 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Wed, 20 Jul 2016 10:28:27 -0500 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide Message-ID: July 20 GLOBAL: Death penalty executions at a 25 year high, Amnesty reports The number of people executed around the world has reached a sobering new record. New figures released by Amnesty International show a 50 % rise in executions in 2015. More than 1634 people were condemned to death in 25 countries worldwide, that's 573 more than in 2014. The human rights watchdog said it marked an alarming development, and the real figures could be even higher, as the numbers for China are unknown. "The dramatic rise in executions that we recorded in 2015 was down to huge increases, primarily huge increases, in just 3 countries - Iran, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia. Together these 3 countries accounted for almost 90 % of all the executions that we recorded in 2015, again, excluding China," explained Audrey Gaughran, Director for Global Issues and Research, from Amnesty International. The report notes that China regards death penalty figures as a state secret. When asked about the report a spokesman for the Foreign Ministry claimed that Amnesty released 'unfair' statements about the country. Saudi Arabia, Iran and Pakistan were responsible for 89% of the executions in 2015. The Saudi kingdom was responsible for more than 158 executions and Iran for 977, which represents an increase of 76% and 31% respectively from 2014. In Pakistan, there were 326 recorded deaths, the most executions in the country's history. According to Amnesty's report, Iran and Pakistan executed minors at the time of their deaths. In the Middle East and Africa, the majority of the people are condemned because of terrorist actions. The organisation has been campaigning to end the death penalty since 1977 when only 16 countries had abolished it. They noted that 102 countries abolished the act entirely by the end of 2015, making a total of 140 abolitionist countries around the world. (source: euronews.com) ************* A map of countries that still have the death penalty---see: http://www.west-info.eu/a-map-of-countries-that-still-have-the-death-penalty/ (source: west-info.eu) PAKISTAN: PHC stays executions of 3 militants Peshawar High Court (PHC) stayed the execution of three militants on Tuesday by suspending the verdict of a military court for their involvement in alleged attacks on security forces and other terror related activities. A divisional bench of the PHC comprising of Justice Yahya Afridi and Justice Waqar Seth also issued notice to the federal government to file a reply till next hearing. The bench stayed the execution on judicial review appeals filed by 3 convicts Tabib, Muhammad Ayaz and Azizur Rahman through their counsels Ghulam Mohiuddin Malik and Arif Jan. The counsels informed the court that the petitioners were awarded death penalty by military courts and their sentences were approved by the Chief of Army Staff General Raheel Sharif on July 14, 2015. They argued the petitioners had not been given the chance to defend themselves, terming the trial a violation of the right to a fair trial. Malik said that Tabib went missing from Abbottabad on October 30, 2014 and his whereabouts were unknown since then. Similarly, they said that Muhammad Ayaz, a resident of Barikot Swat, was arrested from a security checkpoint in 2009 and was transferred to several different places from time to time. Applicants' counsels argued that even family members were not allowed to meet him. The counsels contended that Azizur Rahman who was a resident of Matta area of Swat was arrested by security forces in 2010 and was kept at different internment centres since then. They said that their family members of the convicts came to know through media that they had been awarded the death sentence and that the army chief had approved their execution. The counsel contended that none of them had been given a fair trial nor it was known under what crimes they had committed to merit the death sentence. The bench stayed their executions and sought replies from the federal government. Besides, those whose death sentences were approved by the army chief include Muhammad Qayyum Bacha who was given the death penalty for carrying out an attack on on law enforcement agencies. Muhammad Asif, who was a member of the banned Lashkar-e-Jhangvi got the death sentence on charges of target killing. Other militants who were convicted are Barkat Ali, Hussan Dar, Ishaq, and Behram Sher who were active members of the banned TTP and were sentenced to death for carrying out attacks on security forces. (source: The Daily Times) BANGLADESH: 2 get death for killing doctor Special Tribunal Judge Nitai Chandra Saha yesterday handed down death penalty to 2 men for killing Dr Shafiqul Islam, owner of Jess Clinic in Jessore town, on July 29, 2009, said Prosecutor SM Badruzzaman Palash, who conducted the case on behalf of the government. 2 others were acquitted. The convicted are Ashiqur Rahman Bablu, 40, son of Rajab Ali, and Saiful Islam Jakir, 36, son of Miratul Haque, both of Ghope Nawapara in the town. The acquitted are Rabbu alias Mursalin of New Town, and M Raihan of Ghope Nawapara. Dr Shafiqul Islam, the then treasurer of the Jessore district unit of BMA and also owner of Jess Clinic, was killed by the criminals inside his clinic at around 10:00pm on July 29, 2009. Abdus Salam Dhabak, father of the deceased, filed a case with Jessore Kotwali Police Station in this connection on July 30, 2009. (source: The Daily Star) INDIA: Behind bars Prison administration is integral to the justice delivery system which, many feel, calls for urgent reflection. The system has been almost unchanged since its inception though a change in nomenclature has been effected over time. Our prisons are no longer called 'jails'; they have been christened as correctional homes in keeping with the changed ethos. Even though the prison infrastructure has improved considerably over the years, we still have a long way to go as far as treatment of the inmates 'inside these correctional homes are concerned. The findings of a recent study titled the 'Death Penalty Research Project' are distressing. In this 1st-ever comprehensive study of the socio-economic profile of prisoners sentenced to death, researchers at Delhi's National Law University (NLU) have found that by and large they belong to the economically vulnerable sections, backward communities and religious minority groups. This is important because a prisoner's economic status and level of education directly affects his ability to effectively participate in the criminal justice system to secure a fair trial. As it appears from the report, such prisoners have found it difficult to negotiate the burdens imposed by our criminal justice system. As a result, the death penalty often disproportionately affects those who have the least capabilities to negotiate our criminal justice system. The research team identified 385 prisoners and got access to 373 of them. Referring to the right to be present at one's own trial, the study found that only 1 out of the 4 interviewed had attended all the hearings. Some prisoners would merely be taken to the court premises by the police and then confined to a court lock-up without ever being produced in the courtroom. Of 189 prisoners, 169 did not have a lawyer. Again, although the person arrested has to be informed about the reason for the arrest, 136 prisoners allegedly said that they were taken away to 'sign papers' and were never allowed to go home again. Besides, 166 prisoners were not produced before a Magistrate within 24 hours of the arrest ... which is mandatory. Weeks and months passed before they were produced in court; sometimes the arrest was recorded only at that point of time. The interim period was often spent in alleged torture. The researchers interviewed a majority of the 385 prisoners on death row, of whom one said he would be happy to be killed rather than being tortured every day. Out of 92 prisoners who had confessed in police custody, 72 had made statements allegedly under torture. Death-row prisoners were often kept locked while the trial proceeded, and at least 2 were not in a position to follow the proceedings of the trial. The report states that even when prisoners were present in court, "the very architecture of several trial courts often prevents any real chance of the accused participating in their own trial." They were often confined at the rear of the courtroom while the interaction between the judge and the lawyers took place in the front. A person charged with a crime has the right to an interpreter if he does not understand the language used in court, and to translated documents. But this requirement is seldom complied with. Over 1/2 the prisoners interviewed said they did not understand the proceedings at all, either because of the obstructive court architecture or the language used (often English). Part of an accused's right to a fair hearing is the right to challenge evidence produced against them. In India, trial courts can question the accused directly at any stage, and the Supreme Court has ruled that the persons must be questioned separately about every material circumstance to be used against them, and in a form they can understand. The study found that these provisions were routinely dishonoured. Over 60 % of the prisoners interviewed said they were only asked to give "yes/no" responses during their trials, with no meaningful opportunity to explain themselves. 7 out of 10 prisoners said their lawyers did not discuss case details with them. Almost 77 % never met their lawyers outside the court, and the interaction inside the court was perfunctory. Many of the prisoners preferred to engage private lawyers despite their economic vulnerability because of the putative incompetence of the underpaid legal aid lawyers. The higher the courts, lesser the information the prisoners have about their cases. As often as not, they ascertain the progress of the trial through the prison authorities or media reports though it is not just death-row prisoners who face such violations. The constitutionality of the death sentence was last upheld in May 1980 by the Supreme Court. It had ruled that the death penalty did not infringe the right to life as guaranteed by Article 21 of the Constitution. However, it should be awarded only in the 'rarest of the rare' cases. Surprisingly, most prisoners sentenced to death in India are not eventually executed. Less than 5 % of those sentenced by trial courts have actually been executed. In most of the cases, their death sentences were commuted by the higher courts following appeals. The NLU report makes it clear that its findings do not necessarily suggest that the state authorities intentionally discriminate against poor or less educated prisoners. But the report does allege that the system is so biased that there is a degree of indirect discrimination at work which worsens the chances of fair trial for prisoners from disadvantaged backgrounds. Yet issues pertaining to fair trial rights and treatment of prisoners on death row by the criminal justice system are almost never discussed with due seriousness. Indirect discrimination happens when a seemingly impartial and innocuous practice affects particular groups adversely, even if it is not deliberately directed at the groups. Given the irreversible nature of the death penalty, it is particularly important that fair trial rights are scrupulously safeguarded. Every death sentence imposed following an unfair trial violates the right to life. It has been suggested by some observers that the only way to end this injustice is to impose an immediate moratorium on the use of the death penalty as a 1st step towards abolition of the same. The Law Commission of India, in a report last year, recommended the abolition of the death penalty in phases, beginning with ending it for all offences except those related to terrorism. The criminal justice system allegedly follows several practices which hurt the poor and the marginalised much more than others. What needs to be investigated is whether such practices are the result of entrenched socio-economic inequalities or whether indirect discrimination has been institutionalised. In its report last year on the death penalty, the Law Commission stated: "The vagaries of the system also operate disproportionately against the socially and economically marginalized who may lack the resources to effectively advocate their rights within an adversarial criminal justice system." For a vibrant liberal-democratic India, the Death Penalty India Report does come as a rude shock. Principles of custodial care remain theoretical, although it is obligatory for the police to take care of their well-being and health. Hopefully, the findings of the report will make policy makers and prison administrators sit up and take notice, indeed to make meaningful interventions to ensure the rights of the undertrials and put in place a humane justice delivery system. (source: thestatesman.com) GAZA: Hamas sentences 3 'spies for Israel' to death----Military court in Gaza sentences 3 local residents to death after they were convicted of spying for Israel. A military court in Gaza on Tuesday sentenced 3 local residents to death after they were convicted of providing information to Israel's security services. The Palestinian Interior Ministry, which is in charge of the security forces and which is controlled by Hamas in Gaza, said that the Supreme Military Court sentenced to death by strangling and shooting the 3 men, who according to the statement handed over information that harmed the public interest and the Palestinian national security. The trial of the "spies" was held behind closed doors and without the presence of the media. Hamas regularly claims to have captured "Israeli spies", and many times it tries them and sentences them to death. In 1 such example, the group claimed to have exposed "the most dangerous intelligence agent" who allegedly worked for the Israel Security Agency (Shin Bet). More recently, Hamas claimed it arrested an intelligence agent who had provided information to Israel for 14 years and who allegedly assisted in providing information which led to the elimination of terrorists and in the bombings of houses in Gaza. Under Palestinian law, collaboration with Israel is punishable by death. All death sentences, however, require the approval of Palestinian Authority (PA) chairman Mahmoud Abbas, who issued a moratorium on death sentences in 2005. Hamas ignores the moratorium and carries out the executions anyway, as it no longer recognizes the legitimacy of Abbas, whose four-year term expired in 2009. Amnesty International has previously called on Hamas to stop the executions of suspected collaborators, saying that the group "must immediately and totally cease its use of the death penalty." (source: Israel National News) SAUDI ARABIA/UNITED KINGDOM: Boris Johnson Must Raise Juvenile Death Sentences in Saudi Meeting The new Foreign Secretary, Boris Johnson, has been urged to use a meeting today with the Saudi Foreign Minister to call for an end to juvenile executions in Saudi Arabia. According to a Foreign Office statement this morning, Mr Johnson is due to host the Saudi Foreign Minister, Adel al-Jubeir, later today, in one of a series of first meetings with the UK's "international partners". The meeting will reportedly take place alongside US Secretary of State John Kerry and the Foreign Minister of the UAE. The meeting takes place amid concerns over Saudi Arabia's practice of juvenile executions - in particular, the cases of Ali al-Nimr, Abdullah al-Zaher, and Dawood al-Marhoon. All 3 face beheading, despite having been juveniles when they were arrested in 2012. The 3, who were arrested for allegedly attending protests, were tortured into signing 'confessions' which were used to convict them in secretive trials. The death sentences for all 3 juveniles were upheld last autumn, and they could now be executed at any time. Although the use of the death penalty against juveniles is prohibited under international law, Saudi Arabia has executed at least 4 juveniles this year - including Ali Al Ribh, who was arrested at 2012 protests and executed during a mass execution of 47 people in January. The European Saudi Organization for Human Rights has said that currently "there is an execution every 2 days" in Saudi Arabia, and that there were now "alarm bells" for Ali, Dawood and Abdullah, among others on the country's death row. The Foreign Office said last month that it has raised the 3 juveniles' cases with Saudi Arabia, and that "our expectation is that Ali al-Nimr and the 2 others will not be executed." However, the UK appears not to have requested that their death sentences be commuted, and the 3 juveniles released. Mr Johnson's meeting follows recent concerns that the UK could be risking complicity with the kinds of abuses suffered by the juveniles. Last month, an internal UK government report uncovered by human rights organization Reprieve stated that Britain's College of Policing was teaching the Saudi Interior Ministry high-tech forensic skills that could be "used to identify individuals who later go on to be tortured." Earlier this month, a report by the Home Affairs Select Committee highlighted the Foreign Office's refusal to provide details of the College???s contracts in Saudi Arabia and elsewhere, branding it "totally unacceptable". Today's meeting also comes after members of the European Parliament urged Federica Mogherini - the EU's Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy - to ask the Saudi Foreign Minister to review all death sentences issued to juveniles, and to commute the sentences handed to Ali, Dawood and Abdullah. However, following a meeting between Ms Mogherini and Mr Jubeir yesterday, it was not clear whether the cases were raised. Commenting, Maya Foa, head of the death penalty team at Reprieve, said: "Today's meeting takes place while at least 3 juveniles await execution in Saudi Arabia - all having faced torture, forced 'confessions' and secret trials. Many others in line for beheading were arrested for non-violent alleged crimes, such as political protest. Now more than ever, the UK must make clear that these abuses are unacceptable. The new Foreign Secretary must urgently call on Saudi Arabia to release Ali, Abdullah, and Dawood - and to investigate how many others on its death row may have been convicted as children." (source: Reprieve is a UK-based human rights organization that uses the law to enforce the human rights of prisoners, from death row to Guantanamo Bay---- reprieve.org) TURKEY: Turkish military penal code allows capital punishment for putschist soldiers After the failed coup attempt of July 15 by a faction in the Turkish military orchestrated by the fugitive imam Fethullah Gulen, the discussion about reinstating the death penalty has become a major topic in Turkish politics. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan suggested on Tuesday that he is ready to reinstate the death penalty if the people demand it and Parliament approves the necessary legislation. "In democracies, decisions are made based on what the people say. I think our government will speak with the opposition and come to a decision," Erdogan said to a large crowd chanting: "We want the death penalty," on Tuesday evening in Istanbul. "We hear your request. In a democracy, whatever the people want, they will get." he said. Speaking after the Cabinet meeting on Monday in Ankara, Prime Minister Binali Yildirim said: "Turkey is a state of law, we engage in politics for our people," but added that it is not wise to rush to a decision on capital punishment while the developments are still recent. "These issues will be extensively discussed, as it requires constitutional reform. We cannot either accept or reject this demand outright," Yildirim said. The death penalty in Turkey was abolished in 2004, although Turkey had not actually executed any prisoners since October 1984. Speaking to Daily Sabah on Tuesday, the chairman of Parliament's Justice Commission, Ahmet Iyimaya, did not rule out the possibility of reinstating the death penalty. "Turkey is still under an unprecedented threat. Our aim is to avert this crisis and law is an indispensable weapon in this fight," Iyimaya said. "The reforms regarding the current laws should be discussed only after this existing threat is eliminated. Instead of individual opinions, the collective wisdom of the legislative and the executive [branches] is crucial. It is definite that Turkey, with its 2,000 years of experience, will decide for the best." he added. Cem Duran Uzun, a constitutional lawyer and director of Law and Human Rights at the Political, Economic and Social Research Foundation (SETA) in Ankara, however, stressed the difficulties of reinstating the death penalty. "There are many conventions prohibiting capital punishment, which were signed by Turkey. The re-implementation of capital punishment is also challenging due to international agreements. The Council of Europe, co-founded by Turkey, also prohibits this type of punishment," Duran said. "Moreover, the AK Party [Justice and Development Party] completely removed capital punishment clauses from the Constitution in 2004. As a side note, even though clauses existed in the constitution and certain laws for a long time, since 1984, none of the court decisions for capital punishment were rejected by Parliament." Constitutional law academic from Yildirim Beyazit University in Ankara Dr. Taylan Barin said that the Constitution should be reformed to re-implement capital punishment. "Probably there will be a referendum regarding this reform. If the political parties and the people continue to support the re-implementation of capital punishment, it might be possible," Barin said. Regarding retroactive punishment, Barin affirmed that this could be possible if the capital punishment still extent in military law is put into practice. "In the military penal code, with the 20th clause, capital punishment is possible. However, as the Constitution does not have a similar clause, this became obsolete. If there is a new constitutional amendment that approves capital punishment, this clause of the military penal code might be re-introduced," Barin said. Moreover, Barin signified that the re-introduction of capital punishment could have certain repercussions in the international community. "The political administration will try to achieve a balance between the people and the international community. If they chance the repercussions, they might re-introduce capital punishment." Meanwhile, a number of EU officials have voiced concerns over the discussion. EU Foreign Policy Chief Federica Mogherini said on Monday that re-instating the death penalty in Turkey would end EU accession talks. "Turkey is an important part of the Council of Europe and is bound by the European Convention on Human Rights, which is very clear on the death penalty," she said. "The introduction of the death penalty would mean the immediate suspension of accession talks," German government spokesman Steffen Seibert said on Monday. Austrian Foreign Minister Sebastian Kurz shared the same sentiment. "The introduction of the death penalty would of course be absolutely unacceptable," Kurz said in an interview with the Austrian Kurier newspaper on Monday. (source: Daily Sabah) **************** UK says reinstating death penalty in Turkey would be retrograde step Turkey's international standing would be severely damaged if it decides to reinstate the death penalty, British foreign office minister Alan Duncan told parliament on Tuesday. "It is very strongly the view of Her Majesty's government that we oppose the death penalty," Duncan said, responding to comments from Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan who said on Sunday after an attempted coup that there could be no delay in using capital punishment. "It would be a deeply retrograde step that would likely cause incalculable damage to the standing of Turkey just at a time when it is important to embrace them within the world community," Duncan said. (source: Reuters) UNITED ARAB EMIRATES: Death sentence for 2 Indians in woman's murder case upheld----The verdict in the murder case was delivered by the Court of Appeal. A Doha appeals court has upheld the death sentence given to 2 Indian men by the trial court for the murder of an elderly Qatari woman at her home in 2012. The 3rd defendant, also an Indian, has been given a life sentence. Speaking to this newspaper, Indian legal activist Nizar Kocheri said the issue was brought to his attention only 2 days ago and it has been decided to appeal the verdict at the Supreme Court before the deadline for appealing ends on July 30. Kocheri said he has also discussed the matter with Indian embassy officials. It is learnt the prosecution has appealed for capital punishment for the third defendant also. The verdict in the murder case was delivered on May 30 by the Court of Appeal but the issue came to light only when Suresh Kumar, a lawyer from India, who was deputed by the South Asian Fishermen Fraternity (SAFF) arrived in Doha a couple of days ago to follow up the case. Kumar had also met Indian embassy officials in this regard. The trio, who were found guilty of the murder, were identified as Alagappa Subramaniam, Chinnadurai Perumal and Sivakumar Arasan, all reported to be in their early 40s and natives of Villupuram, Virudhunagar and Salem, respectively, in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu. At least 1 of the 3 was working at the home where the murder took place, a source told this newspaper. The crime was committed towards the end of 2012 and 2 of the accused were awarded capital punishment by a local court on December 31, 2014. The trial court had sentenced the 3rd accused to life in prison. In May this year, the Court of Appeals upheld the verdict. In a previous case, 3 other Asian expatriates, 2 Indians and a Nepali, were sentenced to death for the killing of an Indonesian housemaid in 2003. Though the appeals court upheld the lower court's verdict, it was commuted to life for the Indians and 15 years in jail for the Nepali by the apex court in 2011. While the Indians in this case have been identified as Sreedharan Manikantan and Unnikrishnan Mahadevan, both taxi drivers, the Nepali's name was given as Chandrasekhar Yadav. The proceedings of the sensational case had begun with the arrest of the trio in December 2003 after the maid's body was found in October that year at the Wakrah beach. The accused were spared the death penalty as they were given the benefit of doubt by the Supreme Court. The then Indian ambassador George Joseph had been instrumental in securing the reprieve for the defendants in that case, Kocheri recalled. "It was an extraordinary case because it was heard by the Supreme Court 3 times," he said. (source: Gulf Times) BARBADOS: Mandatory death penalty to go Prime Minister Freundel Stuart today made a preemptive strike against the Opposition Barbados Labour Party (BLP) as his administration prepares to resume debate on the removal of the mandatory death penalty. In wrapping up debate on the Constitution Amendment Bill 2016 which sought to extend the retirement age for both the Auditor General and the Director of Public Prosecutions from 62 to 67, Stuart took a less-than-subtle jab at the at BLP over the country's participation in the Inter-American Court of Human Rights. The Prime Minister told the House that the court was thrust upon Barbadians in 2000 without a national discussion. The BLP was in office when Barbados joined the judicial institution which promote basic rights and freedoms in the Americas. "We woke up one morning and heard that we had submitted to the jurisdiction of the Inter-American Court and that cases could go there in accordance to the Inter-American Convention. There was no referendum, no discussion. It just happened," Stuart said. He explained that as a result of the country's participation in the court, Barbados was obligated to get rid of the mandatory death sentence. "When we submitted to the jurisdiction of the court, we entered a reservation on the issue of the death penalty [and] the court ruled that the reservation which we entered [was]of no legal effect; it could not achieve the objective which we wanted to achieve and therefore we had to comply with this order to remove the mandatory death penalty." Stuart explained that because the mandatory death penalty did not comply with the American Convention on Human Rights Barbados could not ignore the court's orders. "We were advised by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Attorney General's office, that if an order has been made against the Government of Barbados on such an important an issue as the removal of the mandatory death penalty, we cannot just turn a blind eye to that order and pretend that it is not there. We must demonstrate that we obey court orders as well," he said. Stuart said Barbados remained the only English-speaking Caribbean country under the jurisdiction of the Inter-American Court. "Barbados submitted itself to the jurisdiction of the Inter-American Court around 2000-2001, the USA has not submitted itself to that court, Canada has not submitted itself to that court. One Caribbean country, Trinidad and Tobago had, and withdrew from the court because it was thought that the court's arm reached too far into the everyday life of Trinidad and Tobago and Barbados is still a member of the court. "I am aware that there are initiatives afoot to regularize our relationship with the court but we could not do other than to bring that particular amendment before the house as we have done," he added. "That debate has started in this house, the debate has not yet finished because there were some issues that were raised along the way which the Attorney General wanted to check and we are back to that debate on the mandatory death penalty. The debate has started and about 6 or 7 persons have spoken already," the Prime Minister said. (source: Barbados Today) From rhalperi at smu.edu Thu Jul 21 10:10:44 2016 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Thu, 21 Jul 2016 10:10:44 -0500 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----GA., FLA., KAN., NEB., CALIF., US MIL. Message-ID: July 21 GEORGIA: Only airman on military's death row gets new sentencing hearing A former Georgia-based Air Force enlisted man who killed a married couple will get another chance to escape the death penalty for the murders he committed 12 years ago. In the latest twist to a violent case that began at Robins Air Force Base, about 90 miles east of Columbus, the nation's highest military appeals court on Tuesday ordered another sentencing hearing for Andrew Paul Witt. The new sentencing hearing will effectively be the 4th go-around for Witt, the only airman on the military's death row in Leavenworth, Kansas. His revived prospects result from a legal error that, while seemingly technical, was also deemed worrisome for the military justice system's overall reputation. "A problem of appearances and public confidence is precisely what we have here," Judge Scott W. Stucky wrote. In the unanimous ruling, the 5-member court concluded that the lower Air Force Court of Criminal Appeals acted improperly with its handling of Witt's original appeal. The error in this case resulted in (Witt's) vacated death sentence being affirmed. It is difficult to conceive of a more striking example of prejudice to (his) substantial rights. Judge Scott W. Stucky, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces. A 12-officer panel first imposed the death penalty in 2005. The Air Force court struck down the sentence in 2013, citing alleged shortcomings with Witt's legal representation. 4 judges recused themselves because they joined the appeals court after the oral argument. The government then asked for reconsideration. The Air Force court reversed itself in 2014 and upheld Witt's death sentence, this time with 3 of the 4 previously recused judges taking part. "The participation of disqualified judges in the reconsideration process produced a significant risk of undermining the public's confidence in the judicial process," Stucky wrote in the nine-page decision released Tuesday. Witt's attorneys declined to comment Wednesday. A graduate of Wichita State University and Harvard Law School, Stucky himself served as an Air Force judge advocate before joining the all-civilian Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces. His decision did not elaborate on the underlying crime, whose essential details Witt does not contest. In the summer of 2004, Witt was a senior airman stationed at Robins with the 116th Air Control Wing. Raised in an allegedly troubled home, he had also been in a motorcycle accident in early 2014, an event that later led to questions about a possible traumatic brain injury. Jamie Schliepsiek, the wife of Senior Airman Andrew Schliepsiek, told her husband the night of July 4 that Witt had made a sexual advance toward her. Her husband then placed multiple post-midnight phone calls to Witt, with the 2 men eventually talking at length. "At some point during the phone call exchanges, (Witt) changed into his battle dress uniform," the Air Force appeals court recounted. "He retrieved a knife from his closet, placed the knife in the trunk of his car, and drove onto Robins Air Force Base." A 3rd senior airman, Jason King, had joined the Schliepsieks at their home. At about 4 a.m., Witt entered the house and got into a scuffle where he stabbed both men while Jamie Schliepsiek locked herself in a bedroom. A wounded King fled to summon help. Witt left the house and then returned, breaking through the bedroom door to find Jamie Schliepsiek curled in a fetal position. He stabbed her to death, and then finished off her wounded husband, who had been paralyzed in the initial attack. "My life has changed dramatically since that night, and I plan to continue to make changes," Witt told his court-martial panel during his trial in Macon, Georgia. "I want you to know that I am firmly resolved to lead a productive life in the service of others and will not wander from this path if given the chance." The new hearing could result in another death sentence, or life terms with or without the possibility of parole. The last U.S. military execution occurred in 1961. (source: modbee.com) FLORIDA: Panel finds probable cause Jacksonville judge used racist, sexist language A Florida Judicial Qualifications Commission panel has found probable cause to charge Circuit Judge Mark Hulsey with using anti-black language and behaving improperly as a judge. The complaint includes charges that Hulsey referred to a woman as a "c--t" and said blacks "should go get back on a ship and go back to Africa." The charges finalized Tuesday include claims that Hulsey, of Jacksonville, used staff attorneys to prepare scripts for routine judicial tasks and required one attorney to regularly do Hulsey's work for him. During a death-penalty trial, the charges said, a staff attorney was required to provide basic information about capital trial procedures. At the end of the trial, the charges said, Hulsey blamed the attorney for mistakes he had made. Hulsey was later told by the chief judge to stop overusing staff attorneys, the charges said. Excessive use of one staff attorney meant that attorney was "doing double duty," the charges said, working on tasks Hulsey assigned and trying to handle her regular assigned work. Hulsey was a solo-practice attorney for 20 years before being elected in 2010. He is up for reelection this year, and is being challenged by Gerald Wilkerson. (source: firstcoastnews.com) KANSAS: Preliminary hearing is set for accused killer of KCK police detective Brad Lancaster As officials gathered Wednesday morning to discuss the latest killing of a Kansas City, Kan., police officer, the man accused of killing another KCK officer was appearing in court across the street. Curtis Ayers, 29, is charged with capital murder in the May 9 fatal shooting of Kansas City, Kan., police detective Brad Lancaster. The hearing for Ayers on Wednesday morning in Wyandotte County District Court came as officials at City Hall were holding a news conference to discuss Tuesday afternoon's fatal shooting of Police Capt. Robert Melton. Police said Tuesday night that 2 suspects were in custody in connection with Melton's killing but that no charges had been filed. At the hearing for Ayers, District Judge Bill Klapper set a preliminary hearing for Nov. 21. The judge said he would set aside 2 or 3 days for the hearing. The preliminary hearing will be the 1st time that evidence in the case will be presented publicly. Ayers is accused of shooting Lancaster outside Kansas Speedway while fleeing from police. He then allegedly went on a spree of carjacking and robbery that ended in Kansas City when police shot him and took him into custody. He faces a potential death sentence if convicted of capital murder and is being represented by lawyers from the Kansas Death Penalty Defense Unit. Wyandotte County District Attorney Jerome Gorman said he has not yet made a decision on whether to seek the death penalty for Ayers. (source: Kansas City Star) NEBRASKA: Families share differing views on death penalty Speakers from various sides of the death penalty debate shared their stories Tuesday evening at the First United Methodist Church, 614 N. Hastings Ave. Organized by Nebraskans for Alternatives to the Death Penalty, the Journey of Hope program started with a story from Bess Klassen-Landis. Her mother, Helen, was raped, strangled and shot 4 times in their rural home in Elkhart, Ind. Bess and her 3 sisters were at school at the time and her father was out of town for work. "Having someone murdered in your family puts you on a spiritual journey," she said. She likened the aftermath of the murder to a tornado. Both are sudden, unexpected and violent occurrences that ripple out to affect hundreds of people. Although police identified 7 suspects, there was never a conviction and the murderer remained on the loose. Bess, 13 at the time, didn't feel safe in her home. She suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder and created escape plans in her mind every time she entered a room. "Each night, I would be pursued and murdered in my dreams," she said. Spending so much time in a hyper-vigilant state and always being on high alert caused problems with her immune system over time. Her family didn't know how to deal with the trauma. In an effort to protect each other from more pain, they avoided discussing the topic. The family drifted apart as each tried to deal with the trauma on his or her own. Klassen-Landis said her healing started through the grace of God. Peace came as she found the ability to forgive. She said forgiveness is something victims should do for themselves as a way to move past the pain of loss. "For me to heal, I needed to be able to see the humanity in my mother's murderer," she said. Klassen-Landis feels the death penalty doesn't bring healing to the judicial system. While proponents say the death penalty needs to be reserved for the worst of the worst, she contends it is actually used for the poorest of the poor. "We cannot have a non-violent community through violence," she said. The 2nd speaker was Sandrine Ageorges-Skinner of Paris. She has spent decades fighting the death penalty. During her efforts, she became penpals with 3 Texas death row inmates, including Hank Skinner in 1996. Skinner had been arrested for the triple murder of his girlfriend and her 2 adult sons who lived at his Texas home in 1994. He was convicted and sentenced to death in 1995. Ageorges-Skinner began visiting Skinner in 2000 and the 2 married in 2008. She described death row from the eyes of a family member, including the anxiety of having her husband receive execution dates in 2010 and 2011. In 2010, her husband received a stay of execution with just 25 minutes to spare. Ageorges-Skinner proclaimed her husband's innocence, explaining a witness was coerced into testifying against him. The witness later recanted, but a judge decided she wasn't a credible witness. Ageorges-Skinner said it has been a constant struggle trying to get access to the evidence in the case and secure DNA testing to exonerate her husband. The case is currently postponed until new calculations are received for the mixed DNA found at the scene. After the scheduled speakers answered questions, Vivian Tuttle of Ewing asked to share her story. Tuttle is the mother of Evonne Tuttle, who was killed in a 2002 botched bank robbery in Norfolk. Evonne went to cash a $64 check and was 1 of 5 people killed within 40 seconds. 4 suspects were convicted in the case. 3 were given death sentences and the last was given 5 life sentences. Tuttle believes she won't be able to have peace until her daughter's killers are executed. She was appalled when senators voted to repeal the death penalty, despite her efforts to convince senators to keep the punishment. Afterward, she helped gather signatures for the petition that eventually added the death penalty to the November ballot. Now, she travels across the state talking to people to convince them to vote for repealing the abolishment of the death penalty. "This is my journey to talk to people and tell people my story," she said. (source: The Hastings Tribune) CALIFORNIA: Man could face death penalty for alleged fatal beating, sexual assault of toddler A 28-year-old man pleaded not guilty in San Mateo County Superior Court this week to sexually abusing and murdering his girlfriend's young daughter. Daniel Contreras of Redwood City could face the death penalty if convicted of murder and felony child abuse, among other charges, for the death of the 17-month-old girl, District Attorney Steve Wagstaffe said, who noted the case is particularly gruesome. "It's a shocking set of facts," Wagstaffe said Wednesday of Contreras' alleged crimes. On Aug. 6, 2015, Contreras' girlfriend of 2 months reportedly left her daughter in the care of Contreras for the 1st time. Over the course of several hours, Contreras repeatedly sexually molested the young girl, prosecutors said. When the girl wouldn't stop crying, Contreras allegedly beat her to death, then called his mother and aunt, lying by saying the girl had fallen off a changing table, according to prosecutors. She was dead by the time police arrived at the apartment in the 400 block of Madison Avenue at about 2:30 p.m. Contreras repeated his story to authorities, but he was arrested 2 days later when the investigation revealed that the girl had been beaten to death, prosecutors said. Contreras pleaded not guilty at his superior court arraignment Tuesday, and a pretrial conference was scheduled for Dec. 12. He had also pleaded not guilty at his initial arraignment last year. Contreras remains in custody without bail. Wagstaffe said Wednesday he has not yet determined whether to seek the death penalty for Contreras. (source: San Francisco Examiner) **************** California's broken death penalty system can be fixed In 1978, California enacted today's California death penalty statute, the so-called Briggs Initiative. Now, Ron Briggs supports repealing the statute his "family wrote," but his argument reads more like a surrender to death penalty abolitionists ("Death penalty is destructive to California"; Forum, July 10). Instead of waving a white flag, Briggs should endorse Proposition 66, the Death Penalty Reform and Savings Act of 2016, as a worthy successor to his family's work. This initiative deals with the concerns Briggs raises about California's death penalty system. The reason that no executions have occurred in California for 10 years is the state's delay in drafting regulations for a method of execution. Otherwise, there could have been at least 15 sentences carried out during the past decade. It's outrageous that victims??? families were forced to sue the state to draft these regulations. Proposition 66 will prevent biased and unsympathetic politicians and government bureaucrats from interfering with this process. Proposition 66 also addresses concerns about how death row inmates occupy their time, requiring them to work or lose their privileges. If they owe restitution, it will come out of their wages. The proposal makes other significant reforms as well. It addresses the backlog of cases at the state level by expanding the pool of qualified counsel for death row inmates. The initiative expedites review of prisoners' complaints by returning their cases to the original trial court and prompts the Judicial Council to develop standards for the completion of appeals in state court in 5 years. Victims' families will have the right to sue to force them to meet deadlines. Briggs believes abolition will benefit victims' survivors by closing cases and sparing them further "wounds." That is offensive and presumptuous. In our experience, most survivors want "justice" for the murderers of their family members. Repealing the death penalty will not heal these peoples' wounds; it keeps them permanently open. Briggs naively touts life without parole as a sufficient alternative to the death penalty. He forgets that the last murderer executed in California, Clarence Ray Allen, was sentenced to death for the murder of 3 people, which he planned while already serving a life sentence for murder. Life imprisonment was not enough to protect the public from Allen. Moreover, victims' families will always be haunted by the specter that an inmate sentenced to life without parole will suddenly ask the governor to reduce a sentence - as happened recently in the case of a Fresno murderer who waited 36 years and applied for clemency. As long as an inmate sentenced to life without parole lives, the governor could reduce the sentence and a murderer may be released on the streets. Finally, Briggs is dead wrong to assert that the death penalty has been conclusively shown not to deter crime. Experience and common sense confirm a deterrent effect. Briggs risks lives on the unproven idea that the death penalty does not deter murder and that life sentences will protect public safety. Rather than capitulating to abolitionist arguments, he should support his families' legacy and endorse Proposition 66. (source: Opinion; Anne Marie Schubert is the Sacramento County district attorney---- Sacramento Bee) US MILITARY: New question burdens 9/11 trial: Can death-penalty case proceed without capital defender? War court prosecutors argued for the first time Wednesday that a 9/11 defendant could fire his death-penalty defender and go forward with the capital case with only a military attorney representing him. Army Col. James L. Pohl, the judge, appeared to sidestep the question and ruled instead that alleged Sept. 11 plot deputy Walid Bin Attash didn't have good cause to fire his seasoned criminal defense lawyer, Cheryl Bormann. The 2 haven't spoken since February. Marine Brig. Gen. John Baker is chief of the Military Commissions Defense Office. Moreover, Pohl gave Bin Attash a stark choice and a night to sleep on it before returning to court Thursday: Keep your 4-lawyer Pentagon-paid defense team or elect to represent yourself. So-called pro-se representation is not certain. If Bin Attash tries to invoke the option, Pohl has a 21-page script ready that cautions there are "difficulties and dangers of self-representation." The judge would use it to question the youngest of the 5 alleged Sept. 11 plotters on whether he is competent to serve as his own attorney in a national security setting where an accused terrorist cannot see all the evidence against him. Bin Attash's unhappiness with his attorneys has been, as Pohl put it, "festering" for months. In October, Bin Attash asked how self-representation would work, a question that paralyzed the court for a week while the script was written and translated. He asked to fire Bormann, a Chicago death penalty defender who dons a severe black abaya in court in deference to her client's Muslim sensibilities. Pohl met alone with the alleged terrorist and his lawyers, and denied the request. Now Bin Attash also wants to fire another civilian on his team, former Air Force Maj. Michael Schwartz. He's been on the case for 4 years. Last year, he resigned his commission to stay on it. In an unusual move, the general in charge of providing resources to the defense teams, Marine Brig. Gen. John Baker, filed an amicus brief that argued a defendant cannot fire an individual lawyer if Baker decides it's not in the captive's best interest. Baker, who represents no detainee but has been meeting with Bin Attash, told the judge in court that there was no good cause to get rid of any of the 4 lawyers defending Bin Attash. Both Schwartz and Bormann have been at every hearing since the case's May 5, 2012 arraignment, which stretched across 13 hours in part because Bin Attash refused to waive the reading of the 88-page charge sheet. Civilian defense attorney Edwin Perry and Army Maj. Matthew Seeger joined about a year ago. Wednesday, all 4 sat at the rear of the court, banished by Bin Attash from his defense table. Baker said Bin Attash has 2 choices: "Go either pro se or elect to be represented by counsel." Prosecutor Ed Ryan argued Pohl had a third option: Let Bin Attash fire everyone on his team except his lone military defense counsel, Seeger. Ryan said Bin Attash can waive certain counsel, including the statutorily mandated learned counsel, if the judge questions him and concludes that he does understand the ramifications. If he can't pick and choose, Ryan said, a defendant "can be coerced into representing himself." "The prosecution do not care who his lawyers are," said Ryan. "But it is incorrect and improper to say he has no vote on who his lawyers are." Bin Attash sits directly behind alleged mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the No. 2 position in court among the the 5 men accused of orchestrating, financing and training the men who hijacked four aircraft and killed nearly 3,000 people at the World Trade Center, Pentagon and a Pennsylvania field on Sept. 11, 2001. They could face military execution if they are convicted. The judge has set no trial date. (source: Miami Herald) From rhalperi at smu.edu Thu Jul 21 10:12:28 2016 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Thu, 21 Jul 2016 10:12:28 -0500 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide Message-ID: July 21 TURKEY: Experts: Restoring death penalty in Turkey would be risky Rights groups and legal experts said Wednesday that Turkey would be abandoning international rights conventions, and reverting to relics of military dictatorships if it reinstates the death penalty, which was abolished more than a decade ago. Since the failed coup, hundreds of protesters have chanted in support of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and demanded the restoration of the death penalty. Erdogan hasn't pushed back against those demands, saying reinstating it is a constitutional procedure that the parliament has to discuss. If the parliament approves it, he said, he would back it. "You cannot put aside the people's demands," Erdogan told hundreds of supporters late Monday at a rally outside his Istanbul home. But European leaders say talks on Turkey's bid to join the EU would end if Ankara restores the death penalty. Turkey abolished the death penalty in 2004, as part of its bid to join the bloc. Andrew Gardner, Amnesty researcher in Turkey, said it's ironic that the country has been among the main campaigners in the United Nations for countries to abolish capital punishment. The last execution carried out in Turkey was in 1984, following the last military coup in 1980. "The death penalty is a relic of military dictatorship in Turkey," Gardner said. "By bringing back the death penalty, Turkey would be disregarding its international commitments, massively complicating their international relations." A Turkish criminal lawyer said that even if capital punishment was reintroduced in Turkey, it couldn't be legally applied to any of the alleged perpetrators of the coup because it would be violating international rights principles. The reinstating of the death penalty would require an amendment to the constitution or a public referendum. A crime can't be punished retroactively with an amended law, said Vildan Yirmibesoglu, a criminal and human rights lawyer. "The suspect is tried with the existing law (at the time of the crime.) It is not possible to apply a law that has been enacted retroactively to a crime that has been committed in the past." (source: Associated Press) ********* Erdogan: Europe should respect decision to introduce death penalty Europe will have to respect the choice of Turkish people, if the death penalty is restored in the country, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said. "We have been knocking on the EU door for the past 53 years. They have made us wait for 53 years. Many countries who came after us are already in. I believe that this decision is up to the people. If the people say this must be done, any country that believes in democracy must respect this decision," Sputnik cited him as saying. (source: vestnikkavkaza.net) PHILIPPINES: On every level, death penalty is wrong A decade after ending the use of the death penalty and taking a lead role in a global campaign to abolish capital punishment, the Philippines is again considering sending prisoners to the gallows. This is deeply concerning on a number of fronts. Firstly, capital punishment is, in practice, fundamentally unjust. It disproportionately affects minorities, the poor, and those with mental disabilities. Moreover, by backsliding on this legislation the Philippines will disregard its international obligations. In November 2007, when the Philippines became a state party to the Second Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the country committed to renouncing capital punishment forever - a decision bound by international law. During his inauguration address on June 30, President Duterte vowed that the Philippines would honor treaties and international obligations. We trust he remains true to his word. The President won this year's election on the back of a promise to end crime in 3 to 6 months. The number of killings of suspected drug traffickers by police and others reported almost daily since the May 9 elections is shocking. I call on the President to take strong measures to stop this alarming trend. Exacting retribution against criminals may have popular support among the general public, but a credible judicial system must be grounded in justice, not vengeance. Is the death penalty an appropriate or effective response to narcotics offenses? The International Narcotics Control Board, which monitors the implementation of the UN drug control conventions, advises against capital punishment for drug offenses. The board has repeatedly recommended that to be effective, drug control action must be consistent with international human rights standards. More broadly, researchers in various countries have shown there is no conclusive evidence that use of the death penalty is a greater deterrent to crime than other methods of punishment. Countries where the death penalty has been abandoned did not, in general, record a rise in crimes. The death penalty is also irreversible: You can't un-execute someone. But even robust justice systems have sentenced innocent people to die. Since 1973, 156 people on death row in the United States have been exonerated, many of them, through DNA testing, according to the Innocence Project. Is the Philippines prepared to put to death men and women who may later be found innocent? Consider the experience of Mongolia, which first abolished the death penalty for ordinary crimes in the 1950s, then reintroduced it, before deciding, last December, to once again stop executing people. In reaching the decision, President Tsakhiagiin Elbegdorj said the people of Mongolia had suffered enough from the death penalty. In his words: "Removing the death penalty does not mean removing punishment. Criminals fear justice, and justice must be imminent and unavoidable. But we cannot repair one death with another." Fewer than 40 countries around the world continue to execute people. Around 170 countries have either abolished capital punishment, or have established a moratorium in law or practice. Will the Philippines move backward? Fear, despair and frustration clearly prevail among all Filipinos amid a rise in crime and drug-related offenses. But it is the duty of political leaders to adopt solutions to the country's challenges in ways that will support the rule of law and advance the protection of human rights. I urge the country to consider all these facts with an open mind. The arguments are convincing and decisive: On every level - from principle to practice - use of the death penalty is wrong. Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein is the UN high commissioner for human rights. (source: Opinion, Philippine Inquirer) ***************** House to pass priority 'Duterte bills' in 1 year - Alvarez The House of Representatives (HOR) will waste no time in passing the priority legislation of President Rodrigo Duterte after he delivers his first State of the Nation Address (SONA) on July 25. Thus, said presumptive Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez as he highlighted the three measures that the congressmen would focus on. Up for deliberation in the 17th Congress, are the proposed 2017 national budget, the joint resolutions for convening a Constitutional Convention (Con-Con) that will amend the Constitution to pave the way for a shift from the unitary to a federal system of government, and bills seeking the restoration of the death penalty and reducing the age of criminal liability of juvenile offenders from 15 to 9 years old. The House will try to pass all the proposed bills within a year, Alvarez said. Crafting the budget is traditionally the Lower Chamber's 1st priority whenever it begins its sessions. As for the other 2 measures, these have been aggressively advocated by President Duterte himself. Duterte and Alvarez are Partido Demokratiko Pilipino-Lakas ng Bayan (PDP-Laban) chairman and secretary-general, respectively. Duterte is a former Davao City mayor while Alvarez is the current Davao del Norte 1st district representative. (source: mb.com.ph) SINGAPORE: Grisly find at Lim Chu Kang: Man charged with murder A 48-year-old man has been charged with the murder of a woman last seen alive 1 1/2 weeks ago. Leslie Khoo Kwee Hock is accused of murdering Ms Cui Yajie, 31, on Jul 12 at Gardens by the Bay (East) - the area off Tanjong Rhu Road. According to the charge sheet, the murder allegedly took place between 8am and 10.11am. Ms Cui, an engineer, was last seen at Fusionopolis Walk the night before her death. She was reported missing on Jul 14 after she stopped reporting to work on Jul 12. As there were suspicious circumstances surrounding her disappearance, officers from Clementi Division worked closely with officers from the Criminal Investigation Department and Police Intelligence Department to conduct investigations, and established Khoo's identity. The 48-year-old was arrested on Wednesday and led officers to the remains at a deserted road at Lim Chu Kang Lane 8, near the dairy farms in the area. Channel NewsAsia understands that no weapon has been found. He arrived at the State Courts on Thursday afternoon in an unmarked police car, and was cuffed and seated in the back seat flanked by 2 plainclothes officers. If found guilty of murder, Khoo faces the mandatory death penalty. Khoo has been remanded 1 week for further investigations. He will next appear in court on Jul 28. (source: channelnewsasia.com) JAPAN: Top court upholds death penalty for killer Tsutsui The Supreme court on Thursday rejected an appeal against a lower court decision to give the death sentence to 31-year-old Gota Tsutsui over the 2011 murder of 2 family members of a former girlfriend. The defense for Tsutsui, from the city of Kuwana in Mie Prefecture, maintained his innocence throughout multiple trials. But the top court upheld lower court rulings, saying that the courts found he had committed the murders based on objective evidence. "There is no room for leniency, given his motive of 1-sided obsession to retake the former girlfriend and of getting rid of her family members that he considered as an obstacle, even by killing them," presiding Judge Masayuki Ikegami said at the court's First Petty Bench. "The result that he took the lives of 2 people who had done nothing wrong was grave." According to the Supreme Court ruling, Tsutsui assaulted the former girlfriend in Chiba Prefecture in 2011. In pursuit of her, the accused then broke into her family's home in Nagasaki Prefecture and stabbed to death her mother, Mitsuko Yamashita, 56, and grandmother Hisae, 77. The incident revealed inappropriate police responses, including a lack of cooperation among the Chiba, Mie and Nagasaki prefectural police departments, when the woman consulted with police over the stalking case. It also found a delay in accepting a complaint from her because an officer in charge of stalking and other cases went on a trip with co-workers. (source: Japan Times) ****************** Man sentenced to death for murders of 2 elderly people in Gunma The Maebashi District Court in Gunma Prefecture on Wednesday sentenced a 27-year-old man to death for the murders of 2 elderly citizens in November and December 2014. The court heard that Kazuya Tsuchiya broke into the home of Tanekichi Kawaura, 81, and his 80-year-old wife, on Dec 16, 2014, and stabbed them, Fuji TV reported. Tanekichi died of his wounds later, while his wife sustained minor injuries. Tsuchiya also fatally stabbed Yoshie Kojima, 93, at her home in the same area in November. He stole 5,000 yen and some food from Kojima's home. Tsuchiya was arrested on Dec 23, 2014, after breaking into a ramen restaurant. He admitted to both crimes and told police he desperately needed money. At the time of his arrest, Tsuchiya only had 100 yen on him and the gas and electricity to his apartment had been disconnected as he hadn???t paid his bills in months, police said. (source: Japan Today) SAUDI ARABIA----execution Saudi Arabia 'executes 99th person this year' to overtake 2015 rate----'Saudi Arabia is out of step with a global trend of states moving away from the death penalty', says Amnesty International Saudi Arabia has executed its 99th person this year, continuing the trend to more death penalties yearly in the Kingdom. The conservative country, which publicly beheads citizens and foreigners for a variety of crimes, has reportedly executed more people than this time last year by reaching almost 100 this month. Accused murderer Hassan bin Mubarak al-Amri was the 99th person to be executed in the state-sanctioned punishment, which is usually performed with a sword. Sara Hashah, Amnesty International's Middle East and North Africa spokesperson, said Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Iran were responsible for 90 per cent of all recorded executions globally and were "out of step" with the rest of the world. "In Saudi Arabia, where people are routinely sentenced to death after grossly unfair trials, we have seen a dramatic surge in the number of executions in the past 2 years which has shown no sign of abating in 2016," she told The Independent. "This clearly demonstrates that Saudi Arabia???s authorities are increasingly out of step with a global trend of states moving away from the death penalty. "Saudi Arabia's authorities must end their reliance on this cruel, inhuman and degrading form of punishment immediately." The number of death sentences in the Kingdom was swelled by the 47 people executed on January 2 on charges of Al Qaeda-related terrorist activity. The execution of a Shia cleric among them provoked international condemnation and the cutting-off of diplomatic ties between Riyadh and Tehran. Last year was already a record-high for executions in Saudi Arabia, with 158 people sentenced to death in total compared to 90 in 2014. (source: independent.co.uk) ************* Saudi blood money A court in Saudi Arabia has demanded 300,000 riyal (Rs 9 million) in blood money from a Nepali driver from Kavre accused of killing a Pakistani in a traffic accident. Ramchandra Timilisina of Kushadevi will have to face the death penalty if he cannot manage the money. Timilsina had gone to Saudi Arabia to pay off a Rs 600,000 debt and to educate his children. He has been in Hayal Central Jail for the past 15 months. Timilsina has maintained that his truck had been loaded with cement from Jabirah Hayal Cement Company and was parked within the company's premises when a vehicle driven by the Pakistani ran into his truck. "It was their fault, but they planted an alcohol bottle in my truck and got me arrested," Timilsina told relatives over the phone. In Nepal, Timilsina drove a minibus on the Panauti-Kathmandu route, and said he is a teetotaler. The Nepal Embassy in Riyadh has been no help, and Timilsina's family back home is desperate to raise the money. He has 2 sons 5 and 7 years old. His wife Sarita has been living in a temporary shelter after the earthquake for which she borrowed Rs 50,000. (source: Nepali Times) INDIA: India shame: VHP sought death penalty for Akhlaq's family After registration of an FIR against Mohammad Akhlaq's family in the Dadri lynching episode, the Vishwa Hindu Parishad has demanded death penalty for the family. According to a report published in The Hindu, a meeting was held on Monday in Bishahra, which was attended by Senior VHP functionary Jugal Kishor and other VHP activist . Kishor put forward the demand of death penalty of Akhlaq's family after UP police registered an FIR against them under the U.P. Prevention of Cow Slaughter Act, 1955, and the Animal Cruelty Act . "It has been our long-standing demand that those who slaughter cows should be given the death penalty. We demand the same thing in this case where it is proven now that a cow was slaughtered by Akhlaq and his family," Mr. Kishor said. "We will demand the arrest of Akhlaq's family and will also ask for death penalty," said a local VHP leader who attend the meeting. Locals stayed away from the VHP meeting, with the village head even condemning the "attempts to communally polarise the village." Kaushalya, the new village head condemned the attempts to disturbed communal atmosphere in the village. She told The Hindu corespondent that no villager had invited the VHP leader. "No villager went to the meeting, which was anyway not a village function. We strongly condemn the attempt to disturb communal harmony," she said. Akhlaq was lynched allegedly by his neighbours in Dadri last September over rumours that he and his family had stored beef. (source: siasat.com) ************ 40-year-old sentenced to death for raping, killing minor in MP A 40-year-old man -- accused of abducting, raping and killing a 13-year-old girl in Chichli area of Narsinghpur district in May 2015 -- was given a death penalty by a Narsinghpur court on Tuesday. According to prosecution sources, Narsinghpur additional sessions court judge Pratibha Sathwane held the accused -- Baba alias Ravishankar Vishwakarma -- guilty under different sections of the IPC relating to rape, murder and abduction and also provisions of Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act 2012. The judge pronounced the death sentence and also slapped Rs 2,100 penalty. The judge also awarded other punishments under different sections, spanning from 7 years of rigorous imprisonment to life sentence under other sections of the IPC. Narsinghpur superintendent of police M Shrivastava said the judge termed the case as rarest of rare crime. First death penalty awarded by any court in Narsinghpur since independence "It is the 1st death penalty awarded by any court in Narsinghpur district since the country attained independence," claimed Shrivastava. The 13-year-old girl, a resident of a village in Chichli area, had gone missing on May 21, 2015 after which her family reported the matter to the police. The Chichli police recovered the girl's body the next day from a well in the adjoining Baglai village. The girl's post mortem examination revealed that she was raped before being strangled to death. Investigations led the police to 3 suspects in July 2015. The DNA samples of the three were matched with the DNA profile of the deceased girl generated from her vaginal smear. Ravishankar was then detained after which he admitted to committing the crime. (source: Hindustan Times) From rhalperi at smu.edu Thu Jul 21 10:13:24 2016 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Thu, 21 Jul 2016 10:13:24 -0500 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide Message-ID: July 21 IRAN----executions 10 Prisoners Executed at Rajai Shahr Prison in 1 Day----The execution spree of the Iranian authorities continues with 10 executions carried out on Wednesday July 20 at Rajai Shahr Prison. About 38 executions have been reported in Iran in the past week. A group of ten prisoners were executed at Rajai Shahr Prison (Alborz province, northern Iran) on Wednesday July 20, according to sources close to Iran Human Rights (IHR). The prisoners were reportedly on death row on unrelated murder charges. IHR calls on the international community to draw attention to the rising number of executions in Iran. "Although these prisoners were executed for criminal charges, the main goal of the executions is to spread fear in the society. The International community should not close its eyes to the arbitrary executions in Iran," says Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam, spokesperson for Iran Human Rights. The prisoners had been transferred to solitary confinement on Sunday July 17 in preparation for their executions scheduled for Wednesday. Iran Human Rights has identified 4 of the prisoners as Mohsen Babaie, Mehdi Keshavarz, Reza Teymouri and Mohsen Khanmohammadi. Iranian official sources, including the Judiciary and state media, have been silent about these 10 executions. About 38 executions have been reported in Iran in the past week. (source: Iran Human Rights) ******************* Brutal guards attack death row prisoners in Iran's Ghezel Hesar Prison Prison guards at the notorious Ghezel Hesar Prison in Karaj, north-west of Tehran, brutally attacked inmates in the death row ward earlier this week. With black masks covering their faces the vicious guards attacked the prisoners on Monday (July 18) in order to create a climate of fear, according to reports from inside the prison. The prisoners said that such brutal measures are meant to scare prisoners and stop them from revolting in prison. (source: NCR-Iran) KUWAIT: Kuwait court upholds death penalty in terror case----In January, lower court found 23 of the 26 guilty of various crimes and 2 were sentenced to death Kuwait's Court of Appeal on Thursday upheld the death sentence of one of the two defendants who were awarded capital punishment by a lower court in the terrorist cell case No. 302/2016. The other, an Iranian, is at large and was sentenced by the lower court in absentia. While 3 defendants were acquitted, the other 21 received sentences ranging from 5 to 15 years in prison. According to the Kuwait News Agency, KUNA, 1 of them was fined KD5,000 ($16,500 approximately). Kuwaiti security service officers raided farmhouses near the Iraqi border late last summer, slicing through carpets and smashing open concrete floors. Hidden in large plastic containers was a weapons cache, the largest discovered in Kuwait's history. State television showed Kuwait's Interior Minister, a senior ruling family member, solemnly viewing the seized weapons. Kuwait charged 25 of its nationals and an Iranian with spying for Iran and Lebanese Shiite group Hezbollah. The case opened up sectarian divisions in Kuwait. While Kuwait's Sunni majority and Shiite minority get on better with each other than in neighbouring states, tensions still exist. In January this year, a Kuwaiti court found 23 of the 26 guilty of various charges. 2 were sentenced to death, including the Iranian who is at large. The others were fined or received jail terms between 5 years and life. The prosecution is appealing the sentences, saying some of the men should have received tougher punishments. On September 1 last year, Kuwait's public prosecution said 26 defendants, including the Iranian, would stand trial for the possession of weapons, ammunition and explosives and espionage for Iran and Hezbollah. It said that 24 defendants faced charges of engaging in acts likely to undermine the unity and safety of Kuwait and sharing of intelligence with Iran and Lebanese group Hezbollah. Iran-Kuwait spat However, the Iranian embassy on September 3 downplayed the significance of the terrorist cell and the charges of espionage, saying that the case was a domestic Kuwaiti issue pertaining mainly to the discovery of weapons and ammunition. The embassy said it regretted the move to implicate Iran in the case and called upon the Kuwaiti authorities to communicate the identity and "alleged role" of the Iranian suspect. The embassy blasted Kuwaiti media for its "negative incitement against the Kuwaiti-Iranian relations" and for "targeting Iran based on flimsy charges, so far unproven by the judicial authorities". In September, Kuwait summoned Iran's ambassador to the country and handed him a reply to a statement issued earlier by the Iranian embassy on the busting of the terror cell. The reply was handed over by Deputy Foreign Minister Khalid Sulaiman Al Jarallah to Ambassador Ali Reza Enayati, the foreign ministry said. "The reply included clarifications about Kuwait's stance on the issue," the ministry said in a brief statement carried by KUNA on Monday. The ministry had earlier rejected the Iranian embassy's statement following the referral of suspects to a court over their espionage links with Iran and Hezbollah, saying that it was not consistent with basic diplomatic norms. A spokesperson said the foreign ministry regretted and rejected the embassy statement for ignoring basic diplomatic norms that require resorting to official communication channels between governments when seeking information regarding a specific issue, and not going to the public media instead. (source: Gulf News) GAZA: Palestinian organization blasts latest Hamas death sentences----Palestinian Center for Human Rights condemns death sentences handed down to alleged Israeli spies in Gaza. A Palestinian Authority-based human rights organization on Wednesday condemned the latest death sentences handed down by tribunals in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip, AFP reports. On Tuesday, a military court in Gaza sentenced three local residents to death after they were convicted of providing information to Israel's security services. The trial of the alleged "spies" was held behind closed doors and without the presence of the media. The Gaza Military Court announced a sentence of death by hanging for a man identified as M.S., aged 59, from the Tuffah area east of Gaza city on charges of "collaborating with the Israeli occupation." The Higher Military Court said it had confirmed execution orders against 2 other men, one a 49-year-old man from Khan Yunis, by hanging and a Gaza City man aged 38 by firing squad. In response, the Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR) condemned in a statement the "excessive" punishment and said that "civilians should not appear before military courts." The authorities in Gaza executed 3 men behind closed doors in May, the 1st time the death penalty had been carried out since 2014. 13 death sentences have been pronounced this year, 12 of which were issued by military courts, according to PCHR. Hamas regularly claims to have captured "Israeli spies", and many times it tries them and sentences them to death. In one such example, the group claimed to have exposed "the most dangerous intelligence agent" who allegedly worked for the Israel Security Agency (Shin Bet). Under Palestinian law, collaboration with Israel is punishable by death. All death sentences, however, require the approval of Palestinian Authority (PA) chairman Mahmoud Abbas, who issued a moratorium on death sentences in 2005. Hamas ignores the moratorium and carries out the executions anyway, as it no longer recognizes the legitimacy of Abbas, whose 4-year term expired in 2009. Amnesty International has previously called on Hamas to stop the executions of suspected collaborators, saying that the group "must immediately and totally cease its use of the death penalty." (source: Israel National News) ************ Palestinian NGO condemns latest Gaza death sentence A Palestinian human rights organisation condemned on Wednesday the latest death sentences handed down by tribunals in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip. A military court in the coastal Palestinian enclave condemned a local man to death on Tuesday on charges of collaborating with Israel, while death sentences issued previously against 2 others were confirmed by a higher military tribunal. The Gaza Military Court announced a sentence of death by hanging for the man identified as M.S., aged 59, from the Tuffah area east of Gaza city on charges of "collaborating with the Israeli occupation." The Higher Military Court said it had confirmed execution orders against 2 other men, one a 49-year-old man from Khan Yunis, by hanging and a Gaza City man aged 38 by firing squad. Both men were convicted of aiding Israeli security forces. The Palestinian Center for Human Rights condemned in a statement the "excessive" punishment and said that "civilians should not appear before military courts." The authorities in Gaza executed 3 men behind closed doors in May, the 1st time the death penalty had been carried out since 2014. 13 death sentences have been pronounced this year, 12 of which were issued by military courts, according to PCHR. In total, 177 death sentences have been handed out since the creation of the Palestinian Authority in 1994, 30 in the West Bank and 147 in Gaza. Of these, 35 were carried out, all but 2 in the Gaza Strip. (source: Agence France-Presse) BANGLADESH: High Court verdict on death references, appeals of 2005 Gazipur Bar bombing convicts July 28 The bench of Justice M Enayetur and Justice JBM Hassan fixed the date after the hearing of the death references, appeals against death sentences, and jail appeals ended on Wednesday. Deputy Attorney General Sheikh AKM Moniruzzaman Kabir and Assistant Attorney General Shahidul Islam Khan represented the State. Kabir later told bdnews24.com that 10 Jama'atul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) operatives, sentenced to death for the killings, had pleaded guilty. "We have sought to uphold the death sentences," he said. Md Helal Uddin, one of the defence lawyers, said the defence sought reduction of the death sentences to life imprisonment, considering the age of the convicts. The 10 convicts, all behind bars, are Enayet Ullah, Arifur Rahman, Masidul Islam Masud, Saidur Rahman Munsi, Abdullah Al Sohain, Nizam Uddin Reza, Taibur Rahman Hassan, Md Ashraful Islam, Md Shafiullah Tarek and Adnan Sami Jahangir. After the verdict in 2013, the death references of the convicts were sent to the High Court for approval the same year. 4 of the convicts had challenged the death penalty, while all 10 filed jail appeals. According to the case details, JMB activist Azad - also known by many aliases such as Zia, Nazir and Nahid - had exploded 2 bombs in a suicide attack at Hall-2 of Gazipur District Bar Association office on Nov 29, 2005, after entering the building in a lawyer's gown. The blasts had killed the association's General Secretary Amzad Hossain, lawyers Golam Faruque, Nurul Huda and Anwarul Azim and four of their clients. Police started the case against a number of JMB leaders including Shaykh Abdur Rahman and Ataur Rahman Sani, the suicide attacker and his accomplices. 2 years later, police submitted the chargesheet accusing 15 JMB leaders and operatives. But the names of Azad and his accomplice Molla Omar Shakil, Rahman, Sani and another top JMB leader, Khaled Saifullah, were dropped as they were all dead by the time formal charges were brought against them. 6 JMB leaders, including Rahman, Sani and Saifullah, accused of abetment in the bombing, were hanged on Mar29, 2007 for murdering 2 judges in Jhalakathi. A Gazipur court framed charges against the 10 remaining JMB members accused in the case on Apr 24, 2011. On Oct 3, the case was transferred to Dhaka's Speedy Trial Tribunal-4 that sentenced them to death in June 2013. The 10 convicts were arrested between 2005 and 2006. (source: bdnews24.com) GUYANA: Guyana should abolish death penalty instead of enacting new laws with such punishment Guyana and other countries that have enacted laws to sentence convicted terrorists to death should take steps to repeal them and also abolish the death penalty altogether, top international advocates against the death penalty said Wednesday. Commissioner with the International Commission against the Death Penalty, Justice Navi Pillay told a news conference ahead of a judicial colloquium with Guyanese judges and magistrates that she hoped that Guyana would review its Terrorism Act that has 12 provisions for the death penalty. "You don't pass a law just because something terrible has happened. Law is not done emotionally. The rule of law follows international standards and Guyana is very much a part of the international community, has passed many international treaties and so they are bound to pass laws that are certain and definite and not responding each time to terrorism acts committed here, France or wherever," she told a news conference at the Marriott Hotel. Although Guyana has amended its law to provide for the death penalty only if joint service members or members of the judiciary are killed in the line of duty, quite recently a High Court Judge sentenced a man to death for the murder of 2 brothers at Victoria, East Coast Demerara. Pillay stressed the importance of complying with international law by not merely having a 20-year moratorium on the death penalty but legally abolishing it. "We will lend our voice to ask Guyana to advance forward and not go backward," she said, adding that Guyana should be proud that no one has been executed in 1997. United Nations Assistant Secretary General in the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, Ivan Simonovic added that "there is no conclusive evidence that the death penalty deters any crime including terrorism." The panel, which was due to deliver presentations to the judges and magistrates, has already met with Attorney General and Minister of Legal Affairs, Basil Williams and was scheduled to hold talks with Public Security Minister, Khemraj Ramjattan. Pillay noted President David Granger's outspoken commitment to deal with the protection of women and children and addressing inter-personal violence. Guyana is the only South American country with the death penalty on its law books. (source: demerarewaves.com) UNITED KINGDOM: UKIP leadership election: Bill Etheridge MEP calls for cheap beer and death penalty vote West Midlands MEP Bill Etheridge is standing to replace Nigel Farage as UKIP leader - with proposals including cheaper beer, justice for fathers and a referendum on bringing back the death penalty. Mr Etheridge, who is also a Dudley councillor, launched his campaign at the Seven Stars pub in Sedgley, saying: "I want us to represent the view of the people against the establishment." It follows the resignation of UKIP leader Nigel Farage, who quit after the country voted to leave the European Union in last month's referendum. And the MEP has set out a series of radical policies. They include holding a referendum on bringing back the death penalty for the most serious crimes. He said: "For my part I believe that the very worst crimes deserve the ultimate penalty and I propose that those who murder and rape children, those that commit sadistic acts of murder and torture and those that commit acts of murder through terrorism against our country or our people should be subject to the death penalty at the discretion of the presiding judge." Other proposals include changing family law so that the default judgment when families break up is that both partners should be involved in parenting. In practice this would usually benefit fathers. Campaigners say 200 children a day lose contact with their fathers due to judgments made in family courts, and Mr Etheridge says this helps explain why suicide is the biggest killer of men under 50. He said: "If elected leader I shall be making this a key policy for UKIP, showing that we are so much more than a 1 issue party." The MEP has also called for a drastic reduction in the price of a pint as one way of reinvigorating the British pub. Mr Etheridge said he believed that slashing the duty on beer would rapidly pay for itself, with reductions in smuggling alcohol and growth in the licensed trade. And he also said there may be a case for bringing back smoking in pubs. He said: "When I visit Brussels, I see people legally smoking indoors, in a well ventilated smoking booth. Perhaps we should investigate whether they would work in pubs?" Other candidates in the contest include North East MEP Jonathan Arnott, North West MEP Steven Woolfe and Cambridgeshire councillor Lisa Duffy. (source: birminghammail.co.uk) From rhalperi at smu.edu Fri Jul 22 08:30:44 2016 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Fri, 22 Jul 2016 08:30:44 -0500 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----GA., FLA., IND., CALIF., USA Message-ID: July 22 GEORGIA: Legal Team Reflects on Path to Supreme Court Win in Georgia Death Penalty Case When staff members of Atlanta's Southern Center for Human Rights began tracking down African-American jurors eliminated from the 1987 jury that convicted an 18-year-old black teenager of a white woman's murder, they were struck to find that, 30 years later, two of them still remembered the disdain they had faced. One African-American man recalled that he went home and told his wife that none of the blacks in the jury pool were going to be chosen, said Katie Chamblee, one of several lawyers who worked on Georgia death row inmate Timothy Foster's appeal. "He was devastated he wouldn't be part of the process just because he was black." An African-American woman who was also eliminated from Foster's 1987 jury recalled her humiliation when questioned by prosecutors about why she worked 2 jobs. Said Chamblee: "In a room filled with tons of people, she had to explain she was poor. ... It had a real impact on her." On May 23, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 7-1 to reverse Foster's conviction and death penalty sentence and remand the case for a new trial. Chief Justice John Roberts' majority opinion in Foster v. Chatman called the "sheer number of references to race" in court files "arresting" and concluded that the Georgia prosecutors "were motivated in substantial part by race" in violation of the Supreme Court's 1986 ruling in Batson v. Kentucky. Justice Clarence Thomas, in dissent, wrote that the majority had not given enough deference to the trial judge and that "new evidence should not justify the relitigation of Batson claims." Southern Center president and senior counsel Stephen Bright, staff attorneys Patrick Mulvaney and Chamblee, and investigator Kristen Samuels on Tuesday night spoke to the Georgia chapter of the American Constitution Society about Foster's death penalty conviction and how they came to believe that it had been grounded in racism. The Southern Center lawyers said Tuesday night that the high court ruling likely saved Foster's life. Georgia has executed 12 people in the past two years. Bright said Foster's case will eventually be returned to the Rome judicial circuit where he expects Foster will be retried for the murder of a 79-year-old Queen White, a retired schoolteacher who was sexually assaulted, bludgeoned and strangled. Bright said the seminal Batson decision - which barred removal of potential jurors solely because of their race - was only a year old when Foster went to trial. But court transcripts showed that Foster's defense lawyers from the beginning warned the judge that prosecutors would still strike every African-American from the jury. "There was never any suggestion there would not be a Batson hearing," Bright said. "There was no question they would strike all the blacks. It was when they would have it." Bright said at one point, prosecutors demanded that defense lawyers apologize to them personally and to the community for accusing them of racism. "Given what we found out later, that took a bit of audacity," he said. Years later, when the Southern Center was appealing Foster's sentence, it obtained prosecutors' jury selection notes through a public records request. Those notes revealed the prosecutorial team had highlighted the names of every African-American member of the jury pool in green. To further make the point, Bright and Mulvaney said there was a key at the top of each page saying that names in green were African-Americans. A "B" also had been placed by the name of every black prospective juror, they said. The 5 black individuals among the prospective jurors eventually were struck. Those notes, Mulvaney said, "changed the whole picture." When Mulvaney filed Foster's petition asking the U.S. Supreme Court to hear the case, he decided to embed images of those color-coded names in the brief and submit it to the high court in color "to show how outrageous it was," he said, "and that the Georgia courts had no problem with any of it." (source: Daily Report) FLORIDA: Kimberly Lucas lawyers fight death penalty in daughter's death The case of a Jupiter woman charged with drowning the 2-year-old daughter she shared with her estranged partner continued on Thursday to twist through the legal tangles surrounding Florida???s death penalty. In a hearing for Kimberly Lucas, Circuit Judge Charles Burton granted a request from Lucas' lawyers to throw out paperwork prosecutors filed earlier this year announcing their intent to seek the death penalty against her. Burton will allow prosecutors to refile a notice of their intent to seek sertain aggravating factors as a basis for their death penalty quest and give Lucas' defense a chance to respond before deciding whether to keep a possible death sentence in play. This all comes ahead of Lucas' expected January trial in the murder of Elliana Lucas-Jamason and the attempted murder of the former couple's 10-year-old son, Ethan. The legal wrangling is all tied to a U.S. Supreme Court decision earlier this year declaring Florida's death penalty system unconstitutional because it limited a jury's power in requiring a simple majority to make a recommendation to a judge for a life or death sentence. Florida lawmakers in March rewrote the law to require juries to agree unanimously on aggravating factors prosecutors must prove to get a death sentence and also required at least a 10-2 jury vote for death in order for a defendant to receive the penalty. That too has been contested and is before Florida's Supreme Court, which recessed for the summer without issuing an opinion on the matter. Jacquelyn Jamason, the children's mother and the woman who was Lucas' longtime partner, has in the past said that she is neither for or against the death penalty. Jamason has, however, consistently expressed disappointment with the slow path that the May 2014 case hs taken through the system. "It's frustrating. She would like to see the case get to trial," Jamason said Thursday through her attorney, Jim Eisenberg. (source: Palm Beach Post) *************** Murder suspect who escaped Florida courthouse apprehended A murder suspect who authorities say escaped from a South Florida courthouse with the help of 5 other people has been apprehended in a nearby county. The Broward County Sheriff's Office said in a statement that the search for 21-year-old Dayonte Resiles ended with his capture shortly before 11 p.m. Wednesday in Palm Beach County. Broward County Sheriff Scott Israel told reporters early Thursday that Resiles surrendered at a Days Inn in West Palm Beach. Resiles, who was alone, obeyed orders from a SWAT team to come out of a room, Israel said. He lay on the ground and allowed himself to be handcuffed. No force was necessary, the sheriff said. There probably will be people eligible for the $50,000 reward that had been offered for information leading to his capture, Israel said. Resiles bolted out of a Fort Lauderdale courtroom last Friday as he was awaiting a hearing, ran down several flights of stairs and got away with help from accomplices, authorities say. Five people have been arrested and charged with helping him flee. Resiles is accused in the 2014 stabbing death of 59-year-old Jill Halliburton Su, whose family founded the Halliburton oil services company. Her body was found, bound at the hands and feet and stabbed multiple times, in the bathtub of her home in Davie, Florida, according to a police report. Prosecutors say Resiles killed Su during an attempted burglary, and they filed papers earlier this year saying they planned to seek the death penalty. Resiles has pleaded not guilty and his attorney is trying to get the death penalty off the table. Investigators say Friday's escape was carefully planned by Resiles and his accomplices. Authorities search Dayonte Resiles after he escaped Resiles was sitting in the jury box when he escaped his shackles, jumped a courtroom barrier and ran past bailiffs. A car was waiting near the courthouse with a change of clothes, authorities say. Fellow jail inmate Walter M. Hart III, 22, on Wednesday became the 5th person charged in the escape. Courthouse video shows Hart, who is awaiting trial in a separate 2014 murder case, "work in concert with Resiles to begin to defeat the shackling system used to secure inmates," according to an arrest report. With his back to the camera, the report says Hart "holds up the waist chain, which allows Resiles to begin manipulating the restraints," leading to his escape moments later. Also charged are Resiles' 18-year-old girlfriend, LaQuay Stern, who authorities say was waiting outside in the car, and 3 others. According to arrest documents, the escape was planned during several phone calls and visitations. Sheriff Israel has said armed deputies, rather than unarmed bailiffs, will now accompany maximum-security inmates in the courtroom. The sheriff has promised an investigation into the circumstances of the escape. (source: Associated Press) INDIANA: Former Judge Dennis Parry recalls the only death sentence handed down in the county's recent history On Jan. 27, 2006, at 1:17 a.m. in Michigan City, the state of Indiana carried out a sentence that ended the life of Marvin Beighler through a lethal injection. That morning marked the end of a process that took 17 years, a process that began in Howard County and hasn't been repeated in the area since. 25 years prior, in 1981, the route leading to Beighler's eventual death began. A known drug dealer, Beighler stood accused of murdering Tom and Kim Miller. Kim was pregnant at the time. As a result of these accusations, Beighler eventually was jailed and faced the first capital murder charge Howard County had seen. This caused his path to intersect with then Howard County Superior Court 1 Judge Dennis Parry. The memories of the trial, and the burden of sentencing a man to death, stick with Parry to this day. "Morality and any punishment is a big issue," said Parry. "A judge is a human, and there are morals that we all have. Some are better than others. Some are different than others. But when you take somebody's freedom, it's important because freedom is so important in this country. All of us are entitled to due process and fair treatment and the legalities of it, but they could suffer punishment." According to Parry, the trial itself called for many special circumstances, of which he was primarily required to handle. He elected to send out 150 jury notifications for the trial's jury selection. That number eclipsed the typical 30, as did the requirement of a 12-person jury for a capital murder trial. Normally, he said, 6 were selected at the time for trials. 3 alternates also were selected. The process, he said, was arduous, lasting three weeks as potential jurors were vetted by the defense counsel and prosecutors in the case. And the housing of the jury, once it was selected, also called for special circumstances. A concern existed during the trial not only of outside contact influencing the jurors, but also potential retribution from Beighler's mafia contacts also was feared. "They were going to be sequestered," said Parry. "I had gone to the Ramada through one of the sheriff's officers, and we reserved one whole third floor of the Ramada in one wing. Even though we didn't need it all, we reserved it all. We put cameras on each end of the hallway and in the middle was a room that was the security office with monitors so they could monitor the hallways at all times. We had intelligence and information that the big people in his group, probably out of Chicago or Detroit, were going to try to influence the jury, taint them, prejudice them, and cause real problems." Beginning the trial With the jury selected, the trial moved forward. The defense and prosecution made their cases, both of which Parry said he recalls in detail. For the prosecution, the primary witness was Scott Brook, a bodyguard for Beighler. According to Brook's testimony, drug dealers working for Beighler had been arrested ,and Brook's boss became convinced that the Millers had snitched. "He became convinced that they were the ones," said Parry. "He and Scotty Brook had been somewhere north in Cass County drinking and doing drugs, and they got really agitated. For days they had been target practicing with a pistol down around New London, out in the country. They had the pistol with them, and they got convinced the Millers did it. "Marvin stormed out of the bar and got in his car, and Brook joined him. They drove to Russiaville where the Millers lived in a trailer with their 2-year-old. (Kim) was pregnant. Scotty Brook delayed getting out of the car, according to him, and was right behind Marvin by about 10 steps or so. Marvin busted in the trailer, and the Millers were in bed. They went back into the bedroom, evidently ordered them to get on the floor, and shot each of them while they laid on the floor. Brook saw that from the hallway. He saw him pointing a gun, then put dimes on the floor." The dimes, according to Parry, were an indication of gang retribution. Beighler and Brook were arrested the next day because they were known associates of the Millers. During the trial the prosecution also obtained a ballistic match between the rounds fired through the Millers and bullets retrieved from a tree used for target practice by Brook and Beighler. Brook showed the area to investigators. The defense, on the other hand, worked to discredit Brook, who received a plea deal as part of his testimony in the case. Charlie Scruggs was appointed to Beighler's defense, along with another attorney because the law required 2 defense attorneys. Brook's testimony lasted 3 days. "He testified to their drinking and all that, the target practice, and how Biegler talked about killing the Millers several days before it happened," said Parry. "He talked about their night of drinking and drugs in Cass County, how they went to the trailer that night, and everything he saw at the trailer and afterwards. That was his major case. The jury here had to believe him or disbelieve him. Of course, the defense tried to impeach him, saying he lied because he got a deal. The told the jury what the deal was. It wasn't something they didn't know. The jury knew he was getting a deal to testify. That's always a sticking point. 1 or 2 jurors might think it's a lie because he's getting something to do this." The jurors At the heart of the trial was, of course, the jurors. During the trial's roughly month-long process they were kept at the local Ramada Inn. Each day their needs were cared for by the county, with Parry arranging for everything from meals - with jurors eating at the hotel for breakfast, at the court for lunch, and dinner at a location of their choosing with an allowance for a single cocktail during dinner - to even barbers and hairdressers as was needed. The absence from normality took a toll on the 15 jurors. "Probably in the 5th week of the jury, one of the juror's husbands got very upset because he hadn't seen his wife in 4 1/2 weeks," said Parry. "He used to come to the Ramada, stand in the parking lot, and wave at her. She'd wave out the window. That's the only contact they had. "One evening he came in and tried to get down the hallway to see his wife. He was totally upset, disheveled and hadn't shaved. He said he had not been out of her presence since they were in high school, and he had never been this long without his wife around. He was really upset. They took him to jail. They actually wrestled him to the floor in the hotel because he was so upset. I went out to the jail and talked to him. He was afraid they would be months, and I said, 'No, no, no, give us another week, and we'll be done.' And we were." The jury's decision was difficult, with its members returning to the judge multiple times to ask questions before delivering a verdict of guilty in the trial. However, the process wasn't over. After a decision had been reached concerning Beighler's guilt, his punishment had to be decided by the jury. "We finished that, and then I told them, 'Now we have a 2nd trial,'" said Parry. "Up to that point they did not know. They had a 2nd trial on the penalty portion. The jury is allowed to hear evidence on whether or not he dies or gets life in prison. That took a couple days. Then they went back in, and they deliberated that because they make a recommendation as a jury to the judge. They can come back and recommend death or recommend life. The judge is not bound by their recommendation, but they make that recommendation." Life or death A recommendation of death was decided, and then the burden fell upon Parry's shoulders to decide if Beighler lived or died while the jury was excused. "We'd been together for 6 weeks, and after the room was empty, several of them were crying. They were exhausted, emotional, and I'm getting that way now," said Parry. "I was too. After all, I'm just a man. There had never been, as far as I know, a capital murder trial in this county, so I wanted to do it right because I didn't want to do it twice. I worked long hours for 60 days, 5 days a week, for 2 months. That wasn't where I stopped." It's at this time, the 30 days allotted for Parry to decide on Beighler's punishment, that the judge seemed to feel the weight of the situation. He sought council with his wife daily and spoke with his father and minister. The Bible, he said, served as a source of guidance. "Every night when I got home I'm with my wife, of course, and we'd go to bed every night, and every night we'd talk about it," said Parry. "It was just general conversations, just trying to relax and get it off my mind, which I didn't very well. I was trying to get it off my mind during the whole trial. During the whole trial I went down in my basement, and I remodeled the whole thing. I don't know the a** end of a hammer from the head of a hammer, but I needed to do something to get my mind off of what was going on during the day. I remodeled the whole basement in that 6 weeks." Parry's opinion shifted multiple times, drafting three different sentencing orders before settling on a decision. "I struggled with this, and in the last week I had pretty much made up my mind what I was going to do," said Parry. "But in a capital murder case you have to do a written sentencing order. Most sentencing orders are a page or 2 pages long. I wrote the sentencing order 3 times. It was at 30 pages or more each time. One time it was death. I changed it to life. Then I went back to death, and I was satisfied with that one. I wrote that order 3 times in the last week. I did nothing else for that entire month. I did no cases. I just did that case. "Came the day of sentencing, he was expecting it. He showed no emotion. I did. A lot of people in the gallery did too. Miller had several family and friends, his mother in particularly. I sentenced him to death." Parry's decision didn't end the case. It went through multiple appeals and a post-conviction relief request from Beighler's legal counsel. Beighler's eventual execution was even delayed by 30 minute the night it was scheduled, with the U.S. Supreme Court eventually announcing a 6-3 decision to overturn a federal appeals court ruling. But on Jan. 26, 2006, Beighler was pronounced dead at 1:17 a.m. in Michigan City after the lethal injection he received did its work. To the end, Beighler maintained his innocence, with his last words being, "Let's get it over with." A lasting effect Just like the bombing of the Howard County Courthouse in 1987, which had a lasting effect on the judge's hearing, Parry believes the events surrounding Beighler's case are forgotten. In speaking with him, it's clear through his show of emotion the trial left a lasting impact. "I was talking to somebody about my ear thing from when I got hurt when the bomb went off, and they said, 'What bomb?' After a while these things don't have an effect," said Parry. "I can't say if it had an effect on the community while it was going on other than the fact that everybody was abhorred when the baby was killed. That was a bad thing. "I think it's a fallacy to say the death penalty causes people to think twice. I firmly believe that except for lying-in-wait murders like the 5 cops in Dallas. That was a spur of the moment, immediate situation. He didn't think about how he was going to die. He was so mad he did what he did. Most burglars think like that. You're in a house, you get surprised by the owner, and you shoot him. It's a reaction to being surprised. That's murder. Capital punishment isn't going to defer people from murder." (source: kokomoperspective.com) CALIFORNIA: Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter express support for anti-death penalty proposition Former President Jimmy Carter and First Lady Rosalynn Carter on Thursday endorsed a November ballot measure that would abolish the death penalty in California. Proposition 62 would replace capital punishment for 1st-degree murder with life in prison without the possibility of parole. It is 1 of 2 competing measures on the future of the death penalty that voters will weigh on Nov. 8. "We believe that the attempt to administer the death penalty in a fair and efficient manner has failed, and note that a number of states have chosen to abandon this policy for this reason," the couple said in a statement. "It is our hope that California will also lead the nation in adopting a more effective and fiscally responsible law enforcement approach." (source: Lios Angeles Times) ******************* Poll: Don't repeal California's death penalty A majority of respondents to a recent Argus-Courier online poll said they would not vote to repeal the death penalty in California, when the question comes up on the November ballot. About 2/3 of respondents said they would vote "no" on the measure, while 1/3 said they would vote to end the death penalty. Here are some comments: ------- "Absolutely not. If an individual is convicted of murder, they deserve the death penalty. Our tax dollars should not be spent taking care of these people while they sit comfortably in prison getting free health care and other ridiculous rights. Get rid of them." ------- "Criminals have no fear, so they commit crimes, knowing they will live a sheltered life in prison. Texas doesn't keep the criminals accused and found guilty in a major crime around long. They're executed. California should follow their plan. How many are on death row now?" ------- "I say keep it. But the process needs to be cleaned up drastically." ------- "Might as well. Those people just sit there on death row for years and years, waiting to die. It seems like they're never going to execute them anyway." ------- "My first instinct is to say that the death penalty is wrong. But if I imagine one of my family members being murdered, I would wish the death penalty for that killer. I don't think I can help feeling that." ------- "The boundary between life and death is sacred. I'll save a moth if I possibly can and certainly can't condone government taking a life, no matter how evil the criminal." ------- "We are one of the few civilized nations in the world to have the death penalty. It's time to abolish the death penalty nationwide, which will save the tax payers billions of dollars in time-consuming appeals. More death row inmates are dying of old age rather than by lethal injection." ------- "We just need to use it. The AG not enforcing the law is the problem." ------- "It should be enforced. Too many criminals are not punished, it should show them it's not OK to commit crimes. California gives them another 20-plus years of life with free housing, food, medical, etc., so currently the 'alleged' death penalty is a moot point." ------- "It's not a fair system at all, and we shouldn't be in the business of executing people." (source: petaluma360.com) USA: Defense asks to add another death penalty attorney to Dylann Roof's federal case The accused Emanuel AME shooter's defense team is looking to add another attorney to battle a possible death penalty. In pro hac vice paperwork filed Thursday, Roof's team asked to add North Carolina attorney Kimberly Stevens. Stevens has been involved in nearly three dozen death penalty cases, including United States v. Demario James Atwater and United States v. Gary Michael Hilton where she convinced juries to levy life sentences instead of the death penalty in both cases. Atwater was convicted of killing Eve Carson, the student body president at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 2008. Hilton was convicted of killing Charleston native Meredith Emerson while she was hiking trails near the Appalachian Trail in Georgia. Since 2014, Stevens has been a member of the Federal Death Penalty Resource Counsel Project, and is currently a member of the Capital Resource Counsel Project. If the court grants her application, Stevens will join Sarah Gannett, whose application to join the defense team was approved earlier this month. Already, Gannett has had an impact on Roof's federal case, successfully having several pieces of evidence sealed as recently as Thursday morning. The defense team seems to be focusing a lot of its time and energy on sparing Roof from a lethal injection, even offering a guilty plea in exchange for a life sentence. The defense is expected to use mental evaluation reports showing Roof suffers from a mental illness to defend against a death penalty during the trial's sentencing phase. The trial is set to begin on Nov. 7 with final jury selection, which could take a week or more. Attorneys estimate the trial will take as many as 8 weeks to argue. With the holidays scattered along the trial schedule, that could push the sentencing phase into January - right up against the newly proposed start of jury selection for Roof's state murder trial. The solicitor in his murder trial is also seeking the death penalty. (source: WCIV news) From rhalperi at smu.edu Fri Jul 22 08:31:28 2016 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Fri, 22 Jul 2016 08:31:28 -0500 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide Message-ID: July 22 SINGAPORE: Geylang murder suspect is charged in death of coffeeshop helper A 64-year-old man was charged on Friday (Jul 22) with the murder of 52-year-old Goh Eng Thiam, who was found dead in Geylang 2 weeks ago. Toh Sia Guan was accused of killing Goh between 7.30am and 8am on July 9, at Lorong 23 Geylang. Toh, who wore a red polo T-shirt to court on Friday, will be remanded for a week, and the judge granted permission to take him out for investigations. He is expected to appear in court on July 29. The murder case was first reported on July 9, when Goh was pronounced dead by paramedics at the scene at 8.11am, said a statement from the Singapore Police Force. The police also said they had received a call asking for assistance at about 8am that day. According to media reports, Goh worked as a coffeeshop helper. Several weapons, such as a long wooden stick and a short knife, were reportedly found at the scene. If convicted, Toh faces the death penalty. (source: todayonline.com) GLOBAL: Why the Death Penalty is Still Necessary Given the Church's longstanding and irreformable teaching that death may in principle be a legitimate punishment for grievous crimes, the key issue for Catholics is an empirical and practical question. Editor's note: This is Part 2 of a 2-part article on Catholicism and the death penalty. Part 1 was titled "Why the Church Cannot Reverse Past Teaching on Capital Punishment" and was posted on July 17th. As we showed in Part 1 of this essay, for 2 millennia the Catholic Church has taught that the death penalty can be a legitimate punishment for heinous crimes, not merely to protect the public from the immediate danger posed by the offender but also to secure retributive justice and to deter serious crime. This was the uniform teaching of scripture and the Fathers and Doctors of the Church, and it was reaffirmed by popes and also codified in the universal catechism of the Church promulgated by Pope St. Pius V in the 16th century, as well as in numerous local catechisms. Consider the standard language of the Baltimore Catechism, which was used throughout Catholic parishes in the United States for educating children in the faith for much of the twentieth century: Q. 1276. Under what circumstances may human life be lawfully taken? A. Human life may be lawfully taken: 1. In self-defense, when we are unjustly attacked and have no other means of saving our own lives; 2. In a just war, when the safety or rights of the nation require it; 3. By the lawful execution of a criminal, fairly tried and found guilty of a crime punishable by death when the preservation of law and order and the good of the community require such execution. 1 Thus, killing another human being in self-defense, during a just war, or through the lawful execution of a criminal does not violate the Fifth Commandment's rule "Thou shall not kill" (which many modern editions of the Bible translate as "Thou shall not murder"). The permissibility of these 3 types of lawful killing (unlike the deliberate killing of the innocent, which is always prohibited) depends on contingent circumstances. As long as (in the words of Pope Innocent III) "the punishment is carried out not in hatred but with good judgment, not inconsiderately but after mature deliberation," the death penalty may be imposed if it genuinely serves the common good. Generally, the Church has left these and similar prudential judgments to public officials. For example, the current Catechism of the Catholic Church expressly affirms that when it comes to judging whether a decision to go to war is morally justified, "the evaluation of these conditions for moral legitimacy belongs to the prudential judgment of those who have the responsibility for the common good." The institutional Church respects the authority and responsibility of public officials, guided by the sound moral principles it preserves and promulgates, to make these judgments. Similarly, to the best of our knowledge, the Church has fully respected the authority of lawmakers to write statutes on self-defense that detail the conditions under which individuals may use force, including deadly force, to protect themselves and others. Unfortunately, in recent years churchmen have not been equally respectful of the authority and duty of public officials to exercise their prudential judgments in applying Catholic teaching when it comes to the death penalty, despite the fact that churchmen bring to the debate over capital punishment no particular expertise derived from their religious training and pastoral experience. Given the Church's longstanding and irreformable teaching that death may in principle be a legitimate punishment for grievous crimes, the key issue for Catholics is the empirical and practical question of whether the death penalty more effectively promotes public safety and the common good than do lesser punishments. We maintain that it does and thus devote about half of our forthcoming book, By Man Shall His Blood Be Shed: A Catholic Defense of the Death Penalty, to making this case. The current Catechism of the Catholic Church affirms that "[l]egitimate public authority has the right and the duty to inflict punishment proportionate to the gravity of the offense" and that "[p]unishment has the primary aim of redressing the disorder introduced by the offense." 2 Thus, punishment is fundamentally retributive, inflicting on the offender a penalty commensurate with the gravity of his crime, though it may serve other purposes as well, such as incapacitating the offender, deterring others, and promoting the offender's rehabilitation. The significance of this point cannot be overstated. Secular critics of capital punishment often reject the very idea of retribution - the principle that an offender simply deserves a punishment proportionate to the gravity of his offense - but no Catholic can possibly do so. For unless an offender deserves a certain punishment - whether that be a fine, imprisonment, or whatever - and deserves a punishment of that specific degree of severity, then it would be unjust to inflict the punishment on him. Hence all the other ends of punishment - deterrence, rehabilitation, protection of society, and so on - presuppose the retributive aim of giving the offender what he deserves. This is why the Catechism promulgated by Pope St. John Paul II reaffirms the traditional Catholic teaching that retribution is the "primary aim" of punishment. Among the many reasons why capital punishment ought to be preserved (all of which we set out at length in our forthcoming book), the most fundamental one is that for extremely heinous crimes, no lesser punishment could possibly respect this Catholic principle that a punishment ought to be proportional to the offense. We devote the remainder of this article to developing this point. In the American states today the only crime for which the death penalty may be imposed (according to U. S. Supreme Court decisions) is murder. (The Court has not ruled on the legitimacy of the death penalty for the national crimes of treason and espionage.) Western societies, both before and after the rise of Christianity, never imposed the death penalty for all unlawful killings. As far back as our records go, laws reserved the ultimate punishment for intentional and malicious killings and usually imposed a lesser punishment for negligent killings and those resulting from a "heat of passion." The 31 American states with capital punishment today are even more selective, reserving the death penalty for the most heinous murders, such as multiple murders, rape murders, torture murders, and the murders of the very young and the very old. A close analysis of the 43 murderers executed in 2012 reveals the true depravity of the crimes and the criminals that merit the death penalty in the United States today. Here are 9 of the cases (space does not allow a complete listing): -- David Alan Gore, who, with his cousin, cruised central Florida in the 1970s and 1980s, abducting, raping, and murdering at least half a dozen teenage girls (and the mother of one of them). In his last murder, the 17-year-old girl, repeatedly raped by Gore, had managed to free herself and then ran naked from the house where she was being held. Gore chase down the girl, dragged her back towards the house, and shoot her twice in the head in the driveway in full view of 15-year-old boy who was bicycling past the scene. -- Edwin Hart Turner, who during a robbery shot and killed an unresisting convenience store clerk pleading for his life and then shortly thereafter robbed a customer at a gas station and shot and killed him while he was on the ground also pleading for his life. -- Robert Brian Waterhouse, who early one morning left a bar with a 29-year-old woman and later beat her with a hard instrument, raped her, and sexually assaulted her with a large object. She was alive throughout this assault. He then dragged his victim into the water where she died of drowning. She was discovered completely naked and her injuries were so severe that she was unrecognizable. 14 years before, Waterhouse had broken into a home and killed a 77-year-old woman, for which he served 8 years before being paroled. -- Timothy Shaun Stemple, who murdered his wife to collect her life insurance by beating her in the head with a baseball bat, driving a truck over her head, beating her again, driving the truck over her chest, and then driving over her at 60 miles per hour, killing her. While awaiting trial Stemple tried to get other inmates to arrange the death of several witnesses in his case. -- Henry Curtis Jackson, who, in an attempt to steal money from his mother's home, murdered a 2-year-old girl, a 2-year-old boy, a 3-year-old boy, and a 5-year-old girl. He injured 2 other older girls and stabbed a 1-year-old girl, leaving her unable to walk. -- Daniel Wayne Cook, who, with an accomplice, killed a 26-year-old man after beating, torturing, and sodomizing him over a 6-7 hour period. A few hours later the offenders sodomized and strangled to death a 16-year-old boy. -- Robert Wayne Harris, who in retaliation for his firing from a car wash, murdered the manager and 4 other employees by shooting them in the back of the head at close range while they were kneeling on the floor. Another survived but was left with permanent disabilities. When he was being interviewed by police about this crime, he volunteered that he had previously abducted and murdered a woman and he led police to her remains in a field. -- Richard Dale Stokley, who with an accomplice abducted 2 13-year-old girls from a campsite, drove them to a remote area, raped them, stabbed them in the eye, killed them by stomping on their necks, and then threw the naked bodies down an abandoned mineshaft. -- Manuel Pardo, Jr., who killed 7 men and 2 women in 5 separate incidents over a 4-month period. Altogether, the 43 offenders executed in 2012 killed a total of 70 individuals and injured another 12 during the capital crimes for which they were executed. We also know that eight of the 43 (19%) had previously killed at least 1 other person, and several had killed more than 1. And many of those who had not (as far as we know) killed in the past had previously committed other very serious crimes. Altogether, at least 2/3 of those executed in 2012 had previously committed a homicide, sexual assault, robbery, felony assault, or kidnapping. As these facts and a wealth of other data show, we reserve the death penalty in the United States for the most heinous murders and the most brutal and conscienceless murderers. This is not, as some critics argue, a kind of state-run lottery that randomly chooses an unlucky few for the ultimate penalty from among all those convicted of murder. Rather, the capital punishment system is a filter that selects the worst of the worst. Here is one particularly telling statistic: of the murders that resulted in the 43 executions in 2012, more than 1/3 involved the rape of the murder victim or of another person either by the executed offender or his accomplice. Yet, among all homicides in the United States in recent decades, only about 1% involved a sexual assault. In nearly all of the 31 American states that currently have the death penalty, legislators have identified rape murder as especially heinous and thus potentially deserving a death sentence. Indeed, before someone can be executed in the United States legislators must agree that the kind of murder committed potentially merits death and prosecutors and juries must agree that this particular murderer deserves to die for his crime(s). Put another way, to sentence killers like those described above to less than death would fail to do justice because the penalty - presumably a long period in prison - would be grossly disproportionate to the heinousness of the crime. Prosecutors, jurors, and the loved ones of murder victims understand this essential point. As the mother of the murder victim of one of those executed in 2012 said to the sentencing jury, "I would beg this court and this jury to see that justice is done. And justice to us is no less than the death penalty." Even offenders themselves sometimes recognize that justice demands their death, as 3 of those executed in 2012 fully acknowledged. One who killed 2 men after a minor traffic accident said, "I killed 2 people. I've always accepted responsibility for the taking of their lives. . . . I believe in justice and I believe that the victims, their hatred, their anger, they need to have justice." Another who killed a 63-year-old prison guard during an escape attempt pleaded guilty and waived all appeals, resulting in his execution just 1 year after sentencing. In a letter he wrote a week before his execution he commended the prosecutor and affirmed the justice of his punishment: "I do not want or desire to die, instead I deserve to die; this I have always stated." In concluding he wrote, "It's not about me or any future killers, it is about ensuring that in contested cases that the victims and their families get their intended and needed swift justice." And " who abducted, raped, and murdered a 9-year-old girl told a federal court, "I killed the little girl. It's just that the punishment be concluded. I believe it's a good thing, that the death penalty does inhibit further criminal acts." He added, "I killed. I deserve to be killed." We have focused here on the retributive purpose of the death penalty because, again, according to Catholic doctrine retribution is the "primary aim" of punishment. In By Man Shall His Blood Be Shed we also show that capital punishment has various practical benefits, such as protecting prison guards and other inmates from the most dangerous offenders, and protecting members of the community by giving "lifers" who escape from prison strong reasons not to kill while on the run. We also argue that capital punishment almost certainly deters at least some potential murderers, and gives murderers a strong incentive to plea bargain to very long prison sentences, which likely saves lives by increasing the deterrent and incapacitative effect of long prison sentences over shorter ones. (We also refute the common charges that the capital punishment system in the United States results in the execution of the innocent and discriminates against minorities and the poor.) But make no mistake: retributive punishment in and of itself makes the world a safer place and upholds the common good: -- It powerfully reinforces society's condemnation of the crime of murder, making it less likely that those growing up in a community with the death penalty would even consider killing someone in the first place. -- It anchors the entire schedule of punishments for serious crimes to the principle of just deserts, ensuring the survival of retributive punishment as a key element in the criminal justice system and thus shoring up the schedule of punishments against powerful modern tendencies toward ever greater leniency in criminal punishment. -- It reassures the families and other loved ones of the victims of grave crimes that they live in a society that is just, and that shows respect for the lives of victims by inflicting on their killers a penalty that is truly proportionate to the gravity of the offense. -- It encourages repentance insofar as it makes offenders aware of the extreme gravity of their crimes and also of the shortness of the time remaining to them to get themselves right with God and to ask forgiveness from the families of their victims. -- Perhaps most importantly, in its supreme gravity it promotes belief in and respect for the majesty of the moral order and for the system of human law that both derives from and supports that moral order. For well over a millennium the popes of the Catholic Church exercised civil authority over a large swath of territory in central Italy called the Papal States. In that capacity they frequently authorized the death penalty for murderers and others. Although we do not have data for how often they did so before the 19th century, we know that between 1796 and 1865, 6 popes authorized a total of 516 executions, 4/5 for murder. This papal endorsement of capital punishment, though rather recent in the history of the Church, is largely ignored in Catholic debates over the death penalty, as is the striking fact that from 1929 to 1969 the criminal code of the Vatican City itself included the death penalty for the attempted assassination of the pope. The many dozens of popes who approved executions in the Papal States and the representatives of the Church responsible for the Vatican City criminal code understood a truth that too many in the modern Church have forgotten: that justice demands the death penalty for the most heinous crimes and that if "the punishment is carried out not in hatred but with good judgment, not inconsiderately but after mature deliberation," it promotes public safety and serves the larger common good. ENDNOTES: 1 The Baltimore Catechism is available from many online sources. The death penalty is addressed in the 3rd volume of the catechism, which is for older students. See www.baltimore-catechism.com/lesson33.htm, accessed June 4, 2015. 2 Catechism of the Catholic Church, Second Edition (Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 1997), sec. 2266, p. 546. (source: The Catholic World Report) INDONESIA: What explains Indonesia's enthusiasm for the death penalty? For many years, Indonesia was classified as a "low-application state" in its use of the death penalty. But recently there seems to have been a surge in enthusiasm for capital punishment, with public officials lining up to declare their support. The death penalty has been offered as a solution to a range of problems, from narcotics crime, to sexual abuse, and corruption. Last month, for example, President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo urged police to chase, capture, and strike down drug dealers. "If the law allowed it, [I'd tell you to] blast them," he said. Earlier this year, he signed a presidential regulation authorising the death penalty for child sex offenders. Following her boss's lead, Health Minister Nila Moeloek said the suspects in the recent fake vaccine manufacturing scandal deserved execution. What explains the recent popularity of the death penalty? Are officials just responding to public demands? Does public enthusiasm for the death penalty reflect frustration with the weak rule of law in Indonesia? The embrace of capital punishment in Indonesia is a symptom of a growing environment of penal populism in the country. Penal populism describes a situation where politicians promise to solve the nation???s troubles by punishing crime, rather than by pursuing social justice. Penal populists rely on, and generate, fear of crime, suggesting it is a growing threat to society. They blame an impotent justice system and accuse it of being too lenient on criminals. In response, they call for more severe punishments against perpetrators, exploiting what they see as the public???s appetite for harsh law and order policies. This might make them popular but it only serves to perpetuate problems in the justice sector. For populists, the cause of crime, including drug abuse, is always the individual perpetrator. The social conditions that contributed to the offending behaviour are never part of the picture. Users and dealers are considered the sole cause of the drug problem and deserve to be punished accordingly. But because populists focus on individual offenders, the public can become blind to deep-seated challenges in society. No crime can be divorced from its social context, including factors such as race, gender, class and education. There is no point blaming individual offenders for drug crimes while washing our hands of the structural issues that contributed to the problem. The shortcut solutions offered by penal populism - such as the death penalty - are not only oppressive, but they ultimately have little impact on the causes of crime. Penal populists work hand-in-hand with the media. The media help whip up fear about the levels of crime in society, and advocate harsh punitive measures in response. The media largely endorsed the government framing of the 2015 executions as a matter of national pride and sovereignty, and ignored analysis debunking State Narcotics Agency (BNN) figures on levels of drug abuse. The simplistic presentation of the drug issue influenced how the public and other decision makers responded. It is not hard to see how the courts might believe that by delivering harsh punishments they are strengthening the rule of law. Every time judges deliver a death penalty verdict they are applauded in the media. Politicians, including the president, endorse their decisions and even suggest extending the punishment to other crimes. But they are not strengthening the rule of law, they are doing the opposite. Judges end up undermining their own profession by allowing myths, public anger and disillusionment with the criminal justice establishment to affect their sentencing decisions. The rise of penal populism, which exploits public anger, is threatening the independence of judiciary. Under Soeharto???s New Order the greatest threat to judicial independence was intervention by the executive. But now, in the democratic era, the threat comes from the media, public pressure and mass demonstrations, sometimes accompanied by violence. Judicial corruption cannot be ignored either, of course, but there is growing evidence suggesting judges fear backlash when they make decisions that conflict with public sentiment, greatly compromising their independence. A 2015 Judicial Commission survey, for example, found that 3/4 of district-level judges in Medan had been threatened or intimidated. Issues like the absence of checks and balances within the criminal justice system, the lack of access to justice, or poor quality of legal aid available for suspects are of little interest to penal populists. Yes, populists mention the criminal justice system, but only to blame it for not delivering sufficiently punitive punishments. There is no attempt to inform the public about the challenges facing the system, or have a rational debate about how they might be addressed. Jokowi is guilty of this, too. He makes no attempt to discuss the challenges of addressing drug abuse, preferring to propose shooting dealers in the street. When law enforcement is driven not by evidence but by public outrage or anxiety, the result is an increase in miscarriages of justice, as well as torture and arbitrary arrest and detention by law enforcement officials. As in other countries, the cases most vulnerable to being exploited by penal populists, and resulting in such miscarriages of justice, are those involving terrorism, sexual or narcotics crimes. The Jakarta International School (JIS) case, for example, demonstrates the powerful impact of public pressure on investigators and the courts, which worked together to punish individuals accused of sexual crimes against children. Confessions were extracted under torture, one suspect died in police detention under highly suspicious circumstances, and a Canadian teacher and Indonesian teaching assistant were imprisoned based on very weak and questionable evidence. Similarly, a study by the Community Legal Aid Foundation (LBH Masyarakat) in 2011 found that torture and mistreatment in police custody was routine in narcotics cases. Many people accused of narcotics crimes were not told about their right to legal aid, and those who were informed of this right were often warned that they would face heavier sentencing demands if they sought assistance. Civil society and legal aid organisations are not above engaging in the rhetoric of penal populism. This has particularly been the case with corruption. Although civil society organisations frame their populism in terms of "monitoring the courts", and do so with the intention of ensuring a fair result, there have been occasions where the tone of protests has been threatening. At a time when politicians are only too happy to engage in penal populism, civil society organisations need more than ever to avoid a populist approach and discipline themselves to offer a more nuanced and detailed picture of the challenges facing the criminal justice system. The government also needs to change its approach. Jokowi may well be frustrated with judicial corruption. But if the president is sceptical about the justice sector - falling just short of endorsing extra-judicial killings - what about the public? Should they then resort to vigilante justice? By focusing on harsh punishments, penal populists weaken the justice system, because they allow weak and corrupt courts to carry on with little imperative to change. They are a major threat to the justice sector reform project. Exploiting high levels of public ignorance about crime and punishment might not be ethical but it is easy. Offering rational and evidence-based arguments is much more difficult, and not usually popular, especially in an unbalanced media environment. But when the government is not doing so, it is up to civil society groups to provide clear and accurate information about the complexities of crime and punishment. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- (source: Nurkholis Hidayat is a master of laws student at the University of Melbourne. He is an Indonesian human rights lawyer and previously served as a director of the Jakarta Legal Aid Institute (LBH Jakarta), and national advisor for legal aid and criminal justice for the Australia Indonesia Partnership for Justice (AIPJ)----Coconuts) TURKEY: Some 90% of Turks Demand Death Penalty for Coup Perpetrators - Aktay About 90 % of Turkish citizens are demanding the harshest punishment for those involved in a recent military coup attempt, forcing the Turkish leadership to consider the reinstatement of death penalty in the country, the deputy chair of Turkey's ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) told Sputnik on Thursday. "Practically 90 of the country's population demand the harshest punishment for coup participants, and this has to be a death penalty. They demand this at all rallies. The public pressure forces us to make a choice," Aktay stressed. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Prime Minister Binali Yildirim have already stated that they do not rule out the possibility of reintroducing capital punishment for thousands of people arrested after a failed military coup last Friday. (source: Sputnik News) *************************** The death penalty in Turkey: On the way back? President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's suggestion that Turkey might reinstate the death penalty to punish those involved in last week's failed coup bid has alarmed European leaders. Turkey completely abolished the death penalty in 2004 as part of its efforts to join the European Union, which makes its removal an non-negotiable pre-condition for membership. No judicial executions have taken place in the country since left-wing militant Hidir Aslan was hanged on Oct. 25, 1984 in the wake of the 1980 military coup. But might capital punishment be on the way back? The death penalty was used with relative frequency for serious crimes after the foundation of modern Turkey in 1923. But its most notorious use came after the military coup of 1960 which resulted in the rounding-up of members of the government. Then prime minister Adnan Menderes, foreign minister Fatin Rustu Zorlu and finance minister Hasan Polatkan were all executed on the prison island of Imrali in September 1961. Erdogan frequently invokes the execution of Menderes, one of his political heroes, as an example of injustice. In 1972, young leftist activists Deniz Gezmis, Yusuf Aslan and Huseyin Inan were executed in 1972. They remain heroes for the Turkish socialist movement to this day. Another wave of executions followed the 1980 coup. Levon Ekmekjian, a Lebanese Armenian, was executed in 1983 in Ankara after being found guilty of carrying out a deadly assault on the capital's international airport on behalf of an Armenian militant group. Parliament voted to abolish the death penalty during peace time in 2002, with full abolition for all crimes following in 2004. But even before the abolition, it had observed a de-facto moratorium since the 1980s. The abolition led the 1999 death sentence against to Kurdish separatist leader Abdullah Ocalan - and those of all others on death row - to be commuted to life behind bars. Ocalan had appealed his sentence at the European Court of Human Rights. He remains behind bars in Imrali, an island in the Sea of Marmara off Istanbul. In 1991, all death sentences handed down in Turkey before April of that year were commuted to between 10 and 20 years in jail, depending on the nature of their crimes, according to Amnesty International. Erdogan has stressed any decision to reinstate capital punishment would have to come from parliament. But he has said he would approve any decision the legislature took on the matter. Thousands of Erdogan's supporters have taken to the streets in recent days to condemn the coup plotters and loudly backed calls for the reinstatement of capital punishment. This is not the first time in recent years that there has been popular pressure for capital punishment to return. The attempted rape and brutal murder of Ozgecan Aslan in 2015 prompted calls, including from cabinet ministers, for the death penalty for the 3 men found guilty. In 2012, Erdogan, at the time prime minister, also hinted at its reinstatement, again due to popular support, to deal with cases of terrorism. Opponents denounced it as a political tactic. (source: Saudi Gazette) GUYANA: Guyana govt "not in a rush" to hold death penalty consultations A day after a top international human rights activist called on Guyana to repeal the death penalty for terrorism and other offences for which there is capital punishment, government on Thursday ruled out consultations any time soon to do so. Minister of Natural Resources, Raphael Trotman, who chaired the post-cabinet press conference, said from all indications government was "not in a rush" to abolish the death penalty and any such decision would taken after consultations. Asked when such consultations would be held, Trotman said "we are not in a position to say that we will be entering into consultations to add to the penalties or to remove them. We don't feel the impetus right now." At the same time, he noted that there has been a 20-year old moratorium on the death penalty in Guyana. He explained that Guyana's anti-terrorism legislation provides for the death penalty in keeping with requirements by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) and to ensure that the country is not blacklisted. Trotman noted that "there is a strong clamour" in several European countries such as France, Belgium, Germany and Turkey for the reinstitution of the death penalty amid several deadly terrorist attacks. He observed that a number of the countries that have been advocating for the removal of the death penalty have been bombing targets and killing innocents and hostiles raising questions whether "this was not a form of the death penalty being advanced by some of the very countries that are asking to remove from your books the death penalty." The Guyana government's position on Thursday appeared to be a rebuff of Commissioner with the International Commission against the Death Penalty, Justice Navi Pillay's call on Wednesday for this country to review its Terrorism Act that has 12 provisions for the death penalty. "You don't pass a law just because something terrible has happened. Law is not done emotionally. The rule of law follows international standards and Guyana is very much a part of the international community, has passed many international treaties and so they are bound to pass laws that are certain and definite and not responding each time to terrorism acts committed here, France or wherever," she told a news conference at the Marriott Hotel. Pillay was at the time addressing a news conference ahead of a judicial colloquium with Guyanese judges and magistrates at the Marriott Hotel in Georgetown. She said the de facto moratorium on the death penalty in Guyana was sufficient and it was time that lawmakers abolish punishment by death altogether. Less than 10 years ago, Guyana amended its law that only allowed for the death penalty for persons convicted of killing members of the security services and magistrates and judges in the line of their duty. However, a High Court Judge last month handed down the death sentence on a man who was found guilty of the murder of 2 brothers several years ago. (source: Demerara Waves) From rhalperi at smu.edu Fri Jul 22 09:36:13 2016 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Fri, 22 Jul 2016 09:36:13 -0500 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----N.C., OHIO, OKLA., USA Message-ID: July 22 NORTH CAROLINA: Panel moves closer to approving rule on innocence evidence A North Carolina State Bar panel agreed Thursday on language requiring prosecutors to disclose evidence of innocence obtained after someone is convicted of a crime, advancing on a proposal to address wrongful convictions like rules adopted in a handful of other states. The State Bar's ethics subcommittee, at a meeting in Chetola, agreed unanimously on wording for a proposed rule for what prosecutors should do with post-conviction evidence of innocence. The subcommittee is expected to meet later on a full draft proposal though no meeting date has been set. Existing rules and law in North Carolina already address evidence obtained before and during a trial, but just 14 states have a rule about prosecutors and post-conviction evidence of innocence, according to the American Bar Association. It is recommending that the state approve such a rule. The subcommittee also discussed how attorneys could disclose evidence without violating attorney-client privilege. "The unanimous vote in support of the (prosecutor) rule is indicative of the times we're in - that people recognize that wrongful convictions happen," said attorney Chris Mumma, executive director of the N.C. Center on Actual Innocence, speaking by phone after the meeting. The proposed rule for prosecutors would direct them on what to do when they learn of "new, credible evidence or information creating a reasonable likelihood that a convicted defendant did not commit an offense of which the defendant was convicted." It includes a clause that would protect prosecutors who act in good faith even if their decision that the evidence didn't have to be disclosed proves to be incorrect. Alice Mine, the State Bar's assistant executive director and ethics counsel, will write a formal proposal for the subcommittee to consider at its next meeting. The 5-member subcommittee agreed in principle that any attorney who discovers post-conviction evidence of innocence must turn over that evidence as long as it doesn't breach attorney-client privilege or substantially harm the client's interest. Members also discussed modifying language to another proposed rule that would allow a lawyer to reveal information relating to the representation of a client if that's necessary to prevent death or substantial bodily harm. The proposed language would define bodily harm to include wrongful imprisonment. Such a rule "would put us ahead of other states in recognizing the obligation to ensure that an innocent person is not in prison when there is evidence to the contrary," Mumma said. Advocates cite a murder case in Buncombe County at a prime example of why North Carolina needs the rule for prosecutors. 5 innocent men served prison time in connection with a 2000 home invasion murder they didn't commit. Another man confessed in 2003 and implicated an accomplice whose DNA was eventually found on masks and bandanas near the scene. The district attorney said in a deposition that he didn't believe the confession and that he never saw the DNA evidence, although the report from the State Bureau of Investigation showed it was copied to the DA. One defense attorney - the one representing the last man sentenced - also received the confession as pretrial evidence but didn't turn it over to the other men, who had already been sentenced, or their attorneys, said David Rudolf, an attorney for one of those men. The 5 received a total $8 million for their wrongful convictions. Some of them had pleaded guilty to avoid the threat of the death penalty. The panel is just the 1st step in a lengthy process that - if the rules are approved at each step - involves the full ethics committee, public comment, the full State Bar Council and finally, the state Supreme Court. (source: Associated Press) OHIO: Attorney: Mom facing death penalty has low IQ A woman charged in the killing of her 2-year-old daughter - who officials said was starved and tortured most of her life - "has the mentality of a child," her attorney said, which could affect whether she faces the death penalty. Experts have determined that Andrea Bradley's IQ is in the mid-60s, her attorney Will Welsh said at a hearing Thursday in Hamilton County Common Pleas Court. An IQ below 75 is considered an intellectual disability, according to the Ohio Department of Education. "This was someone with the mentality of a child raising children," Welsh told The Enquirer. "I think we can convincingly prove that she has critical developmental disabilities." If Bradley is ruled to have an intellectual disability, she would no longer face the death penalty and instead would face up to life in prison without parole. A hearing surrounding the issue is set for Sept. 7 before Judge Robert Ruehlman. Bradley, 30, is charged with aggravated murder in the 2015 death of 2-year-old Glenara Bates. The child's father, 34-year-old Glen Bates, also faces the death penalty. Glenara was beaten severely, starved and made to sleep in a bathtub containing feces and blood, according to prosecutors. Bradley and Bates were in an abusive relationship where Bates had taken control, according to her attorneys. She has been diagnosed with depression and bipolar disorder, and has been under psychiatric care most of her life, Welsh has previously said. The couple lived in East Walnut Hills with 6 of Bradley's children, including Glenara. The children ranged in age from 1 to 8. The other children are now in foster care. Only 2-year-old Glenara was severely mistreated, according to previous statements by prosecutors. The pair were arrested March 29, 2015, the same day Bradley brought Glenara's cold and limp body to Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center. Glenara had no body fat, no urine in her bladder, and no evidence of food in her system, officials said. She was pronounced dead at the hospital. She weighed 13 pounds and had bite marks, numerous lacerations as well as marks from being whipped with a belt. Prosecutors offered Bradley a plea deal in May that would have meant she faced the possibility of spending the rest of her life in prison, instead of the death penalty. She rejected that deal. Bradley's attorneys on Thursday filed an "Atkins motion," which refers to a 2002 U.S. Supreme Court decision, Atkins v. Virginia, that determined legal guidelines for mental competence in death penalty cases. According to statements in court, there are hundreds of pages of Bradley's records from Hamilton County Job and Family Services that her attorneys will have to sort through. (source: cincinnati.com) OKLAHOMA: U.S. Supreme Court could revisit ruling on controversial Oklahoma execution protocol A controversial death penalty case in Oklahoma is back in the national spotlight. The U.S. Supreme Court could revisit a ruling involving Richard Glossip. You may remember, his attorneys challenged the use of a certain lethal injection drug used in our state. The new developments are stemming from a big case in Arkansas. Attorneys for 9 death row inmates challenged Arkansas's execution protocol, and when their state supreme court upheld it, the justices cited the ruling in the Richard Glossip case. "The Glossip case has resulted in an unmitigated disaster in Oklahoma," attorneys representing the Arkansas death row inmates wrote in a recent court filing. Now, those attorneys are taking a possible loophole in the Glossip case to the U.S. Supreme Court. "They challenged the execution method by saying for example, a person can be put to death by firing squad. Apparently, the Arkansas Supreme Court said that may be true, but that???s not a method that???s authorized by law here in Arkansas," criminal defense attorney David Smith said. Legal experts say the U.S. Supreme Court left some things unanswered in the Glossip case. Richard Glossip's attorneys challenged the constitutionality of Midazolam, the sedative used in Oklahoma's executions. "The Supreme Court says you have to identify another method of execution that's available and feasible, it's known and attainable, but they don't say whether it has to be something authorized by state law of that state," Smith said. In Oklahoma, there are only 3 drugs authorized for use in executions. Last year, officials discovered a wrong drug was about to be used on Richard Glossip, and Gov. Fallin issued a last-minute stay. That was months after that same wrong drug was actually used in the execution of Charles Warner. For now, it's up in the air whether a new ruling could affect future Oklahoma executions, but legal experts say more clarity in the Glossip ruling is critical. "It's kind of a splitting of a hair, but it's a pretty important hair," Smith said. The executions for those Arkansas inmates are on hold right now. Their attorney told NewsChannel 4 that he will file a petition to the U.S. Supreme Court soon. He has 90 days. Richard Glossip's attorney told Newschannel 4 he's hopeful the U.S. Supreme Court will hear the case. (source: KFOR news) USA: Judge: Roof attorney motion to block evidence to be sealed A federal judge has ruled Dylann Roof's attorney does not have to explain publicly why she wants to keep some evidence out of Roof's Charleston church shooting trial. Assistant U.S. Public Defender Sarah Gannett wants to block admission of videos, transcripts and other documents affecting Roof's constitutional rights to be free from unreasonable searches and self-incrimination. Gannett asked the court's permission to file the motion under seal, saying to make it public could affect the court's ability seat an impartial jury in Roof's trial in November. U.S. District Judge Richard Gergel issued an order Thursday saying the motion could be filed under seal and asked prosecutors to respond the same way. Roof faces the death penalty in the shootings of 9 black parishioners at Emanuel AME Church in June 2015. (source: Associated Press) From rhalperi at smu.edu Fri Jul 22 09:36:54 2016 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Fri, 22 Jul 2016 09:36:54 -0500 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide Message-ID: July 22 TURKEY: Turkey rebuffs EU on death penalty, as Erdogan calls for 'new blood' in army Turkey rebuffed the European Union on Friday over the death penalty, while President Tayyip Erdogan vowed to restructure the military and give it "fresh blood", signalling the scope of a shake-up yet to come under a state of emergency. There is growing worry in the West about Turkey's widening crackdown against thousands of members of the security forces, judiciary, civil service and academia after last week's failed military coup. On Wednesday Erdogan announced a state of emergency, a move he said would allow the government to take swift action against coup plotters. The possibility of Turkey bringing back capital punishment for the plotters of the attempted coup that killed more than 246 people and wounded more than 2,100 has put further strain on Ankara's relationship with the EU, which it seeks to join. Turkey outlawed capital punishment in 2004 as part of its bid to join the bloc and European officials have said backtracking on the death penalty would effectively put an end to the EU accession process. Erdogan says the death penalty may need to be brought back, citing the calls for it from crowds of supporters at rallies. "People demand the death penalty and that demand will surely be assessed. We have to assess that demand from the standpoint on law, and not according to what the EU says," Justice Minister Bekir Bozdag told broadcaster CNN Turk. His comments are likely to spark further unease in the West, where there is growing worry about instability and human rights in the country of 80 million, which plays an important part in the U.S.-led fight against Islamic State and in the European Union's efforts to stem the flow of refugees from Syria. Erdogan accuses Fethullah Gulen, a charismatic U.S.-based cleric, of masterminding the plot against him, which crumbled early on Saturday. In a crackdown on Gulen's suspected followers, more than 60,000 soldiers, police, judges, civil servants and teachers have been suspended, detained or placed under investigation. Bozdag said that armed Gulen supporters had infiltrated the judiciary, universities and the media, as well as the armed forces. Erdogan told Reuters late on Thursday he would restructure the military and give it "fresh blood", citing the threat of the Gulen movement, which he likened to a cancer. Gulen, who has lived in self-imposed exile in the United States for years, has denied any role in the attempted putsch, and accused Erdogan of orchestrating the coup himself. Turkey wants the U.S. to extradite the cleric. Washington says Turkey must give clear evidence first. SUPREME COUNCIL Erdogan said the government's Supreme Military Council, which is chaired by the prime minister, and includes the defence minister and the chief of staff, would oversee the restructuring of the armed forces. "They are all working together as to what might be done, and ... within a very short amount of time a new structure will be emerging. With this new structure, I believe the armed forces will get fresh blood," Erdogan said. Speaking at his palace in Ankara, which was targeted during the coup attempt, he said a new putsch was possible but would not be easy because authorities were now more vigilant. "It is very clear that there were significant gaps and deficiencies in our intelligence, there is no point trying to hide it or deny it," Erdogan told Reuters. Erdogan also said there was no obstacle to extending the state of emergency beyond the initial three months - a comment likely to spark concern among critics already fearful about the pace of his crackdown. Emergency powers allow the government to take swift measures against supporters of the coup, in which more than 246 people were killed and over 2,000 wounded. Emergency rule will also permit the president and cabinet to bypass parliament in enacting new laws and to limit or suspend rights and freedoms as they deem necessary. Germany called for the measure to end as quickly as possible. An international lawyers' group warned Turkey against using it to subvert the rule of law and human rights, pointing to allegations of torture and ill-treatment of people held in the mass roundup. EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini said the reaction to the coup must not undermine fundamental rights. "What we're seeing especially in the fields of universities, media, the judiciary, is unacceptable," she said of detentions and dismissals of judges, academics and journalists. For some Turks, the state of emergency raised fears of a return to the days of martial law after a 1980 military coup, or the height of a Kurdish insurgency in the 1990s when much of the largely Kurdish southeast was under a state of emergency. Opposition parties which stood with the authorities against the coup expressed concern that the state of emergency could concentrate too much power in the hands of Erdogan, whose rivals have long accused him of suppressing free speech. Erdogan, an Islamist, has led Turkey as prime minister or president since 2003. "We will continue the fight ... wherever they might be. These people have infiltrated the state organisation in this country and they rebelled against the state," he said, calling the actions of Friday night "inhuman" and "immoral". Around 1/3 of Turkey's roughly 360 serving generals have been detained since the coup attempt, a senior official said, with 99 charged pending trial and 14 more being held. The Defence Ministry is investigating all military judges and prosecutors, and has suspended 262 of them, broadcaster NTV reported, while 900 police officers in the capital, Ankara, were also suspended on Wednesday. The purge also extended to civil servants in the environment and sports ministries. The state of emergency went into effect after parliament formally approved the measure on Thursday. (source: Reuters) PHILIPPINES: Philippine woman will not be in Indonesia's next round of executions A woman from the Philippines convicted in Indonesia for drug smuggling and sentenced to death will not be among the first round of executions carried out when capital punishment is resumed after a lull, the attorney general said on Friday. Indonesia imposed a moratorium on executions for 5 years before resuming them in 2013. It provoked international outrage in April last year with the execution of 8 drug traffickers, 7 of them foreigners. After the outcry, authorities said they were postponing executions while the government focused on reviving he economy. But President Joko Widodo's administration has this year pledged to resume executions by firing squad. A Philippine maid, Mary Jane Veloso, got a last-minute reprieve last year, following a request from Manila after an employment recruiter, whom Veloso had accused of planting drugs in her luggage, gave herself up to police in the Philippines. "Not yet," Attorney General H.M. Prasetyo told reporters when asked about Veloso. "We are still waiting on the legal process in the Philippines, which we have to respect." Prasetyo has said 16 prisoners will be executed this year, including nationals from Nigeria and Zimbabwe, but has declined to give a specific time frame. That number will be more than doubled next year, he said. Indonesia has declared a "drug emergency" and vowed no mercy for drug traffickers. Authorities have not given a breakdown of the numbers of foreigners on death row but citizens of France, Britain and the Philippines are known to be among them. (source: Today Online) From rhalperi at smu.edu Fri Jul 22 13:50:55 2016 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Fri, 22 Jul 2016 13:50:55 -0500 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----KAN., NEB. Message-ID: July 22 KANSAS: Kansas Supreme Court upholds death sentence of man who killed Greenwood County sheriff The Kansas Supreme Court on Friday upheld the conviction and death sentence of Scott Cheever, the man who shot and killed Greenwood County Sheriff Matt Samuels during a drug raid in 2005. It was only the 2nd time the state's high court has upheld a death sentence since Kansas reinstated capital punishment in 1994. And the decision comes amid intense political scrutiny of the court during an election year in which the Kansas Republican Party has openly called for 4 of the 7 Supreme Court justices to not be retained this year, in part over controversy stemming from earlier death penalty cases. In 2012, the court initially overturned Cheever's conviction and death sentence, saying in part that the trial court in Greenwood County violated his Fifth Amendment privilege against self incrimination by allowing evidence to be introduced from a court-ordered psychiatric examination. The court said the testimony of Dr. Michael Welner should never have been admitted. It did not address the question of whether Welner's testimony unfairly influenced the jury. But the U.S. Supreme Court the following year reversed the Kansas court in a unanimous opinion written by Justice Sonia Sotomayor, saying the prosecution was entitled to present that witness to rebut Cheever's claim that he was not mentally competent at the time of the killing because he had been abusing drugs. In a 52-page opinion released Friday, written by Justice Eric Rosen who is not up for retention this year, the Kansas court, in a 6-1 ruling bowed to the U.S. Supreme Court by agreeing that Welner's testimony was admissible. The court went on to say, "Welner's testimony, while questionable in form, did not, in substance, exceed the proper scope of rebuttal, either constitutionally or under state evidentiary rules." It also said none of the other issues that Cheever's attorneys raised on appeal warranted reversing the verdict or death sentence. Justice Lee Johnson, who is also not up for retention this year, wrote a dissenting opinion saying he believes the death penalty violates the Kansas Constitution's ban on cruel and unusual punishment. (source: Lawrence Journal World) NEBRASKA: Journey of Hope brings message of healing to fight against death penalty 2 people on opposite sides of the criminal justice system brought a message of healing Thursday evening in their quest to see that the death penalty in Nebraska remains banned. Shujaa Graham and SueZann Bosler, both representing the organization called "Journey of Hope ... from Violence to Healing," shared their stories with a group of about 2 dozen people Thursday evening at the Immaculata Monastery in Norfolk. Both encouraged Nebraskans to vote to retain the state's ban on capital punishment in the November general election. Graham spoke first and told his story of how he was sent to death row in California after being wrongly convicted of murder. Later, Bosler spoke of learning to forgive her father's killer and how she spent many years fighting to see that man's death sentence overturned - a fight she finally won in 1997. Graham lived in southern California during the 1960s and was in and out of trouble as a teenager before being sent to prison for robbery. While he was incarcerated, Graham was wrongly convicted of murdering a prison guard in 1973 and was sentenced to die in California's gas chamber. "I'm not here because of the system," Graham said. "I'm here in spite of the system." Graham spent time on San Quentin's death row before his death sentence was overturned in 1979. After the case was retried for a 4th time, he was finally acquitted in 1981. After leaving prison, Graham dealt with bitterness over his wrongful conviction before receiving healing via the teachings of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. "What helped me is I continued to study and read the philosophy of Dr. King," Graham said. "And it kept me straight in terms of loving everyone, but you don't necessarily have to like it. You can't pick and choose whose human rights you want to respect. It was hard and it took a lot of strength." Bosler told the crowd of how James Bernard Campbell came to the door of her father's house in Florida and stabbed him 24 times before turning the knife on her and stabbing her 5 times. While Bosler survived the attack, her father, a Church of the Brethren minister, did not. Bosler spent more than a decade fighting to see Campbell receive a life sentence instead of the death penalty because of her and her late father's opposition to capital punishment. That fight often put her at odds with the prosecutors and judges in the case - even being threatened at one point with a contempt of court citation if she spoke out about her views on the death penalty. "My father said, 'Let there be peace on earth and let it begin with me,' but I say let it begin with every single one of us in this world," Bosler said. "We all have a place to help society, to bring peace and to bring this to the world." Bosler also spoke of her internal struggle to forgive Campbell and how forgiving him for her father's murder helped her find the peace she sought. "Some people think that if you forgive the other person, you're above them and you're better than them," Bosler said. "It doesn't work that way. I am a better person within myself, but I am just as equal to him as anybody else in the world and will always be equal to anybody in this world." Graham and Bosler will continue their tour of Northeast Nebraska this weekend, visiting Wayne on Friday evening and Dakota City on Saturday morning. It's part of organized efforts to encourage Nebraskans to retain the ban on the death penalty, which was approved by the Nebraska Legislature. That led to a successful petition drive to put the question on the November ballot. (source: Norfolk Daily News) From rhalperi at smu.edu Sat Jul 23 08:39:26 2016 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Sat, 23 Jul 2016 08:39:26 -0500 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----FLA., IND., ARK., MO., WYO., UTAH, CALIF., USA Message-ID: July 23 FLORIDA: Police suspected family member in death of Davie woman before Dayonte Resiles was charged Dayonte Resiles, who spent 6 days on the run after bolting from a hearing at the Broward County Courthouse, was not the 1st suspect in the murder of Jill Halliburton Su. In the hours after the body of Su was found in the master bathroom of her Davie home, police first suspected a family member had a hand in her murder. Police did not yet know that DNA left at the scene would come back to Resiles, 21, who was recaptured Wednesday night. On Sept. 8, 2014, before Resiles was linked to the case, police were looking at Su's son, Justin, who discovered his mother's body in a bathtub and called 911, apparently believing she had committed suicide. When police arrived, what they found did not look at all like a suicide, said Davie Police Capt. Dale Engle. Her hands and feet were bound, and she suffered multiple stab wounds. Justin Su, 20 at the time, was covered in blood above the waist, but there was no blood from the waist down - a sign he might have tried to change his clothes, Engle said. A security camera that had been installed by Su's husband had been disabled. l Engle said it's not uncommon for murder investigations to look at family members, and police looked at Justin Su with considerable suspicion. "We thought he killed his mother," said Engle, adding that Su's husband, renowned insect expert Nan-Yao Su, was also regarded with suspicion at the onset of the investigation. During a lengthy interrogation, Justin Su wouldn't crack, according to court records. He denied being involved with the murder and asked police if they would apologize for accusing him when his name was cleared. By the time the interrogation was over, police were sure family members were innocent. Justin Su got his wish a few days later, said Engle. "We brought him in, and his father, and we apologized," he said. The apology came with an explanation about why police initially focused on Justin Su, who moved his mother's body out of the bathtub after calling 911. He would not have seen beforehand that her hands and feet were bound, Engle said. The layout of the bathroom made it possible for the victim's son to get his upper body wet while moving the victim, leaving his lower body dry, Engle said. And the security camera showed it was not Justin Su or his father who shut it off. The DNA results placing Resiles at the crime scene were available nine days after the murder. By then, Justin Su and his father were no longer suspects, Engle said. It's still not clear how the killer got to the victim's home. The gated WestRidge development off Nob Hill Road a mile south of Interstate 595 is not barricaded in a way that would keep pedestrians out, and the back of the Su home faces a canal. A glass door in the back of the house was shattered. No other homes reported robberies that day, Engle said. Resiles had been arrested on burglary charges 9 times before the Su murder, and it was not unusual for him to get a ride to and from the homes and businesses he targeted, said Engle. Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty in the case. Resiles was scheduled for a hearing on the death penalty when escaped from the courtroom and eluded capture for nearly a week. Defense lawyer H. Dohn Williams said he intends to challenge the accuracy of the DNA results that made his client the main suspect. Prosecutor Shari Tate declined a request for comment, saying it was improper for her to discuss a pending case. (source: Sun-Sentinel) INDIANA: The dilemma of the death penalty 19 years ago this month, on July 26, 1997, Joseph Corcoran woke up from a nap and thought he heard people downstairs in his Bayer Avenue home talking about him. He loaded his semi-automatic rifle and descended the stairs. Within seconds, he had shot and killed his older brother, James; his sister's fiance, Robert Scott Turner; and his brother's friend, Timothy G. Bricker; as they sat on a couch in the living room. He chased Douglas A. Stillwell, another of his brother's friends, into the kitchen and shot him to death. Corcoran surrendered to police and admitted his guilt. 5 years before that quadruple murder, Corcoran was acquitted for lack of evidence in the murders of his parents, who were found shotgunned to death in their Bass Lake home. But in years since he is said to have bragged of those murders to fellow prison inmates. Sentenced to death in 1999, Corcoran, who has paranoid schizophrenia, has been on Indiana???s death row in Michigan City while the appeals process wound its way through the state and federal courts systems. Though the Supreme Court has forbidden the execution of juveniles and those with mental retardation, it still allows criminals with mental illnesses to be put to death. As The Journal Gazette's Rebecca Green recently reported, Corcoran's attorneys seem to have run out of appeals. Though his execution has not yet been scheduled, it may go onto the calendar soon, especially if a lawsuit seeking to block Indiana???s use of a 3-drug execution method is resolved. The perpetrator of such horrendous crimes should never be set free to kill again. But even those who still defend the concept of state-sanctioned execution have difficulty defending its use on seriously mentally ill prisoners such as Corcoran. (source: Editorial, Fort Wayne Journal Gazette) ARKANSAS: Arkansas Supreme Court Grants Stay, Keeping Executions On Hold----A decision by Arkansas' chief justice almost certainly means there will be no executions in the state through the rest of 2016. Arkansas Chief Justice Howard Brill on Thursday provided the 4th vote needed to grant inmates' request to keep executions on hold while they ask the U.S. Supreme Court to hear their appeal. Brill's procedural ruling was also favored by the 3 justices who have disagreed with the court's rejection of death-row inmates' challenge to Arkansas' death penalty secrecy law. In June, the state Supreme Court rejected 9 inmates' challenges to the secrecy law in a 4-3 vote. On Thursday, the same 4 justices - Brill included - rejected the inmates' request for the court to reconsider their decision. However, Brill joined justices Paul Danielson, Josephine Hart, and Robin Wynne in granting the inmates' request to grant them a stay pending the outcome of their petition for the Supreme Court to grant certiorari and hear their appeal in the case. Justices Karen Baker, Courtney Hudson Goodson, and Rhonda Wood - all of whom had, like Brill, voted against the inmates' challenge and the rehearing request - would have denied the stay request. The inmates now have 90 days to file their certiorari petition at the U.S. Supreme Court. A response from the state could be filed by the state or requested by the court after that - a process that takes additional time before the justices would consider the petition. Given that timeline, it is unlikely the justices would consider the request before December - meaning executions are almost certainly on hold in Arkansas through the rest of 2016 due to the fact that, even if the U.S. Supreme Court denies cert, advance notice then needs to be given for any execution dates set at that point. While the state has not held an execution in more than a decade, Gov. Asa Hutchinson attempted to restart them in 2015, but has so far been stymied in carrying any out. (source: buzzfeed.com) MISSOURI: Why are public defenders in Missouri asking to delay justice? On Thursday, public defenders assigned to Craig Wood asked the judge to delay the jury trial by 10 months. Wood is charged with the kidnapping and murder of 10 year-old Hailey Owens. Her family is waiting for justice, and the trial is set to begin in September. In a court document filed by the public defenders, Thomas Jacquinot writes, "there is no reasonable likelihood that Mr. Wood will receive competent and effective representation... if this case's trial begins in September 2016." The prosecutor has called it a delay tactic. The judge is considering postponing the trial until next May. But the public defender's office says they can't do their job correctly because they are understaffed and facing an excessive case load. It's a problem Jacquinot, the district defender, says goes back to 2003, when the division that handles death penalty cases was shrunk. Then in 2012, Jacquinot says the office of 8 people had their case load doubled, with no staff increase. "To keep up the caseload we have now I would, as a rough estimate, think we'd need to go from our current 8 to at least 12," Jacquinot said in a telephone interview with KY3. Michael Barrett, director of the Missouri State Public Defender system, says across the state, they need at least 30 attorneys. "Well we are 2nd to last in the United States in the funding we get for public defender funding," Barrett told KY3. Barrett says the lack of sufficient funding for public defenders hurts people who can't afford to hire a lawyer. "As a result, the clients tend to have their cases take longer and they sit in local jail longer and unnecessarily," Barrett says. People waiting for trial are contributing to overcrowding problems in county jails around the state. Barrett says it is more expensive for local and state government to have people charged with crimes sitting in jail rather than tried and either moved into prison or set free, depending on verdict and punishment. Barrett says the cost of defending cases is growing faster than the rate of inflation and gradual budget increases. Adding to the problem, Governor Nixon recently cut the public defender budget for fiscal year 2016-2017 by withholding $3.5 million. A spokesperson for the governor says the legislature had budgeted a $4.5 million increase for the Public Defender program, meaning a $1 million increase was left in the budget. The governor's office says he elected to make the cut in order to balance the budget. The public defender system is suing to get that money back. "There's a Department of Justice civil rights division finding that we systematically deprive people of their right to counsel in this state because of a lack of public defenders," Barrett says. (source: ky3.com) WYOMING: Judge rules Wyoming may continue to seek Eaton death penalty The state of Wyoming may continue to seek the death penalty against a man convicted of the 1988 murder of a Montana woman. U.S. District Judge Alan Johnson of Cheyenne has ruled that Wyoming's failure to appoint lawyers for Dale Wayne Eaton last year as Johnson had ordered doesn't preclude the state from seeking to execute him. Johnson in 2014 overturned Eaton's original death penalty in the murder of Lisa Kimmell of Billings, Montana. Eaton's lawyers don't dispute that he killed her, but Johnson ruled Eaton didn't receive a fair trial because the jury didn't hear adequate information about his background. A federal appeals court this week ordered proceedings to continue in Eaton's appeal of Johnson's order allowing the state to seek the death penalty against him a s2nd time. (source: Associated Press) UTAH: Suspect in killings of Utah siblings may face death penalty Charging documents show a man accused of killing a teenage brother and sister in Utah shot them multiple times during a group fight and warned others as he drove away that "they would be next" if they said anything. Prosecutors have charged the 28-year-old Mario Cervantez-Angel with 2 counts of aggravated murder, which carries the possibility of the death penalty. Witnesses says a fight broke out on July 6 in a Salt Lake City suburban apartment complex when Cervantez-Angel and three others showed up to confront Jose Izazaga and Abril Izazaga. Authorities said previously the fight started over a T-shirt. They were shot when Jose Izazaga pulled out a knife to defend his sister after authorities say Cervantez-Angel slammed her against a brick wall. Cervantez-Angel is being held in jail on $2 million bail. He doesn't have an attorney yet. (source: Associated Press) CALIFORNIA: Paper wrong recommendations on death penalty This may serve as a response to the East Bay Times (July 18) editorial asking voter approval of Proposition 62, abolishment of California's Death Penalty, and to vote no on Proposition 66, a measure designed to eliminate delay and modernize appeal procedures that would hasten execution of vicious murderers. The paper suggests, "Speed [in executions] is the hallmark of places like China ...." Recall the 2008 rape-murder conviction of Daryl Kemp, the Contra Costa jury recommending the death penalty. Kemp's victim was a 42-year-old Lafayette woman savagely killed in 1979. ? These crimes had been committed four months following Kemp's release from San Quentin where he had been serving a life sentence for the rape and murder of another woman. The original sentence, imposed in 1959, was death. However, in 1972 the Supreme Court found the death penalty unconstitutional, resulting in hundreds of murderers having their sentences reprieved. While legislation successfully reinstituted the death penalty, Kemp was paroled in 1978 when a prison psychiatrist determined he no longer constituted a danger to anyone. When DNA evidence linked Kemp to the Lafayette murder, he was in a Texas prison, convicted of raping three other women. The paper argues that Prop. 62 would impose life without possibility of parole (LWOP). We all should recognize that little is certain, and in California's criminal justice system, nothing is forever. Note realignment that has provided early release for thousands of felons who today are among us, as well as California electorate approving the proposition that reclassified many felonies as misdemeanors. I hasten to add that death penalty opponent, Gov. Jerry Brown (who appointed California Chief Justice Rose Bird, later recalled by the voters) now wants voters to approve Proposition 57, which would allow criminals convicted of "non-violent" felonies to be considered for early parole. We are not informed that violent priors don't count for otherwise "non-violent" convicts. It's only a matter of time when those who advocate leniency under the guise of saving money and humanitarism will legislate and litigate that life without parole is "cruel and unusual punishment." There are consequences of LWOP. As a prisoner with that sentence has only the possibility of escape to look forward to. That convict takes a hostage, perhaps custodial personnel or another prisoner and threatens death unless freedom is granted. If the hostage is killed what penalty could be imposed? Remember, in this scenario there is no longer a death penalty only LWOP. Taking hostages is not limited to convicts. A 3-time-loser, cornered and taken a hostage, has little to lose if he kills or harms that person or a police officer. The death penalty serving as a deterrent to homicide has been debated for years. To believe that innocent lives have not been spared because of the death penalty is nonsense. An outstanding example already referred to is the Supreme Court's 1972 decision abolishing the penalty of death; prisoners were released only to murder again. A deliberate vicious killing, subject to a death penalty verdict can be a thoughtful process. Not all, but surely some would weigh the ultimate penalty and spare the victim. A long-ago example but one that makes the point happened April 21, 1959 at San Quentin. Two convicts had just escaped. They were pursued to the end of a fishing pier in San Francisco Bay, where the prisoners took an elderly couple hostage, holding knives against their throats and threatening their lives. After several hours of negotiations the convicts surrendered; the couple was unharmed. During their debriefing, the pair related that the escaped prisoners discussed their dilemma: harming their hostages or surrendering. The prospect of the death penalty was part of the discussion but giving up became their choice. The couple believed the specter of the death penalty may have saved their lives. (source: Commentary; Peter A. Meredith is a retired police lieutenant with the Berkeley Police Department. He has been a resident of Contra Costa County since 1957----East Bay Times) USA: Donald Fell hearings close After 2 weeks of hearings on the constitutionality of the death penalty, all eyes are on District Court Judge Geoffrey Crawford who will issue a decision that could have far-reaching implications. In his opening remarks, Crawford said the hearings in the Donald Fell case presented an opportunity to "create a rich factual record for higher courts with broader authority to rule on the big questions." For the U.S. Supreme Court there are few bigger questions than the constitutionality of the death penalty. According to Robert Dunham, Executive Director of the Death Penalty Information Center, the Supreme Court has had the opportunity to review decisions that uphold the constitutionality of the death penalty, but has elected not to do so. However, he said, the Supreme Court has never been presented with a lower court ruling declaring the death penalty unconstitutional. "It is the kind of decision you typically would expect the Supreme Court to review because if they didn't the status of death penalty cases across the federal system would be in doubt," he said. Former director of the center, Richard Dieter, testified in the Fell hearings but Dunham said that the organization does not take a position on the death penalty, nor does it take a side in this lawsuit. Even if Crawford rules the federal death penalty unconstitutional, the case would almost certainly be appealed and there's no certainty that it would reach the nation's highest court. Over the past 2 weeks, the defense called 11 witnesses to testify on everything from the growing number of exonerations in death row cases to the uneven application of capital punishment and the role that race, gender, and geography can play in sentencing. The government wrapped up its testimony one day early after deciding to cancel its last 2 witnesses, Matthew Harding, an associate professor of economics at the University of California Irvine, and Hashem Dezhbakhsh, a professor of economics at Emory University. Government witnesses testified on the deterrence effect of the death penalty, public perceptions of capital punishment, and housing conditions on death row. A witness for the defense, Lauren Bell, who was unable to attend the hearings, will testify during a separate motion in August. The hearings stem from the murder of North Clarendon resident Terry King in November 2000. Fell and Robert Lee, who later committed suicide in prison, were accused of kidnapping King in the parking lot of a Rutland Price Chopper and driving her to New York before killing her. Fell was convicted in 2005 and sentenced to death the following year but the verdict was overturned due to juror misconduct. His retrial is scheduled to begin early next year. It is not the 1st time a federal judge has held hearings on the constitutionality of the death penalty. In July 2002, Jed Rakoff, a district court Judge in Manhattan, declared the death penalty unconstitutional based on the growing number of exonerations of death row inmates due to DNA evidence and other factors. Since 1973, according to Dunham, 156 death row inmates have been exonerated. 2 months later federal Judge William Sessions of Burlington also ruled the death penalty unconstitutional in a pre-trial hearing on the Fell case on the grounds that it denies due process protections and fair trial guarantees. "We now know, in a way almost unthinkable even a decade ago," Rakoff wrote in his decision, "that our system of criminal justice, for all its protections, is sufficiently fallible." Both rulings were overturned by appellate courts. Since Rakoff and Sessions issued their rulings, 7 states have banned capital punishment; a total of 19 states now outlaw the practice. (Vermont banned the death penalty in 1965.) The Supreme Court has also ruled that the death penalty cannot be applied in cases involving minors, the mentally disabled, and those convicted of a crime other than murder. During that same time, the number of death sentences and executions has also declined. "At this point, it's becoming more and more unusual for a country like ours to sanction state murder, which is what it is," said Allen Gilbert, Executive Director of the Vermont Chapter of the ACLU. "I think it's inevitable that at some point the U.S. will abolish the death penalty." Many observers point to a 2015 dissent from Justices Breyer and Ginsburg in a case challenging lethal injection in Oklahoma, Glossip v. Gross, as opening the door for a review of the death penalty's constitutionality. Citing the growing number of exonerations since the introduction of DNA evidence in the early 1990s and growing evidence that the death penalty is unevenly applied, Breyer wrote, "the death penalty, in and of itself, now likely constitutes a legally prohibited 'cruel and unusual punishment.'" The hearings before Judge Crawford are the first to take place since Justice Breyer's dissent, which Dunham characterized as a "call to defense lawyers to raise the issue so that the court may have the opportunity to review it." The particulars of the Fell case rarely came into play during the 2 weeks of hearings in Rutland District Court. The Fell case was however used to illustrate the arbitrariness of death sentencing. Fell's is 1 of only 2 cases in modern history in which local prosecutors had reached a plea deal in exchange for a life sentence that was then overturned by the attorney general. The defense argued that this is one of the features of the federal death penalty that has contributed to its overall administration in an arbitrary and capricious manner. The Fell case is also an example of how long death penalty cases can drag on in the courts. The crime Fell is charged with committing took place nearly 16 years ago. (source: vtdigger.com) **************************** VP Pick Sen. Tim Kaine Seeks to Balance Catholic Faith with Democratic Politics With news Friday that Hillary Clinton picked Tim Kaine as her Democratic running mate, the U.S. Senator from Virginia finds him, and his faith, back in the national spotlight. Like many other Democratic politicians who are Catholic, Kaine struggles with the challenge of living out his personal faith in a party that doesn't always share his church's views on complicated issues. As a young attorney in Virginia, Tim Kaine offered his legal services free of charge to death-row inmates seeking exoneration. He has said for decades that he is against the death penalty and that he is uncomfortable with the idea of abortion. Both positions are informed by his lifelong Catholic faith, but he nonetheless eschews the label of "pro-life," a view he made clear as recently as last week. When Kaine ran for governor of Virginia in 2005, anti-death penalty advocates were hopeful that should he win, he might follow the lead of other Catholic governors and halt executions. The commonwealth had killed more criminals than any other state, save Texas, according to a 2012 profile of Kaine in The Washington Post. But political realities set in. An anti-death penalty crusader would have a hard time winning statewide office in Virginia. . So Kaine promised that, even though he was personally opposed to the death penalty, as governor, he would enforce the laws. He kept his word and 11 people, 6 of them black, were put to death during his tenure. Kaine's position, of being personally opposed to a practice but not willing to prohibit it by law, is a standard refrain among some Catholics active in Democratic politics, though more commonly it is applied to abortion rather than the death penalty. It was in part this view that prompted some liberal activists to complain in the days leading up to his selection by Clinton that Kaine is not one of them, that he is too boring and perhaps too moderate for Democrats in 2016. (He admitted as much to the first charge on Meet the Press, stating quite succinctly, "I am boring.") But if he lacks a certain pizazz, what Kaine does bring to the ticket is a worldview shaped by the Catholic faith. Born in Minnesota and raised outside Kansas City, Kaine said his church was an important part of his upbringing. He told C-SPAN earlier this year that if his family "got back from a vacation on a Sunday night at 7:30 p.m., they would know the one church in Kansas City that had an 8 p.m. Mass that we can make." He went on to attend the Jesuit Rockhurst High School, which is where, he said, he first started "talking about faith and spirituality." "That high school experience with the Jesuits was a key part of my transition into an adult life where instead of just accepting the answers of my parents or others, I've been a person who wants to go out and find the answers on my own, and the Jesuits get credit for that," he said. After being admitted to Harvard Law School, Kaine took a year off to volunteer at a Jesuit vocational school in Honduras, teaching welding and carpentry, skills he learned from his father. It was in El Progreso where he became fluent in Spanish, a skill expected to help Clinton shore up the Hispanic vote. He told Virginia's The Daily Press last year that his experience in Honduras still informed his politics. "My experience working at Loyola taught me the importance of access to skills-based training - both in Honduras and the U.S. - and inspired me to pursue the issue of expanding career and technical education in the U.S. Senate," he said. When he and his wife settled down in Richmond about 3 decades later, they chose to attend a predominantly African-American Catholic parish. There, Kaine helped start a men's group and joined a gospel choir. (He had to quit the choir once he entered politics, rehearsals becoming difficult to attend.) He went on to become a city councilor and then mayor of the mostly African-American city in 1998. He was sworn in as lieutenant governor in 2002 andbecame governor in 2006. Barack Obama considered Kaine as his running mate in 2008 before choosing Joe Biden. He ran the national Democratic Party from 2009 to 2011, and he won a race for the U.S. Senate the following year. Like his views on the death penalty, which U.S. bishops have long opposed, Kaine's stance on immigration are also in line with the Catholic hierarchy. In 2013, Kaine became the 1st lawmaker in history to deliver a speech from the Senate floor entirely in Spanish. "It is time that we pass comprehensive immigration reform," he said in Spanish. But Kaine???s'public policy positions on abortion and marriage put him at odds with Catholic teaching. With speculation mounting that Kaine would be Clinton's choice, Kaine recently revisited his stance on abortion, recognizing that his own pro-life views were at odds with many Democratic activists. The party, after all, recently adopted in its draft platform for the 1st time a measure to repeal the Hyde Amendment, a compromise Kaine supports that for decades has restricted federal money from paying for abortions. Speaking to CNN earlier this month, Kaine was asked if he is "pro-life," to which he said, "I've never embraced labels." "I have a traditional Catholic personal position, but I am very strongly supportive that women should make these decisions and government shouldn't intrude," he continued. "I'm a strong supporter of Roe v. Wade and women being able to make these decisions. In government, we have enough things to worry about. We don't need to make people's reproductive decisions for them." That position has worked with voters in the past, most of whom fall somewhere in between the 2 parties' platforms on the abortion question. But it might not go over so well with some members of his church. When John Kerry was nominated by the Democrats in 2004, the last Catholic to be given the nod from either party, some bishops warned that Kerry's views on abortion meant he could not receive Communion, including Archbishop Charles Chaput, who was then the archbishop of Denver. Other bishops have said the same about Vice President Joe Biden, also a Catholic. This year, there has been relatively little mention from the U.S. hierarchy about abortion politics, perhaps because both candidates are widely viewed to favor abortion rights. (Trump has said in recent months he is against abortion, a position that puts him at odds with his own previous statements. He did not mention the issue during his nomination acceptance speech Thursday.) On L.G.B.T. issues, Kaine changed his stance on marriage and gay adoption in recent years, like many other Democratic leaders. In 2005, he said he was against adoption by gay parents because he believed only married couples should be allowed to adopt, and gay marriage was still illegal in Virginia. By 2013, Kaine had changed his mind publicly on marriage, saying, "I believe all people, regardless of sexual orientation, should be guaranteed the full rights to the legal benefits and responsibilities of marriage under the Constitution." He said he hoped the Supreme Court would legalize same-sex marriage, which it did in 2015. He explained his thinking with the Richmond Times-Dispatch, saying he had personally changed his mind on the issue as far back as 2006. "My thinking has evolved on it because of people I know, so many gay and lesbian folks, some in long term relationships who are great parents," he said. When pressed by the Post in 2012 on how he makes peace with his personal beliefs and public stances, Kaine said, "I have really struggled with that as governor." He continued, "I hope I can give a good accounting of myself on Judgment Day." Yet Kaine told C-SPAN he is constantly considering the bigger picture when he is voting or pushing an issue, something he traces back to his time with the Jesuits. "Everybody has motivations in life," he said. "I do what I do for spiritual reasons." (source: America Magazine) From rhalperi at smu.edu Sat Jul 23 08:40:13 2016 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Sat, 23 Jul 2016 08:40:13 -0500 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide Message-ID: July 23 IRAQ: Stalled death sentences spur debate in Iraq The Karrada blast, which killed about 300 Iraqis on July 3, brought attention to the thorny issue of the convicted terrorists who have spent years on death row awaiting execution. Amid popular discontent, the Iraqi government seems unable to resolve the issue of capital punishment, which is associated with the legal system inherited from the former regime. Summary? Print Following the recent terrorist attacks in Baghdad, Iraqi authorities are under pressure to expedite the execution of terrorism convicts. Under strong political and public pressure, the Iraqi presidency ratified an amendment to the Code of Criminal Procedure on July 7, a full year after its passing in the House of Representatives. The code enters into force as of its publication in the Official Gazette this week. The law is expected to accelerate the execution process of those convicted of terrorism and will put an end to "the neglect of the blood of the martyrs," according to Habib Hamza al-Torfi, a member of the parliamentary commission on human rights. He pointed out to Al-Monitor, "The delay in the execution of terrorists is encouraging those who are tempted to join terrorist and armed groups." Torfi criticized the presidency for the delay in approving the delay in exectuions. Before the amendment, Criminal Procedure Code 23 of 1971 had stipulated that each person sentenced to death had the right to 4 appeals. These can delay the process for more than 2 1/2 years. In addition, the committee set up by former President Jalal Talabani requires up to a year and a half in some cases to examine the cases of the convicts. In August 2015, the Iraqi Parliament voted to amend the law and sent it to the presidency for approval, a bureaucratic mechanism that normally takes as little as a few days or weeks. Torfi expected the presidency's ratification of the amendment to expedite the execution of terrorists, saying their prolonged stays in prison of several years are costly to the state. "1 inmate costs the state about $50 per day at a time when the country is going through a financial crisis and adopting austerity policies." The new amendment stipulates the right to 1 appeal instead of 4 and provides for the Justice Ministry's implementation of the death penalty within 30 days regardless of whether the president ratifies the sentence. Notably, in November 2009, the Supreme Judicial Council issued a death sentence for Adel al-Mashhadani, the leader of Sahwa al-Fadel and the most prominent terrorism convict, but the death sentence was not carried out until January 2014, more than 5 years later. While the Justice Ministry announced the execution of seven convicts July 5, only 2 of them turned out to have been convicted of terrorism, while the rest were convicted of other crimes. Also, the ministry had announced the implementation of death sentences for 73 convicts who later turned out not to be convicted of terrorism. Mohammed al-Okabi, a political analyst close to the Sadrist movement, told Al-Monitor that some of the executed supported the movement but were convicted of premeditated murder, and the movement leaders cannot interfere in purely judicial matters that have already been settled, especially as the leader, Muqtada al-Sadr, is leading a new anti-government protest movement. Okabi said, "The Sadrist leaders believe that their followers in prisons are mostly sentenced to imprisonment for various terms, and those sentenced to death were convicted of murder, not resisting the occupier." He mentioned the Sadrists' respect for the Iraqi judicial decisions and ruled out any link between the execution of convicts and the renewal of the Sadrist leader's call for reform. It is worth mentioning that the Karrada explosions were followed by a campaign on the part of Iraqi activists and political parties to demand the execution of terrorists. They accused the government of collaborating with terrorist groups and leniency toward those who fled persecution. An armed faction of the Popular Mobilization Units (PMU) interfered and threatened to execute terrorists itself. Sheikh Aws al-Khafaji, commander of the Abu al Fadl al Abbas forces, one of the Shiite PMU factions, revealed in a July 12 statement his intention to go to al-Hout prison in the Dhi Qar province in southern Iraq and his determination to execute terrorists in the presence of the families of martyrs. Khafaji said he informed the justice minister of the matter by telephone. One day later, he appeared on NRT TV and assured the government that no soldier would be attacked. He said that he had pledged to take the families of martyrs to watch the executions. According to a source from the Supreme Judicial Council who talked to Al-Monitor on condition of anonymity, al-Hout prison contains about 145 Saudis, most of whom were sentenced to death on charges related to Article 4 of Iraq's Anti-Terrorism Law. The Saudi ambassador to Baghdad, Thamer Sabhan, visited the prison in agreement with Iraqi Justice Minister Haider al-Zamili, causing a stir in political and popular circles. On a related note, a senior political source revealed to Al-Monitor on condition of anonymity that dozens of officials and Supreme Judicial Council judges received bribes from terrorist groups in exchange for withdrawing or removing evidence from the file of the terrorism convict after requesting a retrial and transfer to another court or another judge, in order to receive a lighter punishment or get released. The source pointed out, "In some cases, the bribes were up to half a million dollars and were paid with the knowledge of some of the judges." The Supreme Judicial Council is operating within an antiquated system that was established under the monarchy in the early 20th century, unchanged despite the evolution of the executive and legislative branches. (source: al-monitor.com) GUYANA: Guyana could hold referendum on death penalty The Assistant Secretary-General of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, Ivan Simonovic, says he respects the position taken by President David Granger regarding the abolition of the death penalty in Guyana. Earlier, Minister of Natural Resources Raphael Trotman said the government is in no rush to remove the death penalty after Justice Pilay urged Georgetown to move towards abolishing the death penalty as well as to repeal legislation providing for convicted terrorists to be put to death. Trotman said government now finds itself in a position where it has been asked to enact laws such as those to avoid being named a "pariah state". However, a subsequent government statement quoted President Granger as saying that he would be guided by advice from the National Assembly and public consensus and even hinted at the possibility of a referendum. Simonovic, who led a UN delegation that included Justice Navi Pillay, a member of the International Commission against the Death Penalty, met with President Granger and according to the statement issued afterwards, said that the President's strong statements against assenting to capital punishment and seeking public consultation in the matter must be respected and appreciated. The statement noted that Granger in a television programme to be aired this weekend, reiterated his position that he did not intend to order the execution of anyone. "I am advised by Cabinet. I am advised by my coalition partners. I am advised by the National Assembly and in the final analysis, by the people of Guyana. Guyana is an independent sovereign state and it is not for me to get ahead of what the people want. I do not envisage any circumstance under which I would be willing to assent to the death penalty even though it remains on the books." Granger noted that "there has been a moratorium of over 2 decades and what I would say is that if the Cabinet were to consider it, if the National Assembly were to consider it and even if there was a deadlock, we can go to a referendum. "Let the people say what they want to occur in this jurisdiction, in the state of Guyana. That is transparency, that is openness, that is consultation. What do the people want? So that is my approach." Simonovic is quoted by the government statement as saying that he is especially appreciative of the President???s insistence on taking a decision only after the citizens of the country have been consulted and their views made known. "[The] President's statement that we have heard recently that during his tenure there will not be any execution is very encouraging. I would think that also it is very encouraging that the government is thinking in terms of establishing a committee that will be reflecting on the issue of death penalty. "It is extremely good because experience in other countries have proven that the more you raise information, the more discussion about the death penalty, there is a strengthening of the trend of moving away from it so we welcome this development very much. We also think that this discussion is a good opportunity to make a formal decision," Simonovic said. (source: jamaicaobserver.com) INDONESIA: Executions near after prisoner loses appeal----3rd round of executions moves ever nearer after Indonesian court rejects case review from drug lord Indonesia's Supreme Court has rejected a case review filed by a convict on death row scheduled to be executed with several foreign nationals in the country's next round of executions. Supreme Court spokesman Ridwan Mansyur confirmed Friday that an appeal received by the court July 13 from the lawyer of Freddy Budiman -- sentenced to death by a Jakarta court in 2012 after being found guilty of smuggling 1.4 million ecstasy pills from China -- had been lost. "Yes, it is true that his case review has been rejected," kompas.com reported him as saying. Attorney General Muhammad Prasetyo has previously said that Budiman was on a list of death row convicts to be executed in an upcoming 3rd round of executions, and they would not take place until the court had made its decision. Last year, President Joko Widodo's administration executed 14 prisoners in 2 stages, inviting scathing criticism from the countries involved and the wider international community. On Friday, Prasetyo expressed happiness at the decision, saying the public had been waiting for the news so that the executions could go ahead. "It was what we expected. The community had been waiting for this," he was reported as telling reporters at his office. In a budget meeting in the House of Representatives last month, Prasetyo said it plans to execute 18 drug dealers this year, although he declined to name them. "I forgot their citizenship. There are many," detik.com quoted him as saying. When pressed earlier this month, metrotvnews.com reported he had said that inmates from Nigeria, Zimbabwe, and Indonesia will be on the list, but added there were none from Europe. Kompas.com has reported that all preparations for the executions have now been completed, including preparing clergy, a firing squad and doctors. It quoted Prasetyo as saying that the executions would once again be carried out in Nusakambangan prison island in Cilacap, Central Java. After being accused of coordinating drug trafficking operations from inside his prison of Bogor, West Java, Budiman was moved to the Central Java prison. (source: Anadolu Agency) ******************* Indonesia Getting Ready for Third Round of Drug Convicts Execution Attorney General HM Prasetyo said on Friday (22/7) his office is still making preparations to execute a number of drug convicts on death row. The official did not say however how many death-row inmates will be sent to the gallows and when it will happen. He only said that they comprised Indonesians and foreigners and that, like in the past, they will be executed in the Nusakambangan prison island off southern Central Java. HM Prasetyo made those remarks in his hearing with Commission III of the House of Representatives (DPR) responsible for law affairs on Friday (22/7), Kabar24.com reported. On Thursday (21/7), the Attorney General said his office is now '55 % ready' to execute the death-row inmates. When materialized, it will be the 3rd execution convicted drug traffickers in Indonesia. 8 people faced a firing squad in on April 29, 2015 while 6 faced the same fate on January 18 in the same year, all in Nusakambangan. The 6 prisoners included one Indonesian national. And, the 8 also included 1 Indonesian. News reports about the government's plan to execute more drug convicts were mixed with public speculations that President Joko 'Jokowi' Widodo is mulling to abolish death penalty. Government officials denied such speculations, however. The execution of the 16 drug traffickers roiled relations between Jakarta and other countries including Australia which temporarily withdrew its ambassador. (source: globalindonesianvoices.com) SAUDI ARABIA----execution Saudi executions exceed 100 this year Saudi authorities on Friday executed a man for murder, the interior ministry said, bringing to 101 the number of people put to death this year in the ultra-conservative kingdom. Fahad Abdulhadi al-Dusari was found guilty of shooting dead fellow Saudi Mubarak bin Mohammed al-Dusari following a dispute, the ministry said in statement carried by the SPA state news agency. He was executed in Riyadh province, it said. Saudi Arabia's growing use of the death penalty has prompted Amnesty International to call for an "immediate" moratorium on the practice. The kingdom imposes the death penalty for offences including murder, drug trafficking, armed robbery, rape and apostasy. Most people executed are beheaded with a sword. There were no beheadings during the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan, which began in the kingdom on June 6. However, capital punishment resumed on Sunday when authorities put a Saudi murderer to death. On Thursday, authorities carried out the 100th execution of the year, executing another murderer. "Saudi Arabia is speeding along in its dogged use of a cruel and inhuman punishment, mindless of justice and human rights," said Amnesty's Middle East and North Africa head Philip Luther. "At this rate, the Kingdom's executioners will soon match or exceed the number of people they put to death last year," he said. Many of those executed are convicted after "deeply unfair trials," he said. Amnesty says the kingdom carried out at least 158 death sentences last year, making it the 3rd most prolific executioner after Iran and Pakistan. Amnesty's figures do not include secretive China. "The Saudi Arabian authorities must immediately establish an official moratorium on executions and abolish the death penalty once and for all," Luther said. Murder and drug trafficking cases account for the majority of Saudi executions, although 47 people were put to death for "terrorism" offences on a single day in January. They included prominent Shiite cleric Nimr al-Nimr, whose execution prompted Iranian protesters to torch Saudi diplomatic missions, triggering a diplomatic crisis between the two arch-rivals. (source: Agence France-Presse) *************** Saudi Arabia passes 'grim watershed' as it executes 100th person this year According to the Saudi Press Agency, Saudi Arabia's Ministry of Interior announced that an execution was carried out in Riyadh today bringing the total number of executions carried out so far in 2016 to 100. In response to this news, Philip Luther Director of Amnesty International's Middle East and North Africa Programme said: "This is a grim watershed. With its 100th execution this year, Saudi Arabia is speeding along in its dogged use of a cruel and inhuman punishment, mindless of justice and human rights. "At this rate, the Kingdom's executioners will soon match or exceed the number of people they put to death last year - which, at 158, was the highest recorded figure since 1995. "Many of those executed have been convicted after deeply unfair trials, as a result of flaws in the justice system. The Saudi Arabian authorities must immediately establish an official moratorium on executions and abolish the death penalty once and for all." (source: Amnesty International) From rhalperi at smu.edu Sun Jul 24 08:52:35 2016 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Sun, 24 Jul 2016 08:52:35 -0500 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, ARK., CALIF., USA Message-ID: July 24 TEXAS----impending execution Rally Questions Death Penalty for Texas Man Who Didn't Pull Trigger Supporters of Jeff Wood gathered on July 23, 2016, in front of the Governor's Mansion to rally against his scheduled August execution. On Saturday, relatives and supporters of death row inmate Jeff Wood braved the Texas summer heat to gather outside Gov. Greg Abbott's mansion, hoping their state's leader will halt the execution and commute Wood's sentence for one reason - Wood never killed anyone. On Jan. 2, 1996, Wood, 22 at the time, waited in a car while Daniel Reneau robbed a Kerrville convenience store and shot the clerk, Kriss Keeran, according to a clemency petition from 2008. Wood was charged with capital murder under Texas' law of parties, which states that a person can be charged of a crime he didn't commit if he helped or "should have anticipated it as a result" of another crime, like a robbery, according to the Texas penal code. Wood was sentenced to death as was Reneau, who was executed in 2002. Huddled under the shade of trees outside the mansion's gates in the 100-degree heat, Wood's family and about 30 other people carried signs with Wood's face on them and wore T-shirts that said "Punish action. Not affiliation." Terri Been, Wood's sister, told the small crowd that her brother did not commit or conspire to commit murder and that he didn't even know Reneau had a gun when he entered the store. "So I ask you, Governor Abbott, how is this justice?" Been said toward the mansion. "My brother is not a monster; he is not a killer." A spokesman for Abbott's office didn't immediately respond to a request to comment for this article. At Saturday's rally, Tommy Ramirez, a trial lawyer from Devine, held a sign calling to save Wood, but said he is not against the death penalty or the law of parties. The law was meant for mobsters or someone who paid to have someone killed, he said. "In this case, we got a ... kid, with no record, hanging with the wrong people," Ramirez said. "He did not know anyone was going to be murdered." Executions under the law of parties or similar laws in other states, are rare. The Death Penalty Information Center has confirmed only 10 cases, 5 of which were in Texas. In 2007, then-Gov. Rick Perry changed Kenneth Foster's sentence from death to life in prison hours before his execution. Like Wood, Foster was the getaway driver in a robbery that turned to murder. But 2 years later, Perry refused to halt the execution of Robert Thompson in a similar case after the Board of Pardons and Paroles recommended clemency, according to the Houston Chronicle. The triggerman in that murder received life, not death. Jeff Wood was originally scheduled to be executed in 2008, but the execution was stayed by a federal district court, according to court documents. He has been on death row for more than 18 years. A petition asking the governor and the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles to stay the execution and commute Wood's sentence will be sent early next month, according to Scott Cobb of Texas Moratorium Network. With sweat on their brows, Wood's supporters hoped Abbott would hear their cries from his gate and stop his execution, scheduled for Aug. 24. "We do not want Jeff Wood to be executed. Not on the 24th, not ever!" said Gloria Rubac, an anti-death penalty activist. "We got a stay for Jeff [before], and we're gonna do it again!" (source: Texas Tribune) ************* The Life of Texas Death Row Inmate Teddrick Batiste We periodically publish letters from death row inmates. Today we hear from a 29-year-old Texas inmate who describes his life and horrific upbringing, and offers a look behind the walls of a prison from which he will never emerge. Teddrick Batiste was convicted of the 2009 shooting and killing a Houston man during an attempted robbery. Batiste, a Houston native, was a member of the Crips at the time of his crime. He has been on death row in Texas since 2011. Last month, Batiste wrote to me to share his memories of Ray Jasper, a fellow Texas death row inmate who was executed in 2014. Shortly before his death, Jasper wrote us a letter that was viewed more than 2 million times, becoming the most widely read ever in our "Letters from Death Row" series. Batiste told of his close friendship with Jasper, and of Jasper's fierce physical resistance on the day of his execution, forcing a riot team to remove him from his cell. I wrote back to Batiste asking for any further memories of Ray Jasper, and sent him a standard set of questions about his life on death row and his thoughts on the justice system. His letter in response is below. Batiste recounts his relationship with Ray Jasper and his recollections of the time leading up to Ray Jasper's execution. "He decided to not cater to a person smiling in your face to get you to hurry up and sign a piece of paper saying that your going to willingly let them kill you." Batiste describes the chaos surround Ray Jasper's last days. "He told me that he didn't care if they put his body on top of another inmate that has been killed by the state, he was going to fight for his life no matter what." Final thoughts on Jasper, and Batiste begins responding to our questions about his case and the burdens of life on death row. "You can spend your time being mad at the world, but you have to look in the mirror and not out the window." Batiste discusses his past and his life inside. "I had a real dark childhood and fear was taken from me when I was young." Batiste describes his daily routine in prison. "I aint had no physical contact since April 2009. Any contact I have had since then has been me fighting with the riot team here. No touch of my son, no family, a woman, no friends, no hand shakes, no high fives, no nothing at all." Batiste talks about his childhood and growing up in Houston. "My mom had me when she was 15 years old in the bathroom of my grandmother's house on the floor... I saw people break and fall every day. I saw people speak of endless pain and defeat in life." More on Batiste's youth. "This guy would physically abuse [my mom and me] and when she fought or cried I was right there with her. We were face to face tear to tear. You ever tasted a tear? I have." More on Batiste's past and his thoughts on religion. "I felt like nothing bad happens at church so why did god allow this or do this to my grandmother... That was the last time I ever went to church." Further thoughts from Batiste on religion and on the media. "I got tired of saying I pray and he don't talk to me, my knees bleed because I pray so much." Batiste contrasts media perception and reality of his neighborhood and prisons. "There is no media when the aid centers are over packed and things like that, only crime brings the media where I'm from." Batiste's final thoughts. "As a man I'm always willing to deal with what comes my way, but I also know that I would like to not have what came my way as my identity." (source: Hamilton Nolan, gawker.com) ARKANSS: Illness resets trial in child's death A judge delayed the jury trial for a man accused in the death of his son because one of his defense attorneys has developed a medical condition. Mauricio Torres, 46, and his wife, Cathy, are charged with capital murder and first-degree battery in the death of their 6-year-old son. Prosecutors will seek the death penalty for the Bella Vista couple. Maurice Isaiah Torres was pronounced dead at a hospital March 29, 2015. A medical examiner determined the boy suffered from chronic child abuse and that his death was from internal injuries caused by rape, according to court documents. A jury trial for Mauricio Torres was scheduled to begin Aug. 22. It is now set for Nov. 1, according to Tuesday's ruling by Benton County Circuit Judge Brad Karren. Torres' attorneys, Jeff Rosenzweig and Bill James, requested a delay in the trial. Mauricio Torres was in the courtroom Tuesday, but his attorneys participated by telephone. Rosenzweig said he had been diagnosed with acute deep vein thrombosis and had blood clots in his leg. Rosenzweig said he had been placed on blood thinners and that his health problems prevent him from traveling. He is unable to go to California to talk with witnesses and prepare for the August trial, Rosenzweig said. He has made one trip to California, he said. Karren wanted to know whether James or the defense's investigator and mitigation specialist could travel in his place. Rosenzweig said he's the one who has already met with Torres' father and is trying to gain his cooperation. He did not know whether his health condition would affect an Aug. 22 trial. The concern is that a blood clot could break free and further risk his health, Rosenzweig said. James argued the trial should not take place in August since Rosenweig needed to rest. Nathan Smith, Benton County's prosecuting attorney, objected to delaying the trial for a 3rd time. Smith said he was sympathetic of Rosenzweig's medical condition but believes the trial can be held and still protect his health. Smith said many witnesses are ready for the August trial, adding the case is 18 months old and that Mauricio Torres had three other attorneys before they were replaced by Rosenzweig and James. James said most capital cases take at least 2 years to try. "This is a death-penalty case," he said. "It needs to be done right. We don't want to lose Jeff because the state wants to kill him [Mauricio Torres] sooner." "I object to that," Smith said. Smith asked the judge to appoint a third attorney for Torres if the judge postponed the trial. "We need all to understand that come hell or high water ... we are having it," Smith said of the November trial. Karren will request the Arkansas Public Defender Commission appoint a third attorney to Torres' defense team. Karren also rescheduled a suppression hearing that was set for Friday until Sept. 16. Cathy Torres' trial was set to begin Nov. 1, but her husband's trial now will take place instead of hers. A new date was not scheduled for Cathy Torres' jury trial. The Torreses are being held without bail in the Benton County jail. (source: arkansasonline.com) CALIFORNIA: Proposition 62 Would Finally Halt The 'Machinery of Death' in California 45 years ago in a bone-chilling, blood-curdling cover story for The Los Angeles Free Press about California's gas chamber - "How Long Can You Hold Your Breath?" - author, musician and beatnik activist Ed Sanders, decried state-sponsored, taxpayer funded executions as a "ritual of filth." Sanders exhorted: "Isn't it time to crush that cruel nose-cone at San Quentin in the jaws of the nearest auto compactor or in the nearest junk yard?" Close to half a century later - but, better late than never - when Californians head to the polls on Nov. 8, we can do just what Ed Sanders suggested: We can toss out what former Supreme Court Justice Harry Blackmun called our broken and vile 'machinery of death," relegating it to the dust-heap of our shared, dark, wayward humanity. Opinion LogoIf we vote for Proposition 62 and against Proposition 66, we can finally be rid of the gruesome gas chamber which Sanders wrote, "drools for its next victim." It might surprise you to know this man-made room of depravity with its glistening, antiseptic floor, could under current California law, still be used. And what about those grim, ghastly gurneys and the nasty life-sucking needles, no better than chemical nooses? They'll be gone for good if we just vote for Proposition 62 and against Proposition 66. If we vote for Proposition 62 and against Proposition 66 (which promises to speed up executions, but underneath its sheen, is nothing more than 24 carat fool's gold), California can forever be free of the infamy of having executed an innocent person - that is, if we haven't done so already. With the too-large number of exonerations of the wrongfully convicted in California and nationally, a number that keeps rising as faithfully as the tide, it may be too late for us to prevent such an abomination - but what does it say about us as human beings if we don't act now to prevent more!? My fellow citizens, if we just vote for Proposition 62 and against Proposition 66, finally, we can put an end to the extremely costly, time-sapping, never-ending death penalty appeals that have clogged and paralyzed our court system for decades, and that would do so even more under Proposition 66. If we just vote for Proposition 62 and against Proposition 66, we can end the ghoulish grandstanding over the procurement and planning by our elected officials to administer potentially defective, death-inducing drugs to our citizens - drugs that have the potential, as we've seen in recently botched executions around the country, to torture - thereby demeaning us all. At least 18 death row inmates in California are out of appeals and ripe for execution; 730 more are in the pipeline, ready to follow suit. We can exterminate them all, and going forward we can choose to kill the many hundreds and thousands of Californians that will sadly, but as surely as human nature, take their place. We can do so in the name of so-called "justice," and on behalf of the great state of California. Or, finally, as the Los Angles Free Press implored close to a half a century ago, we can as free Californians break from the yoke of state-endorsed murder - a vulgar practice of vengeance that has masqueraded far too long in this country as "justice." If we do that - if we Californians vote for Proposition 62 and against Proposition 66 - we can fulfill the hopeful promise of our goodness as a people upon which the Eighth Amendment of our United States Constitution depends. In 1958, the Honorable Earl Warren, a native Californian, our state's 30th governor, and a former chief justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, wrote that the Eighth Amendment "must draw its meaning from the evolving standards of decency that mark the progress of a maturing society." If we vote for Proposition 62 and against Proposition 66, our standards of decency will finally have evolved such that we can mark - I daresay, we can celebrate - the progress of the maturing society conscientious Californians long have craved. (source: Stephen Cooper is a former Washington, D.C., public defender who worked as an assistant federal public defender in Alabama between 2012 and 2015----timesofsandiego.com) ******************* On Human Rights, California is Better than Japan, Thailand, Taiwan, Singapore, and Texas! Speaking in favor of Proposition 66, the ballot initiative that seeks to speed up executions in California to Texas-like levels of lethality, Los Angeles deputy district attorney Michele Hanisee told legislators during testimony before the Public Safety Committee in May: "The suggestion that civilized societies don???t support the death penalty is inaccurate. Many countries such as Japan, Thailand, Taiwan, and Singapore have the death penalty." Ms. Hanisee is President of the Association of Los Angeles Deputy District Attorneys. She is being sued for lying in a declaration she made under oath during a murder prosecution and, just recently, her claims of "absolute immunity" for that egregious conduct were rejected by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. While this alone clouds Hanisee's credibility on the death penalty debate in California (whether the punishment should be ended forever or be "speeded up"), the countries whose justice systems Hanisee extols are even more troubling. Perhaps, in addition to remedial ethics courses on an attorney's duty of candor to the court, Ms. Hanisee should also take a closer look at the countries she is suggesting Californians emulate with their vote on the death penalty this fall. For example, in Japan, it has been documented that death sentences are "implemented with disregard for international law, including denying the right of prisoners to seek appeal." The condemned are subject to "degrading and inhuman treatment" which includes "prolonged solitary confinement." Japan even executed an 89-year-old man last year who spent 46 years on death row protesting his innocence - all the way to his long-awaited, abominable end. In Thailand, Taiwan and Singapore, death sentences can be meted out for drug crimes alone. Furthermore, in Thailand, allegations of the torture of suspects charged with capital offenses have been substantiated by the Thai National Human Rights Commission. Taiwan, which is moving toward abolishing the death penalty, has a record of executing "psychologically or mentally impaired prisoners," and failing to have "a clear and complete procedure for appeals for clemency." Last fall, in an article for Slate called, "Singapore's harsh death penalty: Inside the fight to save 1 man from the city-state's death row," Kirsten Han wrote about, "Singapore's mandatory death penalty regime" where, under Singapore law, "anyone convicted of murder must be sentenced to death, with no chance for mitigating factors to be taken into account." (In Singapore, prisoners convicted of low-level property crimes can even be caned, a punishment Berkeley Law Professor Jerome H. Skolnick called "brutal," describing how a "martial artist strikes the offenders" with "a half-inch rattan cane moistened to break the skin and inflict severe pain" often causing significant "loss of blood" and "shock.") Like Ms. Hanisee, Ms. Bethany Webb, who lost her sister in the 2011 mass shooting at a hair salon in Seal Beach, also got a chance to address the Public Safety Committee this past May. In her courageous testimony, Ms. Webb explained her support for Proposition 62 (which would, among other things, replace the death penalty in California with a sentence of life without the possibility of parole). In voicing her opposition to the countervailing initiative, Proposition 66, Ms. Webb told lawmakers: "We could be more like Texas. We could start mass producing murder. Well, I'm sorry, California is better than Texas .... We're better than Texas." Ms. Webb is right. When it comes to respecting human rights, California is better than Texas, where the lust for speedy executions has led to the execution of a panoply of potentially innocent men. And, despite what Ms. Hanisee thinks, we are also better than Japan, Thailand, Taiwan, and Singapore. Or, at least, we will be - as soon as we vote for Proposition 62 and against Proposition 66 - ending capital punishment forever in California. (source: Stephen Cooper is a former D.C. public defender who worked as an assistant federal public defender in Alabama between 2012 and 2015----themoderatevoice.com) ******************* Yes on Prop. 66 - Death Penalty Reform - Fixing California's Broken System Historically, Californians have overwhelmingly supported the death penalty. Yet, during every election cycle a ballot measure comes up looking to repeal it. Well this year is no different. Governor Brown and a host of Hollywood elite are actively pushing Prop. 62, which would repeal the death penalty, granting criminals convicted of murder with special circumstances, a life sentence instead. Opponents of the death penalty try to point out the possibility of persons being wrongly convicted of capital offenses, sentenced to death and then being executed. The fact is there is no documented case of this EVER taking place in California due to the expertise and painstaking quality of investigation and prosecutorial work that has gone into death penalty cases. Instead of abolishing the death penalty altogether, a smarter move is to mend a broken system. Prop. 66 is the answer Californians are looking for. The goals behind Proposition 66 are laudable and more in line with the thinking of the California electorate that voted to reinstitute the death penalty to begin with mend it, don't end it. Prop. 66 reforms will speed up the appeals process, ensuring appeals are heard within 5 years and no innocent person is executed. It doesn't do so in a hasty way intended to cut corners. It does so by eliminating legal and procedural delay tactics while still respecting the legal rights and recourse for those convicted. Proposition 66 would ensure that every person sentenced to death has qualified death penalty appeals counsel assigned immediately, eliminating the current wait of 5 years or more. The appeals would then be expedited without endangering due process, and initiated at the trial court level where the facts of the cases are best known. Death row inmates have murdered over 1000 victims, including 226 children and 43 police officers; 294 victims were raped and/or tortured. It's time California reformed our death penalty process so it works and provides murder victims and their families with some sense of closure. Instead of talking about how barbaric and unfair the death penalty in California is, those seeking to abolish it should give thought to those victims who had their lives taken from them, often in truly brutal and horrific ways, and their families who have had to live with the knowledge that the murders of their loved ones continue to live at the expense of the taxpayer. And regarding the expense, those backing repeal of the death penalty try to point to a great windfall of savings for the taxpayer if those on death row simply spend that time in prison for life rather than face execution. Even at an estimated $150 million reduction in annual costs, one would still have to concede that the savings is a paltry drop in the bucket compared to the vast size of California's budget and hardly the worst use of taxpayer funds. Instead, under Prop 62, taxpayers are on the hook to feed, clothe, house, guard and provide healthcare to brutal killers until they die of old age costing taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars. Criminals don't end up on death row unless they are convicted of the worst crimes. Victims left behind, grieving families throughout California and their loved ones, don't deserve anything less than justice. Justice is a reformed, not eliminated death penalty. We urge a No vote on Proposition 62 and a Yes vote on Proposition 66. (source: Guest Opinion; Michael Hestrin was sworn in as the Riverside District Attorney in 2015. Prior to being sworn as the DA, Hestrin spent 18 years as a line prosecutor in the DA's Office----The Desert Independent) USA: Tim Kaine Has A Long, Complicated History With The Death Penalty----While Kaine has said he personally opposed capital punishment, he is one of the few Democrats in recent years to have carried out executions. By selecting Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine as her running mate, Hillary Clinton chose one of the few Democratic governors who has put people to death. In his 4 years as governor of Virginia, Kaine carried out 11 executions. Over the course of the 2016 campaign, Clinton has said that she has concerns about how the death penalty is implemented in the states, and that she would "breathe a sigh of relief if either the Supreme Court or the states themselves began to eliminate the death penalty." But Clinton has reiterated that she supports the death penalty being an option for the federal government in cases like terrorism. Of current governors, the only Democrats to have carried out executions are Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon and 1 of Kaine's successors, Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe. Although Kaine carried out 11 executions, his stance on the death penalty is much more complicated than that. Before he became governor in 2006, Kaine served as a civil rights lawyer, and represented several capital defendants. In 1987, he told the Washington Post that "[m]urder is wrong in the gulag, in Afghanistan, in Soweto, in the mountains of Guatemala, in Fairfax County ... and even the Spring Street Penitentiary." Kaine was attacked for his work as a pro-bono attorney for death row defendants when he ran for governor. His opponent, Jerry Kilgore, wanted to expand the use of the death penalty - and ran attack ads with families of victims in cases Kaine represented. "Tim Kaine says that Adolf Hitler doesn't qualify for the death penalty," one victim's father said in one of the ads. Kaine, a devout Catholic, responded in a follow-up ad. "My faith teaches that life is sacred," Kaine said in the ad. "That's why I personally oppose the death penalty. But I take my oath of office seriously, and I'll enforce the death penalty ... because it's the law." Once in office, Kaine did so, declining to grant clemency and allowing his 1st execution to proceed as governor in his 3rd month on the job, April 2006. Kaine commuted only 1 death sentence as governor, citing inmate Perry Walton's mental deficiencies. Walton had pleaded guilty to killing 3 people in 1997. "One cannot reasonably conclude that Walton is fully aware of the punishment he is about to suffer and why he is to suffer it," Kaine said in a statement at the time. Kaine believed there was "significant evidence that Walton had schizophrenia," and that "there was more than a minimal chance that Walton no longer knew why he was to be executed or was even aware of the final punishment he was about to receive." Of the 11 people - all men - executed under Kaine, 6 were black. In a 2012 interview after he had left the governor's office, Kaine told the Washington Post he was conflicted over the executions. "I really struggled with that as governor. I have a moral position against the death penalty," he said. "But I took an oath of office to uphold it. Following an oath of office is also a moral obligation." "I hope I can give a good accounting of myself on Judgment Day." (source: buzzfeed.com) *************** Give killers taste of their own medicine Cops killing people, people killing cops, terrorists killing people, people killing each other - it seems our world has been turned upside down by violence. If the perpetrators of such heinous acts don't kill themselves or are not killed by others, I must assume they will be tried in a court of law. If found guilty, the majority end up with prison sentences, though many will be eligible for parole down the road. Those who receive the death penalty spend decades in prison before they die of natural causes or are executed. In either case, why should law-abiding, tax-paying citizens have to pay for their incarceration? Some may argue that potential rehabilitation justifies the expense. Frankly, I am not interested in rehabilitating someone who willingly kills - self-defense being the only exception. Others will defend insanity as a reason to minimize a murderous act. In reality, anyone who kills another human being is insane. It doesn't matter if the act is premeditated or spontaneous. Perhaps an eye-for-an-eye approach to justice would drastically reduce the volume of murderous acts. A killer who willingly drives his or her vehicle through a crowd and takes many innocent lives should be punished by being run over by a similar vehicle. A terrorist who beheads his victims should also be beheaded. More civilized alternatives include a public firing squad or hanging. Do these solutions seem inhumane? Perhaps, but how humane is murder? Of course, none of these punishments will ever happen, but if they did, I believe murders of all kinds would be drastically reduced. Dick Southmayd, Oak Ridge (source: Letter to the Editor, Knoxville News-Sentinel) From rhalperi at smu.edu Sun Jul 24 08:55:24 2016 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Sun, 24 Jul 2016 08:55:24 -0500 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide Message-ID: July 24 PHILIPPINES: Mistaken executions seen with death penalty revival Owing to an error-prone judiciary, many convicts would be wrongfully executed once Congress revives the death penalty, a pro-life lawmaker warned on Sunday. "We're afraid the rate of wrongful executions could even be higher than that during President [Joseph] Estrada's administration," Buhay party-list Rep. Lito Atienza said in a statement. Atienza made the statement shortly after House Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez said Congress would comply with President Rodrigo Duterte's wish to make passage of a new law restoring capital punishment a priority. During Estrada's administration, 7 convicts were put to death, and at least 1 of them was later found unjustly killed, implying a 15 % wrongful execution rate, according to the congressman. In 2006, then Chief Justice Artemio Panganiban stunned the nation when he belatedly disclosed that the Supreme Court blundered when it caused the mistaken execution of Leo Echegaray in 1999. The case against Echegaray had a fatally defective rape charge sheet, according to Panganiban. He said the criminal complaint never alleged that Echegaray was the father, stepfather or grandfather of the victim - the qualifying condition for a death sentence. In previous instances wherein the accused was found guilty of a capital offense that was never alleged in the charge sheet, the Supreme Court either acquitted the death convict, ordered a retrial or reduced the sentence to life in prison. "Our trial courts are error-prone because they are run by fallible mortals and many judges are overworked, susceptible to corruption or recklessness or simply inept," Atienza said. "In fact, the last time we experimented on capital punishment, up to 65 % of death verdicts were found to be erroneous, resulting in acquittals, retrials or the imposition of lighter sentences upon automatic review by the Supreme Court," he added. Even the Supreme Court is capable of blunders, as evidenced by Echegaray's case, Atienza said. "Here lies the big difference between executing a convict and putting him behind bars for life. If we imprison a convict and he is later exonerated, we can still set him free. We can still correct the mistake. In capital punishment, we cannot rectify the error once the convict has been put to death," he noted. "The death penalty does not serve any purpose that is not already being served by the punishment of life in prison," he added. The Duterte administration would achieve far more in suppressing rampant crime if it concentrated on purging the criminal justice system of corruption, and on improving the capabilities of law enforcement agencies, the prosecution service, the judiciary and the prisons, Atienza said. (source: Manila Times) TURKEY: Greece urges Turkey to show restraint on death penalty Turkey should exercise restraint and avoid restoring the death penalty after last week's failed military coup, Greece's foreign minister said in remarks published on Saturday. Turkey abolished capital punishment in 2004, bolstering its long-running bid for European Union membership. But since overcoming the July 15 coup attempt, President Tayyip Erdogan has told crowds of supporters chanting for the death penalty that such demands may be discussed in parliament. "The winners of the internal conflict in Turkey must show magnanimity towards the defeated, (show) self-restraint and not reinstate the death penalty," Greek Foreign Minister Nikos Kotzias told Realnews newspaper in an interview released ahead of Sunday's publication. Kotzias said the EU hailed the defeat of the coup and wants a democratic Turkey that respects the interests and needs of all religious, social and ethnic groups. "We don't want a Turkey of revenge, of break-up and destabilisation," he told Realnews. EU leaders including French President Francois Hollande and German Chancellor Angela Merkel have said that Ankara could not reintroduce capital punishment if it wishes to join the EU one day. But Turkey's justice minister said on Friday that the issue of whether or not Turkey brings back the death penalty should be considered from a legal standpoint and not in terms of what the EU wants. Asked whether Greece would return eight Turkish soldiers who fled to Greece in a military helicopter after the failed coup, Kotzias said: "This will be decided by judges and other pertinent authorities. Surely they will take into account to what extent the eight (soldiers) were part of the coup." The men - 3 majors, 3 captains and 2 sergeant majors - landed in the northern Greek border city of Alexandroupolis last Saturday after issuing a distress signal. They were arrested and have sought political asylum. Turkish authorities have branded them "traitors" and "terrorist elements" and asked Athens to extradite them. Greece has said it will examine their asylum requests quickly. On Thursday, the men were convicted of entering Greece illegally and handed a 2-month suspended jail sentence. Their asylum requests are being examined and they are to appear before immigration authorities next week for further interviews. A lawyer representing four of the men has said they fear for their lives if they are returned to Turkey. Kotzias also said one should steer clear of making associations between people who fight for their rights in a democratic way and those who carry out coups, bomb parliaments and kill protesters. "These people in no way deserve our solidarity. No one must forget that those behind the coup turned against the institutions of Turkish democracy." (source: dailymail.co.uk) INDONESIA: Kontras Urges Gov`t to Review Death Penalty The Commission for Missing Persons and Victims of Violence (Kontras) has urged the government to review the implementation of death penalty in Indonesia. Putri Karnesia, head of political civil rights division at Kontras, said that a number of death penalties were issued without proper legal procedures. One of the cases being handled by Kontras is death penalties against Yusman Telaumbanua and Rasula Hia issued by the Gunungsitoli District Court, Nias, North Sumatra. Based on Kontras' findings, Yusman was a minor when he was involved in a murder case back in 2012. "We are concerned that the next execution could be a bad move," Putri said in Jakarta on Saturday, July 23, 2016. Yusman and Rusula are death-row convicts waiting for their execution for being involved in a premeditated murder against Kolimarinus Zega, Jimmi Trio Girsang and Rugun Br. Haloho. Putri viewed that Yusman's case could be a momentum for the government to evaluate the implementation of death penalty, since the legal process in Indonesian courts are not ideal yet. Another Kontras activist Arif Nur Fikri viewed that the country's justice system is still vulnerable when it comes to death penalty. Arief added that Kontras has filed a judicial review against the verdict for Yusman. **************************** Human Rights Group Urges Gov`t to Cancel 3rd Wave of Executions Human rights group named Imparsial has called on the government to cancel the third wave of executions. Imparsial director Al Araf said that there was no relevance between the implementation of death penalty and the declining number of crimes in Indonesia. "Drug convicts are given death penalties, but drugs distribution is not declining," Al Araf said in a discussion held at Imparsial's office in Jakarta on Sunday, July 24, 2016. According to Al Araf, the number of drug-related crimes has increased after the 1st wave of executions was conducted in 2015, based on data from the National Narcotics Agency (BNN). Al Araf argued that fair law enforcements, rather than the level of punishment, would cause deterrent effects. Al Araf viewed that the justice system in Indonesia is not yet ideal as reflected by a drug case involving Pakistani national Zulfiqar Ali. Zulfiqar was arrested in 2004 for allegedly possessing 300 grams of heroin. The court imposed a death penalty in June 2005. Zulfiqar's lawyer Edward Rajagukguk said that his client was ill-treated and forced to admit the crime. Zulfiqar, who could not speak Indonesian and English was not accompanied by a translator during the questioning. In addition Zulfiqar's wife admitted that police asked her for money if she wanted her husband to be released. "This is obviously a justice mafia practice," Al Araf said. Al Araf also called on the government to evaluate and review cases involving death row convicts to ensure that the legal process had been conducted properly. He also asked the government to issue a moratorium for executions and remove death penalty. (source for both: tempo.co) ******************** 'They electrocuted me' says Indonesia's death-row prisoner nearing execution A Nigerian man facing imminent execution in Indonesia tearfully told a court that police electrocuted his genitals to force him to confess to possessing heroin. Michael Titus Igweh is among several prisoners on death row whom lawyers and human rights groups are frantically lobbying to save from the firing squad amid claims they were tortured and their legal cases riddled with corruption, errors and miscarriages of justice. "I was constantly beaten, and my genitals electrocuted until I was helpless," the clothes importer, who was sentenced to death in 2003 for possessing 5.8 kilograms of heroin, told the Tangerang District Court in May. "In fact, I was threatened to be shot." Sources have told Fairfax Media the third wave of executions in Indonesia could be held within days. It is understood the Nigerian and Pakistani embassies have now been notified that their nationals are among those to be killed. Indonesian Attorney-General Muhammad Prasetyo reiterated on Friday the executions would be "soon" and would include Indonesians and possibly a woman. Mr Prasetyo had earlier said prisoners from Nigeria and Zimbabwe would be among those targeted. Indonesian human rights group Imparsial said an anti-death penalty coalition would present the staff of Indonesian President Joko Widodo with a list of about seven death row prisoners who had faced unfair trials and miscarriages of justice. "It is very dangerous to carry out executions when the legal system is fragile and riddled with corruption, error, manipulation and collusion," Imparsial executive director Al Araf said. The anomalous cases to be brought to the president's attention include that of Pakistani textile worker Zulfiqar Ali, who was sentenced to death in 2005 for possessing 300 grams of heroin, and Indonesian imported flour seller Christian, whose lawyer said he was wrongfully arrested and tortured. Mr Ali's lawyer, Saut Edward Rajaguguk, said the Pakistani embassy and Mr Ali's wife had been notified that his client would be included in the 3rd round of executions. But he said the case against Mr Ali was absurd. "Zulfiqar Ali was not arrested red-handed carrying 300 grams of heroin at Soekarno-Hatta airport. He was arrested about 3 months later when spending time in Puncak with his girlfriend." Mr Saut said the man caught with the drugs, an Indian national, had named Mr Ali as the owner when he was being beaten by police in the airport office. However he later retracted this during Mr Ali's trial. "Zulfiqar Ali was also beaten up by police when he was arrested and forced to confess the drug was his. He was asked for money by the police but refused and so the case continued." Meanwhile, the Supreme Court last week rejected an application for a case review into the case of Mr Igweh, the Nigerian clothes importer who claimed his genitals had been electrocuted. His lawyer, Sitor Situmorang, told Fairfax Media that Supreme Court judges should try cases based on the law and not to achieve popularity or appear tough. "We accepted Michael's case because we saw it had merit. Out of the many requests from prisoners on Nusakambangan, we only took this," Mr Sitor said. He said Mr Igweh's conviction was based on the testimony of 2 alleged accomplices, Marlena and Izuchukwu Okoloaja, who died in police custody and could therefore not testify in court. "We believe Marlena and Okoloaja gave Michael's name just so the police would stop torturing them," he said. "They were healthy when they were arrested, they had no history of illness, they all just suddenly died while in police custody. We all know what that means." In a further ominous sign the executions could be just days away, prison visits have this week been suspended to the penal island of Nusakambangan, where the prisoners will be strapped to wooden posts and shot in a field. 14 drug offenders were executed in Indonesia last year, including Australians Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran, sparking an international backlash. However the Indonesian government insists executions are necessary to combat a so-called drugs emergency. "The public want it to be done soon," Attorney-General Prasetyo said on Friday. "We are getting more informed now and can see how drugs have affected our younger generation. We could just lose a generation." (source: Sydney Morning Herald) SAUDI ARABIA----executions Saudi executes 4 citizens convicted of murder Saudi authorities executed 4 citizens on Sunday convicted of killing 6 members of their tribe, the interior ministry said. The killings took place due to a land dispute among members of the Quthami tribe, the ministry said in a statement on the official SPA news agency. The 4, including 3 brothers, were executed in the western city of Taif, bringing to 105 the number of death sentences carried out in the kingdom this year. Saudi Arabia's growing use of the death penalty has prompted Amnesty International to call for an "immediate" moratorium on the practice. The kingdom imposes the death penalty for offences that include murder, drug trafficking, armed robbery, rape and apostasy. Most people executed are beheaded with a sword. On Thursday, authorities carried out the 100th execution of the year. "Saudi Arabia is speeding along in its dogged use of a cruel and inhuman punishment, mindless of justice and human rights," said Amnesty's Middle East and North Africa head Philip Luther. "At this rate, the kingdom's executioners will soon match or exceed the number of people they put to death last year," he said. Amnesty says the kingdom carried out at least 158 death sentences in 2015, making it the 3rd most prolific executioner after Iran and Pakistan. Amnesty's figures do not include secretive China. "The Saudi Arabian authorities must immediately establish an official moratorium on executions and abolish the death penalty once and for all," Luther said. Murder and drug trafficking cases account for the majority of Saudi executions, although 47 people were put to death for "terrorism" offences on a single day in January. They included prominent Shia cleric Nimr al-Nimr, whose execution prompted Iranian protesters to torch Saudi diplomatic missions, triggering a diplomatic crisis between the 2 arch-rivals. (source: Middle East Eye) PAKISTAN: Murder most foul: Man awarded death sentence A man was awarded the death penalty for committing murder in Chota Lahor, Swabi Court. The additional sessions judge has awarded Misal Khan a death sentence for killing Hilal. According to the verdict, he must also pay a fine and will face imprisonment for 3 more years if he fails to give the amount. Misal opened fire on Hilal over a domestic dispute on October 9, 2014. The police had arrested the suspect. After charges were proved against Misal, the judge awarded him 28 years of imprisonment and fine of Rs0.5 million in addition to a death sentence. (source: The Express Tribune) From rhalperi at smu.edu Mon Jul 25 13:44:07 2016 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Mon, 25 Jul 2016 13:44:07 -0500 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----CONN., PENN., CALIF., USA Message-ID: July 25 CONNECTICUT: Home invasion killer to be resentenced to life in prison 1 of 2 men sent to Connecticut's death row for the slayings of a mother and her 2 daughters during a 2007 home invasion is set to be resentenced to life in prison without the possibility of release because the state abolished the death penalty. Joshua Komisarjevsky is scheduled to be resentenced Tuesday in New Haven Superior Court. He would be the 3rd of the 11 death row inmates to be resentenced to life since the Connecticut Supreme Court ruled last year that their death sentences violated the state constitution's prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment. Komisarjevsky and Steven Hayes were convicted of murder in the killings of Jennifer Hawke-Petit and her daughters, 17-year-old Hayley and 11-year-old Michaela, in Cheshire. Hayes was resentenced to life in prison last month. (source: Associated Press PENNSYLVANIA: Why I don't support the death penalty ----- Too many errors in death penalty cases The death penalty is a hot topic these days. The Democratic Party recently added the abolition of the death penalty to its platform, and with the DNC in Philadelphia, more talk is surely to come. When I bring up this issue in conversation, I am often startled by the number of people who can't understand why I don't support the death penalty. If a man kills another man, doesn???t he deserve to die? My response to such inquiries is simple: I have met one of these men who "deserved" to die. The only problem is that he was completely innocent. Shaking the hand of Harold Wilson, Pennsylvania's most recent death row exoneree, put the entire death penalty system into perspective for me. Wilson spent 17 years on death row for a crime he didn???t commit. His story is evidence that the death penalty system is broken. When the death penalty was created, it was supposed to be reserved for the "worst of the worst," those responsible for atrocities so terrible that death was the only thing they could possibly deserve. Yet Wilson, a man who committed no crime at all, was sentenced to die by the hands of the government. How did we allow this to happen? How can we allow this broken system to continue? It is impossible to understand the magnitude of a death sentence until you have embraced a death row exoneree: A man who so easily could have been lying lifeless in a prison cell, a man who so easily could have lost all faith in life itself, a man who so easily could have never witnessed true justice. Shake Harold Wilson's hand, and you will no longer have to ask me why I don't support the death penalty. Emilie Henry York Township (source: Letter to the Editor, York Daily Record) CALIFORNIA: Murder trial in death of retired kindergarten teacher to finally open Barely an hour after Susie Ko was murdered in her Hercules home of 32 years, Mayor Dan Romero arrived, ducked under the yellow "Police Line" tape and surveyed the scene. "I was there before the police chief showed up," Romero recalled Thursday. "That's how well I know the family." It seems everyone in Hercules knew Susie Ko, 55, a retired kindergarten teacher. On Friday, Oct. 5, 2012, her husband, Kelvin Ko, who worked in Idaho during the week, returned home for the weekend. He became alarmed when his wife failed to meet him at the airport. First responders found Susie Ko stabbed and beaten to death. It was a savage act of violence, practically unheard of in Hercules (population 24,586 at the time), a small town tucked against San Pablo Bay that had seen only four homicides the previous 8 years. Monday morning, after nearly 4 years -- interminable in one sense, yet not nearly enough time to heal a community that packed Rodeo's St. Patrick's Church for Susie Ko's funeral -- opening statements are expected to be heard in a Martinez courtroom in the murder trial of Darnell Washington, charged with Ko's murder. Romero plans to be in the audience, just as he's been at many of Washington's court appearances over the past 4 years. "It's hard to believe," Romero said. "Four years ago I was the mayor, then I was a councilman, and here it is, and I'm the mayor again. I hope to be mayor when the verdict comes in." Not that a verdict can restore the sense of safety and tranquility that was lost almost 4 years ago in Hercules. "One of the (responding) police officer's parents lived across the street," Romero said. "A crime like this hurts the whole community. You start wondering, how do we protect ourselves?" It's difficult to protect oneself from the maddeningly random act that befell Ko. The sequence of events that led to her death began on Oct. 2, 2012, when Darnell Washington, with help from his wife, Tania, broke out of a San Bernardino County jail. A wild series of shootings and carjackings ensued before the pair fled Southern California. They headed north and somehow wound up at the Kos' house on Ash Court. They were arrested in Susie Ko's car near Seattle 5 days after she was killed. "I'm going to jail forever," Tania Washington told police. "You should have shot me." She overestimated. In May, Tania Washington pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter and other charges. She was sentenced to 23 years in prison. Darnell Washington is charged with 1st-degree murder with special circumstances, which could make him eligible for the death penalty. Because of the nature of the case, hundreds of potential jurors were called to seat a 12-person jury with 6 alternates. Now comes the trial that could result in justice for the family but can never reclaim what's been lost. "I feel almost stunned that it's starting finally, after seemingly endless delays," Sandy Ko, the eldest of Susie Ko's four children, wrote in an email. "A wedding and 2 additional grandchildren have been born since." "Susie Ko was a kindergarten teacher," Romero said. "She influenced 600 or 700 kids and families. Kindergarten teachers and 1st-grade teachers are special people, bringing our children up. There are still teachers there who remember. I don't think a day goes by that people don't remember her." (source: East Bay Times) USA: It's time to end or reform the death penalty America's death penalty systems, regardless of which state, are much more than that ... they are, in fact, varying degrees of torture - lethal injection, hanging, electrocution - all painful and drawn out methods of demise. We have many low cost drugs that simply induce a painless everlasting sleep. For that matter, simple carbon monoxide poisoning is painless and, by now, we all know there is an abundance of that stuff! Statistically, the ongoing appeals processes that follow most death sentences are more expensive than incarceration for life. Perhaps if we had a remotely humane execution process, fewer convicted would appeal? Plus, murder is murder - state sponsored or otherwise. It multiplies within our culture. You beat your children and they go on to beat their peers and spouses, and probably their own children as well - generation after generation. Also, we should consider the discrimination part of the process. When was the last time you saw a wealthy person executed? There are many reasons why America has the highest crime and incarceration rate in the world. We are a violent nation; we don't do rehabilitation; we reap violence upon the symptoms while ignoring the root causes that inevitably multiply them. We take competitive sports that throughout history have evolved around courtesy, honor, respect and compassion for one's opponent, and we inject so much violence that the original version is unrecognizable. We load our children up with toy weapons and video war games that are scored by number of deaths. And the corporate for-profit mainstream media avoids furnishing worldwide statistics about rehabilitation and/or preventative progress being made in many nations - not including the U.S.A. So let's do away with the death penalty, or at least come up with a humane and nondiscriminatory version for a good change. It's a start. John F. Middlemiss Sr., Trout Creek (source: Letter to the Editor, dailyinterlake.com) From rhalperi at smu.edu Mon Jul 25 13:45:07 2016 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Mon, 25 Jul 2016 13:45:07 -0500 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide Message-ID: July 25 INDIA: Majority of 1st time offenders get death sentence - Survey report Death Penalty India recently conducted a survey which revealed that 60% of the criminals belong to uneducated poor families who have been given death sentence. There 241 criminals out of 385 who committed crime for the 1st time. The members of the survey committee interviewed 373 criminals out of 385. It was revealed that 60% of the did not even complete secondary education. The criminals who are awarded death sentence did not get legal aid. In India, there is a system of provide legal aid to the criminals who can't afford to appoint defence counsel but it is hardly implemented. (source: Siasat News) *************** Goa: Rane wants death penalty for drug peddlers Fearing that the coastal state may turn into an "Udta Goa", Leader of Opposition in Assembly, Pratapsinh Rane today recommended death penalty for drug peddlers. Notably, the recently released Bollywood film "Udta Punjab" was based on the drug abuse in the northern state. "I caution you. We have seen 'Udta Punjab' movie, we might have 'Udta Goa' considering the situation in the state. We go on blaming people of some foreign nationalities, but the consumers are local boys and girls," Rane said, during a discussion on budget on the floor of the House today. "Where do they get the drugs from? This is going on in the hinterland. There are people who are growing banana trees and between them grow ganja or opium," he pointed out. "It's terrible. This is happening in many parts outside the state. It kills a person. I have moved a resolution before the House saying that give them (drug peddler) death penalty because they kill young people. They should be punished on the lines of (punishment awarded in) Singapore," Rane said. "They should not be allowed to kill people. We find these fellows hanging around the schools and colleges. There are areas where they hang out," he told the House. (source: Press Trust of India) INDONESIA: House members divided on death penalty President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo should evaluate the effectiveness of the death penalty in reducing crimes and be aware that it violates human rights, a legislator has said. "The President needs to know that being decisive does not mean forgetting human values," Benny K. Harman, deputy chief of the House of Representatives' Commission III overseeing legal affairs, human rights and security, said at the House complex in Senayan, Central Jakarta, on Monday. The Democratic Party politician further said that President Jokowi also needed to re-evaluate judicial processes for drug convicts waiting to be executed, to ensure the fairness of their legal process. Attorney General M Prasetyo said earlier that the 3rd round of executions of several drug convicts would take place after Idul Fitri on Nusakambangan prison island in Cilacap, Central Java. On Sunday, Merri Utami, a condemned drug convict, was moved to an isolation cell in Nusakambangan. Merri was sentenced to death for carrying 1.1 kilograms of heroin at Soekarno-Hatta International Airport in 2003. The transfer was carried out not long after the Supreme Court rejected a 2nd case review request filed by the also condemned Freddy Budiman on Friday. Freddy was found guilty of smuggling 1.4 million ecstasy pills from China and sentenced to death by the West Jakarta District Court in 2012. Meanwhile, Commission III member Muhammad Syafi'i of the Gerindra Party said that the death penalty was still needed as convicts punished with life imprisonment could earn remission. He said criminals like drug dealers had to be executed because the crimes they committed threatened the country's future generations. *********************** Nusakambangan prisons temporarily halt family visits as executions draw nearer Visiting rights for family members of all prisoners on Nusakambangan prison island in Cilacap, Central Java, have reportedly been temporarily halted. At Wijayapura Quay in Cilacap, a number of visitors who had come to visit their relatives in Nusakambangan were denied passage to the prison island on Monday, Kompas.com reported. They left Wijayapura Quay after meeting with officers at the crossing point security post. One of the visitors, Nasiroh, 60, said she wanted to visit her son who is currently serving a sentence in Besi Prison. "The officers wouldn't allow me to cross to the island. They said family visits to Nusakambangan would be temporarily closed for this whole week," said Nasiroh, a resident of Sampang, Cilacap. She said none of the officers gave her clear information about the reason family visits had been temporary closed. Information obtained from officials at the Wijayapura Quay reveals that a notification about the temporary closure of family visits had been delivered to families of prisoners since last week. But families were not given specific reasons for the closure, which will be in effect for 1 week starting from Monday. It is suspected that the temporary closure of family visits is related to the executions of drug convicts, which will reportedly be conducted in the near future. The closure of visiting time for families of prisoners on Nusakambangan prison island has always been conducted ahead the executions of death-row convicts, Antara news agency reported. Merri Utami, a death-row inmate convicted of drug trafficking, has been moved to Nusakambangan. The Sukoharjo resident had been serving her sentence at the Tangerang Women's Penitentiary in Banten since 2004 before she was moved to Nusakambangan under tight security escort at around 4:30 a.m. local time on Sunday. Merri was sentenced to death for being caught with 1.1 kilograms of heroin at Soekarno-Hatta International Airport in Tangerang, Banten, in 2003. (source for both: Jakarta Post) ********************** AGO Prepares to Execute Drug Convicts President Joko Widodo has expressed his support for the Attorney General's Office to execute drug convicts. "I have not seen or hear any doubt about it [death row] from the President," the presidential spokesman Johan Budi Sapto Pribowo told Tempo yesterday, July 24, 2016. Johan said that death row will continue to be performed as Indonesian legal system still has it as one of applicable punishments. Moreover, he believed that the AGO as the executioner had made thorough considerations. "Everything have been considered," he said. However, Johan said that he has yet to receive any information on when the AGO will perform the executions. The plan to perform the third round of executions of drug convict has resurfaced after the Supreme Court last weak rejected a judicial review requested by ecstasy baron Freddy Budiman. Another death row convict, Merri Utami, was transferred Saturday from Tangerang women's prison, Banten, to Batu prison, Nusakambangan, Cilacap, Central Java. "The transfer [was made] upon request from the AGO," the correction division head, Banten Ministry of Justice and Human Rights, Enny Purwaningsih told Tempo yesterday. The transfer of Sukoharjo-born women had strongly been linked with death penalty because Nusakambangan has no women's prison. In previous round of execution, transfer of women death row convict to Nusakambangan were also made several days before execution, as experienced by Rani Andriani in the 1st round and Mary Jane Veloso-whose execution was cancelled- in the 2nd round last year. Mary's transfer was made after the transfer of other death row convicts to Nusakambangan on April and May, namely Freddy Budiman, Zulfikar Ali, Suryanto, Agus Hadi and Pudjo Lestari. Attorney General Muhammad Prasetyo and high-officials of the AGO did not respond to Tempo's question on the planned executions. However, Prasetyo had confirmed Friday that he will continue to perform executions despite pressure from watchdog groups to end death penalty. "How many [will be executed]? I'll tell you later," Prasetyo said in his office. "I can confirm that there will be Indonesian convict." Central Java Police chief Inspector General Condro Kirono said that his office is ready to perform execution if it gets the instruction to do so, even though they have yet to receive any notice from the AGO. "Central Java Police is ready," he said. (source: tempo.co) MALAYSIA: 12 Filipinos found guilty in 2013 Malaysia standoff----9 of these Filpinos are also found guilty of warring against the Yang di-Pertuan Agong in Lahad Datu, a charge punishable by the death penalty or life in prison. 12 Filipinos among a group of 14 accused in the 2013 Lahad Datu intrusion case were found guilty by the Malaysian High Court, The Malay Mail Online reported on Monday, July 25. Aside from the 12 Filipinos, a Malaysian was also found guilty by the court. 9 of those convicted were also found guilty of warring against the Yang di-Pertuan Agong, a charge punishable by the death penalty or life in prison as well as a fine upon conviction. They are Philippine nationals: --Atik Hussin Abu Bakar, 45 --Basad H. Manuel, 41 --Ismail Yasin, 76 --Virgilio Nemar Patulada alias Mohammad Alam Patulada, 52 --Salib Akhmad Emali, 63 --Al Wazir Osman, 61 --Julham Rashid, 69 --Datu Amir Bahar Hushin Kiram, 53, the son of so-called Sultan Esmail Kiram Of these 9, the following were also convicted of being members of a terrorist group: Datu Amir Bahar Hushin Kiram, Salib Akhmad Emali, Al Wazir Osman, Tani Lahaddahi, and Julham Rashid. The punishment for the crime is life imprisonment and a fine. Meanwhile, Malaysian local Abd Hadi Mawan, 52; Philippine national Timhar Hadil, 39, and his father Hadil Suhaili, 68 (who died on April 24 while detained) were also found guilty of being members of a terror group. Filipina Norhaida Ibnahi was found guilty of harboring a person she knew was a terrorist group member. That offense is punishable by life imprisonment and a fine, or 20 years of imprisonment with a fine. Justice Stephen Chung was expected to sentence the 13 on Tuesday after hearing their "plea in mitigation." He was also expected to sentence some of those who pleaded guilty in February. (source: rappler.com) TURKEY: 'Yes' to death penalty will mean 'No' to EU membership, EU warns Turkey European Commission President Jean Claude Juncker warned Turkey that talks on its accession to the EU would be stopped immediately if it reinstated the death penalty. The European Union may suspend the negotiations with Turkey on accession to the EU countries. According Oxu.Az with reference to Reuters that the due statement came from European Commission President Jean Claude Juncker. According to Juncker, this may happen if a country will restore the death penalty. It should be noted that after the attempted coup in staged in Turkey on July 17, which was committed by the supporters of the terrorist group FETO lead by Fethullah Gulen, there are calls for the resumption of the death penalty for the perpetrators of the coup attempt. Turkey abolished the death penalty in 2004 for compliance with EU requirements. (source: news.az) ***************** EU Has No Right to Blackmail Turkey Over Death Penalty Issue - FM----According to the Turkish foreign minister, the EU has no right to give Turkey any ultimatums regarding the possible reintroduction of the death penalty. The European Union has no right to give Turkey any ultimatums regarding the possible reintroduction of the death penalty, Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said Monday. "Europe is not the owner of Turkey and we will not accept threats and being looked down on. If the EU has any questions, we are ready to discuss them," Cavusoglu told Haberturk. Moreover, Turkey will replace a part of its ambassadors amid the investigation of the recent military coup attempt, Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said Monday. "There will be layoffs, including at the ambassadorial level," Cavusoglu told Haberturk. (source: Sputnik News) IRAN----executions Iran regime hangs 3 in prison; man set to be hanged in public on Monday Iran's fundamentalist regime on Saturday hanged 3 prisoners in a jail in northern Iran. The regime is set to hang a man in public on Monday. In a statement on Saturday, the regime's judiciary in Gilan Province, northern Iran, announced that the 3 prisoners were hanged in the presence of judicial officials in the Central Prison of Rasht. They were identified only by their initials and ages: F. B., 40; A. M., 32; and H. D., 31. An unidentified prisoner will be hanged in public in the town of Songhor, western Iran, at dawn on Monday, state media reported. The public execution will take place at the former site of the oil stocks, next to the town's power terminal, the state-run Soheil-e Songhor website reported on Sunday. The mullahs' regime hanged another 9 prisoners on Wednesday in the city of Karaj, north-west of Tehran. The regime hanged 18 prisoners last weekend, including 2 cases in public. A woman was among those hanged on July 17. The regime hanged 9 prisoners collectively on July 13 in Gohardasht Prison in Karaj. More than 270 Members of the European Parliament signed a joint statement on Iran last month, calling on the European Union to "condition" its relations with Tehran to an improvement of human rights. The MEPs who were from all the EU Member States and from all political groups in the Parliament said they are concerned about the rising number of executions in Iran after Hassan Rouhani took office as President 3 years ago. Amnesty International in its April 6 annual Death Penalty report covering the 2015 period wrote: "Iran put at least 977 people to death in 2015, compared to at least 743 the year before." "Iran alone accounted for 82% of all executions recorded" in the Middle East and North Africa, the human rights group said. There have been more than 2,500 executions during Hassan Rouhani's tenure as President. The United Nations Special Rapporteur on the human rights situation in Iran in March announced that the number of executions in Iran in 2015 was greater than any year in the last 25 years. Rouhani has explicitly endorsed the executions as examples of "God's commandments" and "laws of the parliament that belong to the people." (source: NCR-Iran) SAUDI ARABIA----executions Saudi executes 2 murder convicts, raises number of death sentences to 107 Saudi Arabia on Monday executed 2 convicted murderers, the interior ministry said, raising to 107 the number of death sentences carried out in the kingdom this year. Fahd al-Ishan was convicted of stabbing to death another Saudi citizen, the ministry said in a statement on the official SPA news agency. He was executed in the northern Jawf region. Saudi executes Pakistani drug smuggler Authorities executed another Saudi citizen, Mohammed al-Shahrani, in the southwestern region of Assir after he was convicted of shooting dead another Saudi national, the ministry said in another statement. The kingdom on Sunday carried out the death penalty against 4 citizens convicted of murder. Most people executed are beheaded with a sword. Saudi Arabia's growing use of the death penalty has prompted Amnesty International to call for an "immediate" moratorium on the practice. The kingdom imposes the death penalty for offences including murder, drug trafficking, armed robbery, rape and apostasy. The London-based watchdog's Middle East and North Africa head Philip Luther has warned that "at this rate, the Kingdom's executioners will soon match or exceed the number of people they put to death last year." Amnesty says the kingdom carried out at least 158 death sentences in 2015, making it the third most prolific executioner after Iran and Pakistan. Amnesty's figures do not include secretive China. Murder and drug trafficking cases account for the majority of Saudi executions, although 47 people were put to death for "terrorism" offences on a single day in January. (source: The Express Tribune) BANGLADESH: Mir Quasem's review hearing Monday The Supreme Court is likely to hear on Monday the review petition of Jamaat-e-Islami leader Mir Quasem Ali against its verdict upholding his death penalty for his crimes against humanity during the liberation war in 1971, reports news agency UNB. The review petition has been kept as item no 63 of the Appellate Division's cause list for Monday for hearing at the full-member bench, headed by chief justice Surendra Kumar Sinha. On 19 June, Quasem Ali filed a review petition with the Supreme Court against its verdict upholding his death penalty for his crimes against humanity during the liberation war. Mir Ahmed Bin Quasem, son of Mir Quasem, submitted the review petition seeking the release of the convict in the war crimes case citing 14 grounds. On 6 June, the International Crimes Tribunal issued the death warrant for the Jamaat leader hours after the Supreme Court released the full text of its verdict upholding his death penalty. Earlier on 8 March, the Appellate Division upheld the death penalty for Mir Quasem for his crimes against humanity during the liberation war. The International Crimes Tribunal-2 in a verdict had sentenced Mir Quasem Ali, Al-Badr chief in the port city of Chittagong in 1971, to death on 2 November, 2014. On 30 November, 2014, Mir Quasem filed an appeal before the SC challenging the death penalty. Among the total 14 charges brought against Mir Quasem for war crimes, the tribunal convicted him on 10 counts of charges and acquitted him from 4. The 64-year-old top Jamaat-e-Islami financier was president of the Chittagong city unit of the Islami Chhatra Sangha, the student wing of the party, till 6 November, 1971. He was then made general secretary of the East Pakistan Chhatra Sangha. (source: prothom-alo.com) From rhalperi at smu.edu Mon Jul 25 14:01:50 2016 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Mon, 25 Jul 2016 14:01:50 -0500 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TENN. Message-ID: July 25 TENNESSEE: Could the Same-Sex Marriage Ruling Help Kill the Death Penalty?--Tennessee attorneys are citing Obergefell v. Hodges in an effort to spare their clients A motion filed last month by the Federal Public Defender's office argues that post-conviction proceedings in the case of death row inmate Charles Wright should be reopened because Wright's death sentence violates his constitutional rights. In service of that argument, the motion cites 2 recent Supreme Court cases. The 1st seems obvious enough. It is Justice Stephen Breyer's dissent in last year's Glossip v. Gross, which strayed from the specific issue at hand - Oklahoma's lethal injection protocol - to address the death penalty more broadly, concluding that its imposition is cruel and unusual and, thus, unconstitutional. The 2nd case cited in the motion comes, on the surface at least, as more of a surprise - it is Obergefell v. Hodges, the case that led to the legalization of same-sex marriage nationwide last year. The motion in Wright's case is 1 of 8 the Federal Public Defender's office has filed in the Middle District citing Obergefell, and more have been filed elsewhere in the state on behalf of death row inmates. Kelley Henry, a supervising assistant federal public defender, tells the Scene she worried observers might think that, by citing Obergefell, the office was trying to be too cute by half. But that's not it, she says. The motions, she says, bring together the issues raised in the dissents to the Glossip decision with the test used in Obergefell to determine if a state is violating a person's fundamental constitutional right. "Their paradigm for analyzing fundamental, constitutional rights in Obergefell, for us, highlighted the fact that the Supreme Court really hasn't taken a look at the death penalty, which impinges on a fundamental right to life," she says. "And when you use the paradigm of Obergefell and you apply it to our client and you look at that in light of Glossip, you see the unconstitutionality of the death penalty." Wright was sentenced to death in 1985 after he was convicted of killing two men during the course of a drug deal in North Nashville. The motion to reopen post-conviction proceedings in his case details, among other things, a troubled childhood that neither the sentencing jury nor the post-conviction judge were made aware of. Wright, the motion says, was 1 of 10 children born to a severely alcoholic mother by six different fathers. The children would regularly be left to beg for food in the streets and Wright would miss more than 50 days in three of his first four school years. Later, the motion says, he would fall into chronic drug addiction and a psychologist who evaluated him before his trial found that he had an IQ between 75 and 85. With repeated reference to Glossip, the motion argues that Wright's death sentence is unreliable and that it violates his Eighth and Fourteenth Amendment rights. It goes on to cite Obergefell which "holds that no state may deny a fundamental right, may not deny human dignity, may not impose stigma and demean persons by denying the exercise of a fundamental right, and may not diminish the personhood of individuals." Later on, the motion argues that the death penalty does each of those things: The very principles and holding identified and applied by the Supreme Court in Obergefell make perfectly clear that the death penalty is unconstitutional here. Even more than the right to marry, the right to life is a fundamental right - as it is the very foundation of human personhood. It is the very foundation of human dignity. Just as no state can deny the fundamental right to marry, a fortiori, no state can deny the fundamental right to life, which is the fundamental human right and provides the predicate for the exercise of all other rights. Under Obergefell and the Fourteenth Amendment, the death sentence must be struck down here. In fact, every single factor identified by the Supreme Court in Obergefell applies to Charles Wright's right to life, making denial of his fundamental right to life through the death penalty unconstitutional under the Fourteenth Amendment and Tennessee Constitution: (1) Mr. Wright's right to life is a right "so fundamental that the State must accord [it] respect." Obergefell, 576 U.S. at ___, 135 S.Ct. at 2598. (2) His right to life "is inherent in the concept of individual autonomy" (id. at ___, 135 S.Ct. at 2599), for without the right to life, there is no personal autonomy whatsoever. (3) His right to life thus must be accorded fundamental "dignity." Id. (4) The state law designed to take Charles Wright's life serves to "harm and humiliate" him and his child. Id., 576 U.S. at ___, 135 S.Ct. at 2601. (5) The state law which seeks to take his life also teaches not simply that he is "unequal in important respects" but that he is unequal in all respects to all other persons: He has no right to live, while others do. Id., 576 U.S. at ___, 135 S.Ct. at 2602. (6) Needless to say, a law that tells and demonstrates that Mr. Wright is not worthy of life itself serves to "demean[]" him in the eyes of all.. Id. (7) No less than the states' laws regarding marriage, the death penalty law which Tennessee seeks to apply to Charles Wright "impose[s] stigma and injury of the kind prohibited by our basic charter." Id. (8) It would not simply "diminish the[] personhood" of Mr. Wright to take his life, but it would completely deny him his "personhood" to take his life, and therefore it is unconstitutional to deny him his very personhood. Id. (9) The death penalty "burdens a right of fundamental importance" - the right to life - and therefore cannot stand. Id., 576 U.S. at ___, 135 S.Ct. at 2603. (10) Because, under the Tennessee death penalty law which the state seeks to apply here, Charles Wright would absolutely be "barred from exercising a fundamental right" and "abridge[s] fundamental rights" (id., 576 U.S. at ___, 135 S.Ct. at 2604) - namely the fundamental right to life - the Tennessee death penalty statute and the death penalty here should be struck down, exactly as occurred in Obergefell. In sum, Mr. Wright "ask[s] for equal dignity in the eyes of the law," and the "Constitution grants [him] that right." Id., 576 U.S. at ___, 135 S.Ct. at 2608. Just as numerous state laws were struck down in Obergefell because they barred individuals from the exercise of a fundamental right, the death penalty here must likewise be struck down, as it unconstitutionally denies Charles Wright the exercise of the fundamental right protected by our Constitution - the fundamental right to life. Wright is one of 64 people - 63 men and 1 woman - currently on Tennessee's death row. In February of 2014, the state set execution dates for 10 men, including Wright, but the has since put all executions on hold amid legal challenges to its death penalty protocols. (source: nashvillescene.com) From rhalperi at smu.edu Tue Jul 26 08:52:35 2016 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Tue, 26 Jul 2016 08:52:35 -0500 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----COLO., IDAHO, NEV. Message-ID: July 26 COLORADO: Colorado law to speed up death penalty is failing, advocates on both sides say ---- "Unitary" appeal system was supposed to resolve Colorado state court litigation within 2 years Colorado's only 2 death penalty appeals are stuck at a standstill, and now advocates on both sides of the justice system say that a law passed nearly two decades ago to speed up such appeals is failing. In 1997, Colorado lawmakers frustrated with the slow pace of executions in the state passed a bill they thought would fix it. By putting the most time-consuming part of capital punishment appeals first and setting tight deadlines, the goal was to resolve all litigation in state court within 2 years of a death sentence being imposed. Instead, the 1st 2 appeals to test the process - those for convicted murderers Sir Mario Owens and Robert Ray - have stalled at that initial step for more than 7 years after the sentences were issued. The murders that brought the death sentences occurred 11 years ago this summer. And with both cases in turmoil - Ray's attorneys recently tried to withdraw from the appeal over a dispute with a judge, while Owens' attorneys say they are being improperly denied information about why their judge was fired - the delays look set to continue for months or years more. The gridlock has even the sponsor of the 1997 bill wondering whether something about the death penalty in Colorado has to change. "I'm almost to the point where I would say, 'Let's do away with it and save the taxpayers the money,'" said Jeanne Adkins, a former state representative from Douglas County. In any death penalty case, deciding the sentence is usually the quick part. What follows the jury's verdict is a trail of appeals that reaches all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court and back. Those on death row in Colorado are guaranteed 2 appeals in state court: the "direct appeal," which challenges the integrity of the trial, and the "post-conviction appeal," in which defendants introduce new evidence or raise claims of prosecutorial misconduct or incompetent representation. Prior to 1997, the direct appeal went 1st followed by the post-conviction appeal. But, because the post-conviction appeal is the lengthier of the two, lawmakers in 1997 flipped the order. Now, after a lower-court judge issues an initial ruling on the post-conviction appeal, the 2 appeals then move in tandem to the Colorado Supreme Court - in what's been dubbed a "unitary" system. (Appeals that take place in federal court, after all the state-court appeals finish, are another matter.) The law says all post-conviction proceedings in state court "shall be completed within 2 years after the date upon which the sentence of death is imposed." "There shall be no extensions of time of any kind beyond the 2-year period," the law states. Except the Colorado Supreme Court ruled in 2010 that's not exactly true. Instead, the justices concluded the law allows them to adopt rules granting extensions, "upon a showing of extraordinary circumstances that could not have been foreseen and prevented." That's an important wrinkle, said Denver defense attorney Christopher Decker, because it provides necessary safeguards for a defendant's constitutional rights. "If they just speed up the process and strip everyone of due process, we'll have a very fast outcome that will be worth nothing," said Decker, who is not involved in either appeal. "It won't stand up to constitutional review." But that's also what has allowed Owens' and Ray's appeals to linger for years in state court without resolution. Ray's post-conviction hearings haven't even started yet in Arapahoe County District Court. Owens' hearings could have to be completely redone after the senior judge presiding over the case was fired as he was about to issue his final order. "2 years may have been unrealistic," said Tom Raynes, the executive director of the Colorado District Attorneys' Council. "But 8 years to not even get halfway there is absurd." Raynes said the legislature might now need to rewrite the unitary appeal statute. Decker said other constitutional concerns - once briefly the subject of a lawsuit - could doom it altogether. And Adkins, once the biggest champion of the idea, is pessimistic about whether lawmakers can do anything. "The death penalty has become so politicized, truthfully, in the last decade or so in Colorado that I really think that a lot of what the legislature tried to do may actually be pretty pointless now," she said. One of the lawmakers who could have a say on this, though, is one of the people mostly deeply affected by the delays. State Rep. Rhonda Fields' son, Javad Marshall-Fields, was 1 of 2 people killed - along with his fiancee, Vivian Wolfe - in the murders that put Owens and Ray on death row. The wait for justice has been excruciating, she said. But she's optimistic there is a solution. "I think there's got to be something that we can do to protect the rights of the victims and protect the rights of the defendants," she said, "that's not dragging things out for 11 years." (source: The Denver Post) IDAHO: Judge rules confessed cop killer Renfro could still face death penalty Accused cop killer Jonathan Renfro appeared in Kootenai County courtroom Monday morning, his defense team hoping to take the death penalty off the table and coming up short in their efforts. It took a judge less than 30 minutes to come to that decision. Renfro's defense tried to argue that the death penalty is a violation of his constitutional rights, adding that a lack of funding for defense in Idaho meant they didn't have enough time and resources to devote to Renfro, denying him his right to a fair trial. Prosecutors however say the death penalty was a fitting option for a man who killed Coeur d'Alene Police Sergeant Greg Moore. "He was a bad guy doing bad things and Sergeant Moore found him," Kootenai County Sheriff's Lieutenant Stu Miller said. Last May, shortly after he was arrested, Renfro admitted to killing Moore, saying he didn't want to go back to prison. Moore had been responding to reports of a suspicious person when he was killed. Renfro's attorneys also say the death penalty shouldn't be an option because of new legislative changes in the works. They say those changes will allow more time to devote to Renfro's case, however the judge went ahead and ruled Monday morning that when he goes to trial February 6 the death penalty will remain an option for prosecutors. (source; KXLY news) NEVADA: Nevada Supreme Court rejects appeals of two death-row prisoners The Nevada Supreme Court has denied the appeals of 2 Las Vegas men on death row for 20 years or more. An appeal for Marlo Thomas, who is now 44, argued he is intellectually disabled and should not have been sentenced to death. He also claimed his lawyer was ineffective at a 2nd trial. The court rejected both arguments. The court in 2004 overturned his 1st sentence of death. He returned to District Court and was again sentenced to death. He was convicted of fatally stabbing 2 workers at a restaurant during a robbery, according to court records. Dale E. Flanagan, 51, contended evidence was withheld at his trial. The court said the evidence was not material to the case. Flanagan was convicted of killing his grandparents Carl and Colleen Gordon in November 1984 in an effort to collect an inheritance, according to court records. He was sentenced to death, but the Supreme Court overturned that sentence. He was again given the death penalty at a 2nd trial. (source: Las Vegas Sun) From rhalperi at smu.edu Tue Jul 26 08:53:19 2016 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Tue, 26 Jul 2016 08:53:19 -0500 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide Message-ID: July 26 INDONESIA: Indonesian woman appeals for clemency A last-minute clemency appeal has been launched for an Indonesian woman believed to be facing the firing squad in the country's next round of executions, feared to be imminent. The woman, known as MU or Merry Utami, was a poor woman who had been "manipulated" by a drug syndicate, when she smuggled 1.1 kilograms of heroin at Jakarta airport in October 2001, activists say. The mother of 2 lost her appeal to overturn her death sentence in 2003. On Saturday when she was transferred to the notorious Nuskambangan island prison, she received a copy of the decision of the judicial review into her case saying that her final legal pathway had failed. The island is the same location where Australians Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran faced the firing squad, along with 6 others, in April last year. Holding a press conference in Jakarta, the women's rights group Komnas Perempuan said they had filed an emergency clemency request to President Joko Widodo on Tuesday while MU met with her family and a preacher at the prison. Head of the organisation, Azriana, said MU should be granted a reprieve as her case highlighted how easily poor women in Indonesia fell prey to drug syndicates. "Most women involved in drug syndicates come from poor family ... We need to postpone the death penalty to these poor women who are manipulated." MU, Komnas Perempuan says, became a migrant worker in Taiwan in the late 1990s after divorcing from her husband who allegedly beat her. (source: news.com.au) When she returned to Indonesia, they alleged she became embroiled in a relationship with a man named "Jerry", who organised for her to go to Nepal. Here she collected a package which she brought back to Jakarta on October 31, 2001. "These kind of women are innocent. MU was excited ... her boyfriend promised to marry her. In reality once she got caught, that was the end (of their relationship)," Adriana Venny from the organisation added. The comments come amid increasing signs in Indonesia that the next round of executions could be carried out as early as this week. Local undertaker Suhendro Putro - who prepared coffins for Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran - told AAP on Monday that he was given directions to be "ready" to bathe the bodies of more death row prisoners. However, the Attorney General Office has yet to announce how many people will be executed or when. They have previously said they only wanted to give the required 3 days' notice in order to avoid the "soap opera" that surrounded last year's executions, which drew widespread condemnation from the international community. (source: news.com.au) ************************* Indonesia to hold next round of executions on Friday Indonesia will execute several people including a Pakistani on Friday, a Pakistani embassy official said, its first executions since last year when it put to death 14 people, most of them foreign drug convicts, sparking an international outcry. Indonesian officials have said 16 people will be executed this year, including citizens of Nigeria, Zimbabwe and Pakistan, though they have not confirmed any more details. Syed Zahid Raza, charge d'affaires at the Pakistani embassy in Jakarta, said the embassy had been informed about the imminent execution of the Pakistani, Zulfikar Ali, convicted of smuggling drugs. "We were invited to meet with officials from the attorney general's office today who told us the executions will take place on Friday," Raza told Reuters on Tuesday. A spokesman for the attorney general's office declined to comment on any time frame. Pakistan on Monday urged Indonesia to stay Ali's execution, citing concern that his 2005 trial had been unfair. Ali will make a last-ditch attempt to escape the death penalty by appealing directly to Indonesian President Joko Widodo for clemency, Raza said. Indonesia says it is facing a "drugs emergency" and has vowed no mercy for traffickers. Its executions by firing squad have caused outrage overseas though surveys show Indonesians are largely in favour of capital punishment. Last year, Australia recalled its envoy to Jakarta, and Brazil said it was shocked and was evaluating ties after their citizens were executed. But President Widodo has disregarded diplomatic pressure and vowed to ramp up a war on drugs in what is among Southeast Asia's biggest markets for narcotics. The executions will take place at a maximum security prison on Nusakambangan Island in Central Java but it is not clear how many prisoners will face the firing squad this week. Authorities have not given a breakdown of the numbers of foreigners on death row but citizens of France, Britain and the Philippines are known to be among them. (source: timesofoman.com) **************** Executions imminent in Indonesia as spiritual advisers told to be ready The spiritual advisers who will spend the final hours of life with those condemned to die in Indonesia's next round of executions have been told they will be carried out around midnight on July 29 to 30. Fairfax Media understands around 16 convicted drug felons could be killed including foreign citizens from China, Pakistan, Zimbabwe and Nigeria. "We were told just today of the execution date, it's the 29th of July," a source told Fairfax Media. Amnesty International and Indonesian human rights groups have called for an urgent moratorium on the executions, and for retrials that comply with fair standards, citing disturbing incidences of torture, coercion, corruption and unfair trials in the cases of many of those on death row. Pakistani deputy ambassador Syed Zahid Raza? has also issued a statement saying the embassy had approached officials to convince them its citizen, Zulfiqar Ali, had not been given a fair trial. Zulfiqar was on Monday transferred to the execution island of Nusakambangan from the nearby port town of Cilacap, where he had been in hospital for 2 months for illnesses he claims are partly related to the torture he suffered when arrested in 2004. Vigils will be held outside the Indonesian consulate general in Melbourne at 7pm on July 26 and the Perth consulate general at 5pm on July 27. Three of those expected to be executed this week - Zulfiqar and Indonesians Agus Hadi and Pujo Lestari - were among 12 death row prisoners named in last year's Amnesty International report Flawed justice: Unfair trials and the death penalty in Indonesia. "Amnesty International found in the ... cases documented in this report that the defendants did not have access to legal counsel from the time of arrest and at different stages of their trial and appeals; and that they were subjected to ill-treatment while in police custody to make them 'confess' to their alleged crimes or sign police investigation reports," the report said. 4 Chinese men who were found guilty of drug trafficking after a 2005 police raid on a meth lab in Banten are also expected to be executed. However co-accused Frenchman Serge Atlaoui?, who was slated to be executed in April last year but won an eleventh-hour reprieve, has once again been spared. "It's a relief, it's reassuring, but the fight is not over yet. And I can't possibly celebrate knowing that the relatives of the inmates to be executed will suffer," Mr Atlaoui's wife, Sabine, told Le Republicain Lorrain. Attorney-General Muhammad Prasetyo said on July 13 that no convicts from the United States, Europe or Australia were on the list to be executed this year. Tellingly, given the international backlash sparked by last year's executions in countries such as Australia, the Netherlands and Brazil, all foreigners included on this year's list come from countries that also enforce the death penalty. A source told Fairfax Media the 4 Chinese to be executed - Chen Hongxin, Gan Chunyi, JIan Yuxin and Zhu Xuxiong - would not have a spiritual counsellor with them during their final hours. "They don't believe in religion, they are atheist, they believe in 1 person, Mao Zedong, the Chinese communist leader," he said. "They were asked if they believed in God, they said religions are made by people, they created statues, idol and asked everybody to worship it. One of them take a photo [of Mao Zedong] out, put it on the wall, and they all stand up straight before it." Families of the Chinese men are expected to arrive in the port town of Cilacap, the gateway to Nusakambangan, on Wednesday or Thursday. Others on the execution list include Nigerians Eugene Ape, Seck Osmane, Michael Titus Igweh, Humphrey Jefferson Ejike Eleweke and Obinna Nwajagu and Indonesians Freddy Budiman and Merri Utami. (source: Sydney Morning Herald) ********************** Halt Upcoming Executions (UA 179/16) 2 death row prisoners were moved on 24 and 25 July to Nusakambangan prison island, where 13 executions were carried out in 2015. A lawyer has been informed about the imminent execution of his client and 3 other Nigerian nationals. The authorities have suspended family visits to the prison complex and completed preparation of the executions grounds, indicating that another round of executions by firing squad will be carried out soon. Please write immediately in English, Bahasa Indonesia or your own language: -- Calling on the authorities to immediately halt plans to carry out any executions; -- Urging them to establish a moratorium on all executions with a view to abolishing the death penalty and to commute all death sentences to terms of imprisonment; -- Reminding them that drug-related offences do not meet the threshold of the "most serious crimes" to which the use of the death penalty must be restricted under international law and that international safeguards guaranteeing protection of the rights of those facing the death penalty must be strictly observed in all capital cases. see: http://www.amnestyusa.org/get-involved/take-action-now/indonesia-halt-upcoming-executions-ua-17916 (source: Amnesty International USA) ****************** Executions taint Indonesia';s rise as global player Indonesia may have felt proud when its delegation was chosen to represent 16 like-minded countries at a UN General Assembly Special Session on the world drug problem at the UN headquarters in New York last April. For Indonesia, its selection to read a joint statement on behalf of countries that maintain the death penalty showcased trust from others in its persistence to keep capital punishment intact. But Indonesian representatives to the UN forum received boos from many among the 193 delegations attending the session. The jeers sent a message of derision for defending the death penalty as "an important component of drug control policy". While 140 states, or the majority of UN members, have applied a moratorium or abolished the death penalty altogether from their legal systems, Indonesia has preserved with pride its tough enforcement of the law, particularly against drug-related crimes. Under the pretext of a "drug emergency" and based on figures that are subject to challenge, President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo has declared a war on drugs. Since Jokowi took office in October 2014, there have been 2 rounds of executions of death-row prisoners, mostly drug traffickers, with another round imminent. Executions seem like an annual ritual to save the younger generations from drugs. On the 1st day after the Idul Fitri holiday, Attorney General Muhammad Prasetyo confirmed that a third round of executions before a firing squad was only a matter of time. Preparations have been underway over the past week for the execution of at least 13 death-row convicts from Indonesia and other countries, including China, which will take place somewhere on Nusakambangan, an island south of Central Java that houses maximum security prisons. The executions, if they happen, will not be the last as another round could follow next year with more than 30 convicts having already exhausted their legal rights to escape capital punishment. Regrets and condemnation poured in, including from UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, when Indonesia executed 14 convicts last year despite numerous calls for a reprieve. The executions also strained diplomatic ties, with close neighbor Australia as well as the Netherlands and Brazil recalling their ambassadors after their nationals were executed. International pressure for Indonesia to stop the death penalty has not subsided. Jokowi???s recent visit to Europe was overshadowed by criticism of the practice. German Chancellor Angela Merkel openly asked Jokowi to end capital punishment, but he remained resolute that executions would solve drug problems. Indonesia inherited the death penalty from the Dutch colonial period and has kept it intact, although the former ruler abolished the harsh penalty in 1870 and removed all references to capital punishment from its law in 1991. For a popular leader like Jokowi, the death penalty matters as it is the wish of his people. A number of surveys have found that most Indonesians support capital punishment, which is perceived as a legitimate and effective method to cleanse the country of criminals. As a champion of democracy and human rights, however, executions will not only taint Indonesia's reputation but also undermine its ambition to become a major player in Asia and the world. Indonesia has been pursuing a role as a global player, being recognized as the 3rd-largest democracy in the world and the biggest predominantly Muslim nation, which has proved that democracy and Islam can live together. Indonesia, too, has engaged in numerous multilateral negotiations and bound itself to international norms to stake a claim as a global power. Indonesia, for example, ratified the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) in 2005, which signifies its commitment to respect for the civil and political rights of individuals, including the right to life. The adoption of such an important international instrument enables Indonesia to rank among other modern states but, rather than increasing its standards, the country preserves the cruel punishment that clearly violates human rights principles. Currently, Indonesia holds a seat on the UN Human Rights Council, representing Asia Pacific until 2017. Citizens are proud of the honor, but ironically Indonesia ignores the very duty of a council member to uphold the highest standard of human rights promotion and protection both at home and around the world. Executions clearly run counter to Indonesia's rise as an emerging power, a member of the prestigious Group of 20 ( G20 ), an East Asia Summit (EAS) member and the largest member of ASEAN. As a nation of critical importance given its size, growing economy and strategic relevance to regional security, Indonesia needs to show leadership and set a good example, including in the global campaign against the death penalty. What a contradiction that we are working hard to gain global status but do not care about our own record at home. Executions have also failed to curb the rate of drug crimes. After last year???s executions, we have seen an intensification of arrests of people in possession of or trafficking drugs, some of them security officers. Suffice to say, executions have provided no deterrence. We must also bear in mind that miscarriages of justice occur in many countries when it comes to the death penalty. Indonesia is not immune to that, especially with judicial corruption considered entrenched. Whatever the reasons behind the executions, Indonesia lacks grounds to appeal to other countries to show compassion to 281 Indonesian migrant workers currently facing the death penalty overseas. Stop capital punishment now and President Jokowi will stand a greater chance of saving the lives of many of his people. (source: Yohanna Ririhena; The Jakarta Post) SOUTH AFRICA: SA killed the death penalty, but Trump will keep it alive in the US Republican US presidential nominee Donald Trump said last year that, if he was elected, he would sign an executive order to make the death penalty mandatory for murderers of police officers. So far this year, 29 police officers have been murdered in the US, some of them apparently as a result of anger at police officers over the killings of black people. Whether or not Trump would have the power to issue an order making the death penalty mandatory is not clear. Any such order would certainly be challenged in the Supreme Court. Last year, Pennsylvania became the 18th US state to abolish the death sentence. By the end of last year, 2/3 of all countries had stopped executing people. South Africa abolished the death penalty in June 1995 following a decision by the Constitutional Court. It declared that capital punishment was "cruel and unusual". One of the judges, Pius Langa (later a chief justice), said that the emphasis he placed on the right to life was influenced by our history. Although heinous crimes were the antithesis of ubuntu, so was cruel and unusual treatment. While Trump appeals to popular opinion, our Constitutional Court was careful to say that human rights were more important. Ironically, it was an American judge, Robert Jackson, whom our court quoted in this regard: "The very purpose of a Bill of Rights is to withdraw certain subjects from the vicissitudes of political controversy, to place them beyond the reach of majorities and officials, and to establish them as legal principles to be applied by the courts. One's right to life, liberty and property, to free speech, a free press, freedom of worship and assembly, and other fundamental rights may not be submitted to vote; they depend on the outcome of no elections." One of the reasons the Americans have not yet put the death penalty behind them is that the US's Constitution is ambivalent. Although it outlaws cruel and unusual punishment, it also permits the death sentence. The US Supreme Court has tried to deal with this apparent contradiction by authorising capital punishment in states that have introduced guidelines for judges and juries to ensure that the death sentence is not arbitrarily carried out, therefore avoiding the "cruel and unusual" problem. Our Constitutional Court decided that this was impossible. Arbitrariness was unavoidable because judges needed discretion to find whether or not there were extenuating circumstances. This problem could be avoided only by mandatory sentencing - which undermined the vital principle of individualised sentencing. Research by the Institute of Race Relations for a forthcoming study on capital punishment shows that some judges in the past bent over backwards to find extenuating circumstances so that they could avoid imposing a mandatory death sentence. So, as our Constitutional Court admitted, whether or not an accused was sentenced to death could depend on which judge tried the case, or even which judges heard any appeal. Another point made by our Constitutional Court was that "poverty, race and chance play roles in the outcome of capital [punishment] cases, and in the final decision as to who should live and who should die". One of the reasons for differential outcomes was that poor people charged with capital offences would often have to rely for their defence on dedicated but nevertheless inexperienced pro deo counsel. Richer people would be able to engage the best counsel and firms of attorneys, along with expert witnesses, and private investigators and researchers. With the help of the Wits Justice Project, the Institute of Race Relations identified several people in South African prisons sentenced to life imprisonment for the murder of police officers who were released more than a decade later - after their innocence was demonstrated. The project said that there were no official statistics on wrongful convictions, but that there were probably other people behind bars who were in a similar predicament. Wrongful imprisonment is, of course, a terrible wrong, but at least the victim can be released if the wrong is uncovered. This is impossible with a wrongful execution, and it is the most powerful argument against the death penalty. One of the judges in the decision made by the Constitutional Court, John Didcott, admitted that mistakes "do occur now and again". This has definitely happened in the US. Many people will no doubt argue that murder is itself so "cruel and unusual" that it warrants the cruel and unusual punishment of the death sentence. However, as Lord Gardiner, a top British judge quoted by our court, said: "Human beings who are not infallible ought not to impose a form of punishment which is irreparable." (source: John Kane-Berman is a policy fellow at the Institute of Race Relations, a think-tank promoting political and economic freedom----City Press) PAKISTAN----executions Sialkot jail hangs murderer of his 2 sister A criminal accused of murder has been hanged on Tuesday morning in the Sialkot District jail. The name of murderer was Shafeeq and he was accused of killing his 2 sisters in Narowal in year 2004. Shafeeq planned to rob his own sisters and upon resisting he killed both of them at the spot. Before the suspect was to be hanged, a meeting with his family had been arranged after which he was hanged to his death at dawn on Tuesday. Ever since the Army Public School massacre in 2004, Pakistan's Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif had lifted the moratorium on death penalty in the country. Ever since, death sentences have been carried out and more than 160 prisoners have been executed by the state since then. (source: Daily Times) BANGLADESH: Father, son in Barisal ordered death sentences for 2010 murder of local journalist A Barisal court has given the death penalty to a man and his son for the murder of a journalist. An additional district and sessions judge's court delivered the verdict on Thursday in the 2010 murder of Monir Hossain at Muladi Upazila. The court found Alauddin Rarhi, his son Rasel guilty and ordered the death sentences. It also fined the 2 by Tk 50,000 each. Rarhi's other son Sohag has been acquitted of the charges. On Dec 21, 2010, local journalist Monir Hossain was attacked over a feud. He died of the injuries later at a hospital. Hossain's family filed a case, accusing Alauddin Rarhi, his wife, 2 sons and neighbour Motaleb Rarhi. Police pressed charges against Rarhi and his 2 sons. The victim's family said they were not happy with the verdict and would appeal against it. (source: bdnews24.com) TURKEY: Erdogan says Turkish people want death penalty restored The Turkish people want the death penalty restored and those governing the country must listen to them, President Tayyip Erdogan said, despite European officials saying such a move would immediately stop Ankara's EU accession process. "What do the (Turkish) people say today?" Erdogan asked during an interview with German television station ARD that was broadcast on Monday. "They want the death penalty reintroduced. And we as the government must listen to what the people say. We can't say 'no, that doesn't interest us.'" Earlier, EU Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker said that if Turkey reintroduces the death penalty - something the government has said it must consider, responding to calls from supporters at public rallies for coup leaders to be executed - it would stop the EU accession process immediately. (source: Reuters) INDIA: Rane for death penalty to drug peddlers Opposition leader Pratapsingh Rane on Monday demanded that the government should consider awarding death penalty to drug peddlers. He mentioned that he would table a resolution for the purpose during the ongoing session of the state legislative assembly. Speaking during the general discussion on the budget, Rane cautioned the government that drugs and other contraband substances are being made available in the hinterlands of the state and it will be the biggest menace that will hit Goa. Suggesting the legislators to watch the movie 'Udta Punjab', he said, "I am afraid we will have 'Udta Goa' very soon. Drugs are entering the state, and it is not enough that we blame a particular community (tourists) for peddling. Ultimately the consumers are our local young boys and girls." He said that drugs have entered the educational institutions in remote areas and are killing young people and destroying generations. Demanding capital punishment to those dealing in the drug trade, he said, "Give them death penalty on lines with Singapore. I will discuss on this when I get to table my resolution." "It is trending day by day and the existing policing and intelligence efforts have failed to curb the illegal activity," he said emphasizing on the need for the state to intensify its effort on drug detection and conviction. (source: The Navhind Times) PHILIPPINES: New Philippine Congress opens with death penalty at top of agenda The newly convened Philippine Congress heard a proposal on Tuesday to re-impose the death penalty for "heinous crimes", giving priority to President Rodrigo Duterte's push for capital punishment in its first legislative session. The death penalty bill was received the same day Duterte took office on June 30, and it cites illicit sales and use of drugs as the root cause of "the most perverse and atrocious crimes". Introduced by 2 lawmakers, including a house speaker allied with Duterte, the bill cites the need for a war on crime and argues that existing laws were not a deterrent and had "emasculated" the criminal justice system. The death penalty was repealed in 2006 following pressure from church groups. The bill comes as Duterte's war on crime is in full swing, with at least 200 people killed in the past month, according to police, who say many of the deaths are the work of vigilantes. Other estimates of the body count are far higher and human rights groups are outraged. Duterte's vow to wipe out crime and drugs by the end of the year resonated among millions of Filipinos when he campaigned for election on threats to kill drug dealers who refused to surrender and dump their bodies in Manila Bay. He will not get everything his way, however, with the bill calling for lethal injection as a method of administering the punishment. Duterte had called for death by hanging, which he described graphically during speeches. (source: Reuters) From rhalperi at smu.edu Wed Jul 27 12:48:53 2016 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Wed, 27 Jul 2016 12:48:53 -0500 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, N.C., MISS., IND., ARK. Message-ID: July 27 TEXAS: Judge: Man cleared of murder shouldn't be declared innocent A judge refused on Monday to endorse the innocence claims of a former Texas death row inmate even though his murder conviction was overturned after a prosecution witness admitted lying on the stand. Kerry Max Cook was twice convicted in the 1977 slaying of Linda Jo Edwards in Tyler, about 100 miles east of Dallas. Freed in 1999 after taking a deal to plead no contest, Cook has maintained his innocence and finally won the dismissal of his conviction earlier this year. But State District Judge Jack Carter, who approved that dismissal, said Monday that Cook and his lawyers hadn't met the higher legal standard necessary to declare him "actually innocent." Cook likely needs to clear that standard to receive millions of dollars in benefits Texas pays to the wrongfully convicted - $80,000 for every year of wrongful imprisonment, along with an annuity and other benefits. Earlier this year, authorities found that Edwards' boss and former lover, James Mayfield, wasn't truthful when he testified that the 2 had ended their affair 3 weeks before her death. After receiving immunity, Mayfield admitted the 2 had had sex the day before she was killed. Carter agreed Cook's conviction could not stand due to Mayfield's false testimony at trial. But in an order Monday, Carter declined to go further. "The ultimate issue in this case is a determination of who murdered Linda Edwards, not who had sexual relations with Linda Edwards," Carter said, according to the Tyler Morning Telegraph. Mayfield's recantation "is definitely helpful to Cook's defense, but this court does not find that it unquestionably proves that Cook is actually innocent." Carter's order will go to the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, the state's highest criminal court, which will make the final decision on Cook's claims. Smith County District Attorney Matt Bingham told the newspaper he supported Carter's order. He has not ruled out retrying Cook. Cook was not immediately available for comment. (source: Associated Press) NORTH CAROLINA: Iredell County man charged in mother's death An Iredell County man could face the death penalty after detectives said he killed his own mother. Victim Bobbie Frye, 79, shared a home on Alexander Acres in Mooresville with her son, Michael Frye. That is where her niece found her severely beaten before she died on Monday. Her son stood with his hands cuffed and arms crossed Tuesday as the judge announced he's charged with her murder. The maximum sentence could be the death penalty. His relative told Eyewitness News Frye suffers from mental health issues. Looking at his criminal record, Chief Deputy Marty Byers questions whether Frye may have fallen through the cracks. "It shows how broken our judicial system is, whether you need people to be incarcerated or need help, it's obvious that they're not," Byers said. Eyewitness News learned Frye was supposed to be in court for a DWI charge in Rowan County on the day of his mother's death. Over the years, he's been arrested on more than a dozen charges in five counties, including resisting an officer and assault with a deadly weapon. Some of the charges were dismissed. Iredell County deputies responded to a call that Frye assaulted his mother in 2013, but investigators said she signed a waiver asking not to press charges. "It's sad. You know that people do that. I understand they want to protect their families, they want to be forgiven," Byers said. "Unfortunately in this case, they had a tragic ending." The judge decided not to address Frye's bond Tuesday morning. He is being held at the Iredell County Detention Center without bond. His next court date is set for Aug. 16. (source: WSOC news) MISSISSIPPI: Fighting the Lethal Injection Richard Jordan has been on death row in Mississippi for 40 years for kidnapping and murdering Edwina Marter in 1976, even though the average wait time for death-row inmates to be killed is about 14 years. Jordan and fellow death-row inmate Thomas Loden Jr., convicted in 2001 for sexual assault, rape and murder of Leesa Marie Gray in 2000, have filed new challenges to Mississippi's lethal-injection drug law in the Mississippi Supreme Court, after the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals sent another drug challenge filed by Jordan, Loden and another death-row inmate Ricky Chase, challenge back to the district court. The district court has not yet considered the plaintiffs' First and Eighth Amendment challenges. Jordan and Loden Jr. could be executed at any point, however, because as the Associated Press reported earlier this month, both men have exhausted their appeals. Gary Carl Simmons was the last man executed by lethal injection in the state of Mississippi back in June 2012, MDOC's website says. A federal court's injunction froze executions due to three prisoners on death row challenging the state's use of the type of sedative drug - the 1st used - in the 3-part injection. On July 6, the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals vacated the lower court's injunction and remanded the case back to the district court system."(B)ecause Mississippi's sovereign immunity prevents a federal court from enjoining state officials to follow state law, and because plaintiffs have not shown they are likely to succeed in establishing a violation of either their procedural and substantive due process rights," the 5th Circuit's revised opinion states. The state courts will be left to interpret challenges to Mississippi's death-penalty laws and challenges to drugs used in the lethal-injection procedure. No execution dates were set by press time for Jordan or Loden Jr. "We certainly hope that they recognize that this is the kind of issue that should be vetted and weighed by the federal court prior to them trying to precipitate some kind of artificial crisis by setting an execution date," James Craig, a lawyer at the MacArthur Justice Center, which represents Jordan and Chase, told the Jackson Free Press. Attorney General Jim Hood's office did not offer any specific comment on the numerous cases pending or the new appeals filed. Hood's spokeswoman Rachael Ring said the State of Mississippi will respond in court to challenges pending in both federal and state courts. Drug Drama Immediately before a July 2015 hearing on the prisoners' challenge to Mississippi's use of pentobarbital, the Mississippi Department of Corrections changed its policy to include more drugs on its list of possible drug "#1s" (the sedatives) in its 3-drug injection. "In the event of the unavailability of sodium pentothal, a sufficient quantity of pentobarbital will be acquired and administered in its place. In the event of the unavailability of pentobarbital, a sufficient quantity of midazolam will be acquired and administered in its place," an MDOC policy request form included in court records states. The form was signed and dated July 28, 2015. In the state's memorandum filed on that same day, lawyers from the Attorney General's office wrote, "the state no longer has pentobarbital in any form for executions." The memorandum also says the policy had to change because the state was unable to obtain the drugs anymore. "MDOC and Commissioner Fisher have absolutely no motivation to change the State's lethal injection protocol, an event absolutely sure to produce litigation, unless the change was necessary and unavoidable," the July 28 brief says. A year later, Jordan and Loden Jr. are challenging specifically the state's proposed use of midazolam, and those fresh appeals were filed in the Mississippi Supreme Court earlier this month. The men's lawyers argue that midazolam is not an "ultra short-acting barbiturate" that Mississippi's death-penalty law requires. Instead, they argue that "it is a benzodiazepine, an entirely different class of drugs from that authorized by Mississippi law." The "ultra short-acting barbiturate" is supposed to act as the sedative in the three-drug injection used to execute prisoners in the state of Mississippi. The 3-drug injection includes the sedative, the paralytic drug ("so you don't see the body flopping around") and the drug that stops the heart, Robert Dunham, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, told the Jackson Free Press. Oklahoma was the 1st state to begin using the 3-drug approach back in 1977, and more states "just piggybacked on that," Dunham said. In the 1940s and '50s, Mississippi used the electric chair to kill prisoners on death row. After 1954, the State used a lethal gas chamber until 1984, MDOC's website states, until it introduced lethal injection as a method of execution. "There's no reason to do that. If you euthanize a horse, you don't use three drugs???you use a larger dose of one drug," Dunham said of the execution formula. Only a few states have caught on to the one-drug approach, however, and now because fewer drugs are available for lethal injections, they are - perhaps consequently - the only states still executing prisoners on death row. Alabama, Georgia, Missouri and Texas are among the states that use 1-drug lethal injection for prisoners on death row. An April analysis by the Marshall Project, a nonprofit journalism outlet dedicated to the criminal-justice system, shows that they are the only states currently executing prisoners. Eight states have used single-drug lethal injections to execute prisoners, the Death Penalty Information Center data shows. In the meantime, midazolam was a part of the subject of a 2015 U.S. Supreme Court decision, Glossip v. Gross. While the U.S. Supreme Court found that challenges to Oklahoma's use of midazolam failed, Craig says the Glossip case did not approve the use of midazolam - contrary to what his "opponents" say. "The federal judge in Oklahoma is still considering whether the use of midazolam violates the Eighth Amendment," he told the Jackson Free Press. "Our opponents like to say that the Supreme Court approved the use of midazolam, but they did no such thing." Craig said that the Glossip case differs from his clients' situation in Mississippi for several reasons. Oklahoma has adopted several safeguards in their lethal-injection practices, Craig said, like waiting 5 minutes after they've administered the sedative drug and tested the prisoner to make sure they are unconscious before the other drugs are administered. "Mississippi has nothing like that," Craig said. Court documents show that Mississippi's pre-execution inventory check require the injection team to check everything not less than 24 hours and not more than 96 hours before the scheduled execution. Details of procedural operations of an execution are not included in the filing. Preserving State Secrets The pushback and stall of state executions in the past few years is largely due to large drug manufacturers coming out against their drugs being used to execute people. "Every American manufacturer of sodium pentothal, pentobarbital and midazolam are on record as saying that they don't want their drugs to be used in executions," Dunham said. "And they have adopted internal regulations on sale and distribution of their product to try to keep them out of the hands of executioners." Pfizer came out against the practice most recently, The New York Times reported in May, saying they did not want their drugs used for executions. Dunham says Pfizer is the 20th company by his count to do so. The drug manufacturers backing down from lethal drug sales has, consequently, left many states in limbo when it comes to acquiring the drugs necessary to execute prisoners. Dunham said if states aren't getting drugs from manufacturers, that means they are getting them from compounding pharmacies, and compounding pharmacies - in general - are not subject to the same types of regulations as major pharmaceutical companies. "As a result, there are significantly greater safety risks," Dunham said. In the 2016 legislative session, Attorney General Jim Hood asked the Legislature to consider a law that would keep the identities of the state's execution team, suppliers of lethal injection chemicals and the witnesses of an execution all a state secret - exempt from the Mississippi Public Records Act. The bill became law July 1. The law specifies "a supplier of lethal-injection chemicals" as one located within the state of Mississippi. Dunham said he is unaware of any Mississippi drug manufacturer, so that provision of the law would most likely protect the identity of any compounding pharmacy in the state. Reading Senate Bill 2237, Dunham said the law might prevent those on death row from "obtaining information necessary to ascertain whether he or she is going to be subjected to a torturous execution." Information about the drugs themselves, like how they are handled or if they are properly mixed or tested are all factors that could come up in court, but Dunham said, "if the compounder is a part of the execution team, you never get to ask him where they came from because you don't get to know who he is." Other states have adopted secrecy laws like Mississippi's, but the state-specific supplier clause is different than what Dunham has seen in the past. In the cases of Jordan, Chase and Loden Jr., the State of Mississippi has said it is unable to obtain pentobarbital. In a footnote of its June 27 order, the 5th Circuit did not rule on this provision specifically. "Because other states retain access to pentobarbital it seems possible that Mississippi could regain access in the future," the footnote says. Craig has asked the Missouri Department of Corrections for that state's lethal-injection methods to prove that other states have managed to keep executing people and finding the drugs to do so. Missouri uses a 1-drug lethal injection protocol, using pentobarbital. The federal court there ruled in Craig and the plaintiffs' favor to access the information, but Missouri has appealed that ruling. Dunham says Mississippi has presented no evidence that the drugs are unavailable without secrecy, but with several manufacturers publicly opting out anyway, the only thing left to hide is who is mixing the drugs in-state. "If the drugs are unavailable publicly because everybody has opted out of the policy, that's a problem with the policy, not a justification for secrecy," Dunham said. (source: Jackson Free Press) INDIANA: Indiana prosecutor to seek death penalty in 'Purge' killings A central Indiana prosecutor says he will seek the death penalty in the case of a 19-year-old Indianapolis man charged with fatally shooting 3 people over 4 days in May. Marion County Prosecutor Terry Curry said at a news conference Tuesday that Johnathan Cruz killed the 3 "for sport," describing the killings as "beyond senseless." Curry says Cruz based the killings on the horror movie "The Purge," which is about 1 day a year when murder is legal. Cruz has pleaded not guilty in the shootings of Billy Boyd and Jay Higginbotham on May 12 and Jose Ruiz on May 15. According to court documents, detectives said a witness told them that Cruz confessed he had been "purging" by shooting and robbing people. (source: Associated Press) ARKANSAS: Arkansas lethal injection drug likely from Pfizer subsidiary Arkansas' secrecy laws didn't keep photos of a drug used in the state's lethal injection protocol from offering some inadvertent transparency. A Pfizer subsidiary is now thought to be the provider, despite the company's prior statements to the contrary. The revelation came on Monday following an investigation by the Associated Press into redacted photos it had obtained from the Arkansas Department of Correction. The label for vecuronium bromide, a paralytic drug used in lethal injection protocols, matched those sent to the National Institutes of Health by Hospira, a company that the global pharmaceutical corporation Pfizer bought last year. While AP obtained the purchase orders for the drug, the name of the 3rd party that sold the drug to the Corrections Department was redacted in order to comply with the state's secrecy laws. In a split decision, the Arkansas State Supreme Court ruled last month that the state could execute 8 death row inmates with its 3-drug protocol, while upholding a state law that keeps information about lethal injection drugs confidential. The 8 inmates are appealing that decision. In March, Pfizer announced that it would not sell drugs for use in executions. "Pfizer makes its products to enhance and save the lives of the patients we serve. Consistent with these values, Pfizer strongly objects to the use of its products as lethal injections for capital punishment," a statement from the Pfizer website said. "Pfizer will consistently monitor the distribution of these 7 products, act upon findings that reveal noncompliance, and modify policies when necessary to remain consistent with our stated position against the improper use of our products in lethal injections," the statement continued. The company has joined over 20 other drug companies from the US and Europe that do not permit their drugs to be used for state executions. Pfizer spokeswoman Rachel Hooper said the company had restrictions in place to prevent the unauthorized use of its drugs, writing "We have implemented a comprehensive strategy and enhanced restricted distribution protocols for a select group of products to help combat their unauthorized use for capital punishment," according to AP. "Pfizer is currently communicating with states to remind them of our policy," she added. Hooper did not address whether the company was aware of the sale of the paralytic drug to Arkansas' Department of Correction. Despite the fact that the death penalty is legal in nearly 2/3 of US states, the number of executions has fallen dramatically since 1999, when 89 were carried out. Last year saw 28, and so far in 2016, there have been only 14 state sanctioned killings, according to the Death Penalty Information Center. Just 7 states have executed prisoners since 2014. (source: rt.com) From rhalperi at smu.edu Wed Jul 27 12:50:10 2016 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Wed, 27 Jul 2016 12:50:10 -0500 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----OKLA., S.DAK., NEV., CALIF., WASH., USA Message-ID: July 27 OKLAHOMA----stay of impending execution Oklahoma court stays execution for man in woman's death An Oklahoma appeals court has stayed the execution of a man convicted of killing a 24-year-old woman while a mandatory appeal of his conviction and sentence are pending. The court on Tuesday issued the appeal for 49-year-old Albert Johnson. District Judge Donald Deason set a Sept. 19 execution, but noted it will likely be years before Johnson is put to death. A death penalty moratorium was issued while a grand jury investigated the delivery of the wrong drug for 2 lethal injections, the last of which was stopped by Gov. Mary Fallin after the wrong drug was discovered. Attorney General Scott Pruitt said he will not ask for any executions for about five months following the grand jury's May report criticizing Fallin's then general counsel for encouraging the use of the wrong drug. (source: Associated Press) SOUTH DAKOTA: SD Inmate Briley Piper Still Fighting Death Sentence With Habeas Appeal In State Court Death row inmate Briley Piper was back in court last week in Deadwood. Piper is challenging his incarceration in the South Dakota State Penitentiary, saying his legal counsel was insufficient and he should have been allowed to withdraw his guilty plea. Lawrence County State's Attorney John Fitzgerald says the hearing lasted all day July 21. "At the conclusion of the hearing, a transcript of the hearing was ordered, and the judge gave us basically 60 days from last Thursday to produce our briefs to the court," Fitzgerald said. "Then reply briefs are due 15 days after that, so at that point the judge will issue a decision." Briley Piper and 2 co-defendants murdered Chester Allen Poage on March 13, 2000. Piper pleaded guilty in January 2001 and was sentenced to die. He appealed that death penalty, and in July 2011 he had a sentencing-phase trial in Rapid City. The jury unanimously sentenced him to death. The South Dakota Supreme Court has upheld Piper's conviction and sentencing. Piper is still exhausting remedies under state law. If he fails to find relief there, he can start the federal appeals process. (source: sdpb.org) NEVADA: Judge orders makeup for suspect with Nazi tattoos on trial for robbery Jurors said they could not impartially judge a defendant with swastikas and other racist and anti-Semitic tattoos covering his face and neck - so the judge called in a cosmetologist. District Judge Richard Scotti stopped jury selection for a Las Vegas trial that resumed Monday (July 25) after potential jurors said they could not see past the hatred inked into Bayzle Morgan's face and bald head, according to the Las Vegas Review-Journal. A tattoo on his neck says "Baby Nazi." Under his left eye, there's a swastika; on the back of his head, an iron cross, the symbol of Nazi Germany. "Most Wanted," he proclaims on his forehead. Morgan, 24, is accused of stealing a motorcycle at gunpoint, and he faces the death penalty in a separate case - the murder of a 75-year-old woman on oxygen, according to the newspaper. But the law says defendants should be judged on the facts, not on their appearance. So when potential jurors last month declared that they could not get past the tattoos, prosecutors asked for camouflage, and Scotti called in the makeup artist. It took 2 hours to hide the tattoos, the newspaper reported. At one point during jury selection Monday, the court paused for touch-ups because some of the makeup had rubbed off. The makeup will be removed when the trial ends each day, and reapplied each day of the trial. (source: The Gazette) CALIFORNIA: Death penalty reform is the answer for California Dear Editor, I'm writing in regards to your recent article on Proposition 62 and the argument for repealing the death penalty in California. I think we can all agree the system in our state is broken, yet ending death sentences is not the solution. The solution is to MEND, not END California's death penalty. Each year, nearly 2,000 murders occur in California, of those about 15 result in death penalty sentences. With Prop 66 reforms, juries can still recommend the death penalty for criminals they've found guilty of committing horrific crimes and, in turn, those criminals will have their appeals heard within 5 years. As it stands now, the most heinous criminals sit on death row for 30 years, with endless appeals delaying justice and costing taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars. Prop 66 will speed up the death penalty appeals process while ensuring that no innocent person is ever executed. The death penalty in California is broken. Reform is the answer. The right thing to do is to vote NO on Prop 62 and YES on Prop 66! -- Birgit Fladager, Stanislaus County District Attorney (source: Letter to the Editor, Turlock Journal) WASHINGTON: John Reed's lawyer has questions about new charges in slaying of Arlington couple ---- New charges, which could carry the death penalty, raise questions for the attorney of John B. Reed, accused of aggravated murder for the slayings of his former Snohomish County neighbors. The lawyer for accused killer John B. Reed has questions about his client's arrest in Mexico and the timing of new charges that could expose Reed to the death penalty or life in prison without parole in the slayings of an Arlington-area couple in April. Jon Scott, an attorney with the Snohomish County Public Defender's Office, said Tuesday he was awaiting his client's return to Washington to discuss the new charges and learn more about Reed's arrest last week. Prosecutors last Wednesday filed a new complaint accusing Reed, 53, of two counts of aggravated murder using a firearm in the deaths of 2 former neighbors. Reed was arrested the next day by Mexican authorities in the state of Sonora and taken to the U.S. border in Arizona, where Scott said he was turned over to U.S. Marshals. The timing of the new charges is curious, Scott said, given that they increased the potential penalties against Reed a day before his arrest and return to the United States. Scott said Reed was also not given a hearing in Mexico. It's his understanding that Mexican authorities just drove Reed to the border and dropped him off. The Snohomish County Sheriffs Office said last week Reed was expelled from Mexico for violation of that country's immigration laws. A conviction for aggravated murder carries two possible penalties: the death penalty or life in prison without parole. Snohomish County Prosecutor Mark Roe has not announced whether he will pursue the death penalty. "I have not been able to confirm a lot of what happened yet," Scott said. "But I do think it's curious, and I am going to be interested in the back story of how Mexico proceeded here." Reed had initially been charged with 1st-degree murder. Snohomish County Deputy Prosecutor Craig Matheson is out of town and was unavailable Tuesday. However, he told KING-TV last week the decision to file aggravated-murder charges was based on the multiple victims and the execution-style of the killings. He acknowledged the timing could not have been better since extradition laws make it difficult to file harsher charges after a suspect has been extradited to the U.S. Scott said Reed will likely appear before Arizona authorities in Tucson this week, although no hearing has been scheduled yet in Pima County Superior Court. If Reed chooses to fight his return to Washington, Scott said the Snohomish County Sheriff's Office will have to obtain a governor's warrant for his extradition. Reed is in the Pima County Jail. The new charges include new details into the county's case against Reed for the slayings of 2 neighbors April 11, when Patrick Shunn and Monique Patenaude were reported missing by friends. Reed reportedly had a property dispute with the couple. Reed and his younger brother, Tony, fled to Mexico days after the killings. Tony Reed has since pleaded guilty to 2 counts of 1st-degree rendering criminal assistance and has been cooperating with authorities. The new charges make it clear Tony Reed did not know about the killings until his brother drove him from Ellensburg to the Arlington-area community of Oso and showed him the bodies, which Tony Reed helped bury. The charges allege the slayings were committed execution-style, with Reed shooting 46-year-old Monique Patenaude 3 times in the arm, neck and head. Shunn, 45, suffered a single, nearly point-blank gunshot wound to the neck and head, killing him instantly. "This was the only injury of significance located on Patrick Shunn's body, leading to the inference that Shunn was shot before he had any ability to defend himself," the charges state. The bodies were buried, Patenaude on top of Shunn, in a 4-foot-deep grave in a clear-cut section of the forest that police said they never would have found without Tony Reed's help. Prosecutors say the brothers fled to Mexico with the help of their parents, who have also been charged in rendering criminal assistance. (source: Seattle Times) USA: Sept. 11 prosecutors ask judge to accept 2,976 death certificates as evidence A war crimes prosecutor on Tuesday asked the judge to put 2,976 death certificates of the people killed on 9/11 directly into the pretrial record, a request defense lawyers charged triggered a constitutional tripwire. "We're offering them to prove that they died on that date as victims of the attacks on Sept. 11," prosecutor Ed Ryan told the judge, Army Col. James L. Pohl. They were under seal at least until a military jury is empaneled for a trial whose date is still uncertain. Defense lawyers for the 5 men accused of orchestrating the Sept. 11, 2001 hijackings said the law required witnesses to be questioned on each document's contents. Defense attorney Edwin Perry, representing alleged plot deputy Walid bin Attash, accused the prosecution of trying to "cut corners, do an end run around the 6th Amendment and Confrontation Clause" of the U.S. Constitution. Ryan told the judge to use a different standard and conclude that the death certificates were business records entitled to a hearsay rule exception. He also called them "non-testimonial," not subject to cross-examination. Pre-admission of this "voluminous evidence" without challenge and before a jury selection would "streamline the presentation of evidence at trial, which will conserve precious judicial and military time and resources," his court filing said. Tuesday offered a rare mention of the the victims of the worst terror attack on U.S. soil across 4 years of pretrial proceedings. The sides have mostly sparred over resources, the prisoners' ability to work with their lawyers and allegations of torture and information about the CIA black sites where the accused terrorists were held for 3 to 4 years before September 2006. Court filings show the death certificates were created by seven or more different entities, mostly the New York City Medical Examiner's Office, which handled the remains of the dead recovered from Ground Zero. But the hijackers also crashed planes at the Pentagon and a field in Pennsylvania so the records included documents from the Commonwealth of Virginia, a Pennsylvania coroner and the Department of the Army, which provided a casualty report. In some instances, Ryan said, state judges declared a person dead where no remains were recovered. To use them, the defense lawyers argued, prosecutors would have to stream coroners, perhaps circuit court judges and other original witnesses to the documentation through the war court to be questioned about each death certificate's contents. And it would have to happen at trial, with the jury seated. One defender, Buffalo attorney Jim Harrington, told the judge that blacking out the circumstances and causes of death could meet the business record standard. Each side argued that Justice Antonin Scalia's landmark 2004 opinion in Crawford v. Washington supported their argument on whether defense lawyers could or could not cross-examine the creator of a document. No date has been set for the war crimes trial. Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty if alleged mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed and his 4 accused accomplices are convicted. When defense lawyers argued in another portion of the hearing for internal Pentagon memos on an unlawful influence motion, case prosecutor Bob Swann replied with, "2,976 men, women and children were summarily executed. Over 3,000 children were left fatherless, motherless or without grandparents." (source: Miami Herald) From rhalperi at smu.edu Wed Jul 27 12:50:56 2016 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Wed, 27 Jul 2016 12:50:56 -0500 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide Message-ID: July 27 PHILIPPINES: Solons file 1st house bill seeking to restore death penalty Members of the House of Representatives will deliberate on the re-imposition of the death penalty on its 2nd day of regular session for the 17th Congress on Tuesday. House Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez and Capiz Rep. Fredenil Castro co-authored House Bill 1 which seeks to impose the death penalty on heinous crimes. The proposed measure repeals the purpose of Republic Act 9346 which prohibits the imposition of death penalty in the Philippines. Ilocos Norte Rep. Rodolfo Farinas, Camarines Sur Rep. Rolando Andaya Jr., Rizal Rep. Michael John Duavit, Tarlac Rep. Carlos Cojuangco, Masbate Rep. Elisa Kho, Batangas Rep. Raneo Abu, Cebu Rep. Benhur Salimbangon, Quezon Rep. Danilo Suarez and Ako Bicol Partylist Rep. Rodel Batocabe also co-authored the death penalty bill. Lawmakers will also deliberate on House Bill 2 which reverts the minimum age of criminal responsibility from 15 years old to 9 years old. These are among the top priority measures that Alvarez mentioned in his inaugural speech upon winning his speakership bid. Alvarez noted that among ASEAN nations, only the Philippines and Cambodia have no capital punishment. "As the president has said, it is a simple universal law of karma: if you borrow from me a thousand pesos, then you must pay back the same amount plus interest. If you take a human life especially if you do it deliberately and with premeditation, you must pay with your life," Alvarez said in his speech. (source: Philippine Star) IRAN----executions Iran hangs 7 prisoners in 1 day Iran's fundamentalist regime hanged on Wednesday a group of 6 prisoners in a jail in north-western Iran and a 7th prisoner in the north-east of the country. The 6 men were hanged at 2am on July 27 in the central prison in the city of Orumieh (Urmia), the provincial capital of Iran's Western Azerbaijan Province. They had been transferred to solitary confinement on Tuesday in preparation for their execution. They were identified as: Rahman Fouladi, Abdolmajid Herkuli, Abdollah Qaderi, Changiz Shiri, Mojtaba Shirkhani and Ali Talati. They were accused of drugs-related charges. A 7th man, identified as Reza Sabzevari, 32, from the town of Nishabur (Nishapur), was executed in the nearby city of Mashhad in north-eastern Iran. He had 2 children aged 2 and 10 and had been locked up in Mashhad Prison for some 18 months. The mullahs' regime hanged a man in public in the town of Songhor, western Iran, on Monday. On Saturday the regime hanged 3 prisoners in a jail in the Central Prison of Rasht, northern Iran. More than 270 Members of the European Parliament signed a joint statement on Iran last month, calling on the European Union to "condition" its relations with Tehran to an improvement of human rights. The MEPs who were from all the EU Member States and from all political groups in the Parliament said they are concerned about the rising number of executions in Iran after Hassan Rouhani took office as President 3 years ago. Amnesty International in its April 6 annual Death Penalty report covering the 2015 period wrote: "Iran put at least 977 people to death in 2015, compared to at least 743 the year before." "Iran alone accounted for 82% of all executions recorded" in the Middle East and North Africa, the human rights group said. There have been more than 2,500 executions during Hassan Rouhani's tenure as President. The United Nations Special Rapporteur on the human rights situation in Iran in March announced that the number of executions in Iran in 2015 was greater than any year in the last 25 years. Rouhani has explicitly endorsed the executions as examples of "God's commandments" and "laws of the parliament that belong to the people". (source: NCR-Iran) SAUDI ARABIA: Saudi court sentences 2 to death for killing army colonel: Media A Saudi court sentenced 2 men it said were Al-Qaeda followers to death on charges of decapitating a Saudi intelligence service colonel in 2007, local media reported on Tuesday. The men attacked Colonel Nasser al-Othman at his farm near the city of Buraidah in northern Saudi Arabia, tied him up and severed his head because they viewed him as an apostate, online news website sabq.org said, citing the court ruling. Between 2003 and 2006, Al-Qaeda carried out a campaign of attacks in the kingdom against Western and Saudi targets that killed hundreds of people. Since stamping out the insurgency, Saudi Arabia has convicted and sentenced hundreds of people to prison or death for militancy. It executed dozens on Jan. 2. In Tuesday's verdict a 3rd man was sentenced to 30 years in jail for attempting to kill the commander of emergency forces in Saudi Arabia's northern Qassim region, Dubai-based al-Arabiya television channel said. The court ruling, published by Al-Arabiya on its website, did not identify the 3 convicted men. A Justice Ministry spokesman confirmed the court verdict was an initial ruling which was subject to levels of appeal before it can be implemented. Death sentences must be signed by the king before they are carried out. Human rights groups say Saudi Arabia's justice system is flawed and that its campaign against Islamist militants has also been used to suppress peaceful dissent. Saudi Arabia says the system is fair and independent. Since 2014 Islamic State, like Al-Qaeda a predominantly Sunni hardline group, has carried out attacks in the kingdom that have killed dozens and led to hundreds of arrests. (source: ahramonline) ******************* Critical situation of Shiite Muslims in Saudi Arabia: 9 minors at risk of execution Saudi Arabia said on 28 February 2014 in a report submitted to the Human Rights Council of the United Nations: (the death penalty fall for minors, and it is not carried out on the children at all, and it should be noted that the definition of a child under KSA polices agreed with Article (1) of the Convention on the Rights of the Child), but in the 2nd of January 2016 and after 20 months from the report, Saudi Arabia executed 47 people, including four minors. To form the 2nd-largest mass execution in its history, after the execution of 61 people in 7 January 1980. The execution of 2 January 2016, raised denunciations succession, as expressed by UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon's dismay, it was considered that the trials -at referring to the execution of Sheikh Nimr- raised serious concerns about the nature of the charges and the fairness of the trial. Also the High Commissioner for Human Rights at the United Nations Zeid Ra'ad Al-Hussein expressed his regrets of executions carried out by Saudi Arabia urging them to ban executions, and he express concern that the provisions did not meet a strict set of substantive and procedural requirements. The High Representative for Security and Foreign Policy Affairs in the European Union, Ms. Federica Mogherini, also raised the hazardous concerns regarding freedom of expression and respect for basic civil and political rights, and she confirmed that they must be protected in all cases, including in cases of anti-terrorism. Saudi official bodies including the Interior Ministry and the Justice Ministry, rejected the criticism and claimed that the provisions are (under formulation in defense guarantees and, are the judgment is confirmed only after exhausting all levels of litigation). The National Society for Human Rights, held that (trials met the legality and due process of law and the principles and rules of fair trial and get convicted on the guarantees). European Saudi Organization for Human Rights, Confirms that according to some of the cases that it watched and documented, the Saudi government committed during the executions violations of a number of international conventions, where did it didn't get the conditions of a fair trial, and the executions were based on charges extracted under torture, as committed major violations, which contained the Children Rights Agreement that Saudi Arabia joined. Ali Saeed Al-Rebeh, was of the cases the organization could track the progress of the trial and document what happened to him from violations. He was arrested on 12 February 2012, and was then at the age of eighteen years and two months, and he accused of taking part in demonstrations in February of 2011, and other charges when he was 17 years old, and he was executed based on those charges. A documentary film pointed that some of who were arrested by Saudi Arabia on suspicion of belonging to al-Qaeda were at young age and were not aware of the reality of things. Although the trials in Saudi Arabia are not transparent, and it is difficult to access information about each of the executed in the 2nd January 2016, but it was known there were other minors : Mishaal Hammoud al-Faraj (17 years) - Amin Mohamed al-Ghamdi (17 years) - the Chadian Mustafa Muhammad Tahir Abkar (14 years). The available information indicates that they were arrested in raids in June 2003 in Khalidiya Mecca neighborhood, and in January 2004, and there ages were below 18, and as explained at some of the interviews and documentaries, some of them dropped their militant thoughts, and in the context of what was expounded on Saudi media, they didn't faced specific crime that deserve penalty, as they were nearly 13 years in prison before being executed. The police chief of Mecca sais that there are children who would have thought that they was brought to attend Quranic courses. The European Saudi Organization for Human Rights (ESOHR), called the Saudi government for a transparent and unannounced audits on 2nd January 2016 executions, and calls for an involvement of neutral points of human rights and legal verification, which led to the implementation of these executions, which included 4 minors. 9 minors at risk of execution: Despite the flaws and shortcomings apparent in the course of justice, which claimed the killing of 4 minors in the January 2, ESOHR documented the existence of 9 minors that are threatened currently on death row, and they are distributed on different situations, among who may be killed at any moment, and those who received a ruling elementary death and awaiting appeal, they are: Ali al-Nimir, Abdullah alZaher, Dawood al-Marhoon, Hussein Ali alBata, Saeed Mohammed alSkafi , Salman Amin al-Koraysh, Mojtaba alSuwaiket, Abdullah Salman Al Surih, Hassan Abdul Wahab Al Jazer. Some of them were arrested at an age of less than 18 years old, and some were arrested over the age of eighteen, but they faced charges related to less than 18 years of age. ESOHR documented cases of some of them in previous reports, some of whom had been tortured to extract confessions, as practiced with each deception and coercion methods, and some of the confessions recorded them had been written by interrogators handwriting and coerced into signing, and the trials lacked to the conditions of a fair trial. ESOHR reminde the Saudi government to her statement, in 28 February, 2014: (the death penalty for minors fall, and it's not carried out on the children at all). As we can see in ESOHR, in the base of many facts, it is incumbent on the Saudi government to punish all who are contributed to the abuses of minors, who were killed in the 2 January 2016 and they are: Mishaal Hammoud alFaraj - Ali Saeed Al Rebeh - Amin Mohamed alGhamdi - Mustafa Mohammed Taher Abkar, from the moment of arrest until the murder. ESOHR also calls for redress the sentences of 9 minors who faced the death penalty now: Ali alNimr, Abdullah alZaher, Dawood alMarhoon, Hussein Ali alBata, Saeed Mohammed alSkafi, Salman Amin Al Koraysh, Mojtaba alSuwaiket, Abdullah Salman Al Surih, Hassan Abdul Wahab Al Jazer, and to punish the shareholders and the legal related to the abuses, and to release them and retrial in which all of the elements and conditions of a fair trial is completed. ESOHR also found through the follow-up of cases of minors, such as the case of Ali Al Rebeh, or the cases of minors currently threatened with death, that there is a vast difference between the existing laws for minors in the paper, and between the treatment applied on the ground. We draw the attention of the Saudi government to the importance of the practical commitment to full domestic and international laws. It does not make sense to launch a theory in international forums about the systems started in Saudi Arabia permits, without the practical commitment on the ground, especially with respect to the execution of minors. The Saudi Arabia should stop using the official media in promoting incorrect accusations to minors, and launch provisions through the media before the results of the trial, as the government must open the way for the defendants or their lawyers or their families in the local media, because using media to show only the official view confirm that it is used in unfair practices. (source: AhlulBayt News Agency) ********************** Over 100 Executions Since January 1---- Jordanian Faces Death Penalty for Drug Smuggling Saudi authorities have executed 108 people since January 1, 2016. The year began with a mass execution on January 2, of 47 men convicted of terrorism-related crimes. Since then, authorities have executed 13 people for nonviolent drug smuggling, 47 for murder, and 1 for rape. Saudi authorities are on track to match the 158 executions in 2015, and have already surpassed the 88 in 2014. Saudi authorities have executed more than 100 people since January 1, 2016. An imprisoned Jordanian man, Hussein Abu al-Khair, may face the death penalty after a Saudi court convicted him in January 2015 of attempting to smuggle amphetamine pills into Saudi Arabia by car. Abu al-Khair alleges that a Saudi court convicted him based on a confession he signed under torture. "Executions are never the answer to stopping crime, especially when they result from a flawed justice system that ignores torture allegations," said Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. "There is simply no excuse for Saudi Arabia's frequent use of the death penalty for nonviolent drug crimes." Abu al-Khair's trial judgment, which Human Rights Watch reviewed, says that Saudi authorities arrested him on May 18, 2014, as he was attempting to enter the country by car at the al-Durra border crossing, between the southern Jordanian port city Aqaba and the Saudi town of Haql. The judgment states that the border authorities searched Abu al-Khair's car and found 3 bags hidden in the fuel tank filled with over 290,000 amphetamine pills. A family member who has spoken to Abu al-Khair by phone told Human Rights Watch that he denies smuggling the drugs. He told the family member that he only signed a confession admitting to drug smuggling after authorities beat and tortured him for 12 days, including suspending him upside down by the ankles and beating him with sticks. The trial judgment says that Abu al-Khair recanted his confession in court, stating that it was merely "the words of the investigator." Nevertheless, the judge accepted the original confession as evidence and sentenced Abu al-Khair to death in January 2015. Abu al-Khair did not have access to a lawyer before or during the trial, the family member said. Abu al-Khair filed an appeal in January 2015, but has received no information about the status of his case, the family member said. He is in Tabuk prison. Of the 108 people executed so far in 2016, 86 were Saudi citizens. Among the foreigners executed, 3 Jordanians and three Pakistanis were each convicted on drug smuggling charges. International standards, including the Arab Charter on Human Rights, ratified by Saudi Arabia, require countries that retain the death penalty to use it only for the "most serious crimes," and in exceptional circumstances. In 2012, the United Nations special rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary, or arbitrary executions stated that in countries that still use the death penalty, it should be limited to cases in which a person intentionally committed murder, not to punish drug-related offenses. Human Rights Watch has documented longstanding due process violations in Saudi Arabia's criminal justice system that make it difficult for a defendant to get a fair trial, including in capital cases. Human Rights Watch analyzed seven trial judgments that the Specialized Criminal Court handed down in 2013 and 2014 against men and children accused of protest-related crimes following popular demonstrations by members of the Shia minority in 2011 and 2012 in Eastern Province towns. In all 7 trials, detainees alleged that confessions were extracted through torture, but judges quickly dismissed these allegations without investigation, admitted the confessions as evidence, and then convicted the detainees almost solely based on these confessions, in some cases sentencing them to death. The Death Penalty Worldwide Database, which collects information on executions across the globe, shows that Saudi Arabia has one of the highest execution rates in the world, and applies the death penalty to a range of offenses that do not constitute "most serious crimes," including drug offenses and "sorcery." Saudi Arabia trails only Iran in the Middle East for executing the highest number of people each year. Since the start of 2016, Iran has reportedly executed at least 216 prisoners, according to Iran Human Rights Documentation Center. Human Rights Watch opposes capital punishment in all countries and under all circumstances. Capital punishment is unique in its cruelty and finality, and it is inevitably and universally plagued with arbitrariness, prejudice, and error. In 2012, following similar resolutions in 2007, 2008, and 2010, the UN General Assembly called on countries to establish a moratorium on the use of the death penalty, progressively restrict the practice, and reduce the offenses for which it might be imposed, all with the view toward its eventual abolition. UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has also called on countries to abolish the death penalty. (source: Human Rights Watch) TRINIDAD: Former T&T attorney general wants death penalty implemented Former attorney general Ramesh Lawrence Maharaj has called on the government to ensure that the death penalty is carried out here, saying he could not understand why the problem of crime cannot be solved or reduced in Trinidad and Tobago. "I could not understand why it is that the government is spending all this money on the Ministry of National Security but the country cannot be safe. "It needs a situation in which the criminal must know that if he does the crime he or she will be detected, will be convicted and will be sentenced and the death penalty will be carried out," he said. The last time the death penalty was carried out in Trinidad and Tobago, was in 1999 when Maharaj served as attorney general in the Basdeo Panday administration. Dole Chadee and members of his criminal gang were hanged over 4 days in June and July for the murder of one of their alleged associates and his family. On July 28, 1999, Anthony Briggs and Wenceslaus James were hanged. Trinidad and Tobago is among 13 Caribbean countries that retain the death penalty and it is estimated that between 59 and 80 prisoners are currently on death row in eight Caribbean countries. Since the 1993 Pratt and Morgan ruling by the London-based Privy Council, which is still the final court for several Caribbean countries despite the establishment of the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) in 2001, the death penalty cannot be carried out if the prisoner has been under sentence of death for more than 5 years. In those cases the sentence is automatically commuted to life imprisonment. In February 2011, the then People's Partnership government sought to table legislation that would have allowed for the resumption of hangings, but the "Hanging Bill" as it was then termed, was defeated after the then government failed to get the required support from the opposition to amend the constitution. Maharaj, speaking at the annual meeting of the Oilfield Workers Trade Union (OWTU), said the country does not need more laws to solve the crime problem. "It may help, we have the laws, what we need is implementation and we need a passion," he added. So far this year more than 250 people have been murdered in Trinidad and Tobago. (source: Jamaica Observer) From rhalperi at smu.edu Wed Jul 27 12:51:53 2016 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Wed, 27 Jul 2016 12:51:53 -0500 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide Message-ID: July 27 INDONESIA: Injustice victims may be executed Indonesia is running a serious risk of executing innocent persons if it insists on going ahead with the executions of 14 death row convicts, expected on Friday. The convicts, who have received official notification letters of their forthcoming execution on Nusakambangan prison island in Cilacap, Central Java, are Indonesians Agus Hadi Bin Hadi, Freddy Budiman Bin H. Manan, Merri Utami and Pujo Lestari Bin Sukatno, Eugene Ape from Nigeria, Fredderikk Luttar (Zimbabwe), Humphery Jefferson Ejike Eleweke (Nigeria), Gurdip Singh (India), Michael Titus Igweh (Nigeria), Obina Nwajagu Bin Emeuwa (Nigeria), Okonkwo Nongso Kingsley (Nigeria), 0zias Sibanda (Zimbabwe), Seck Osmane (Nigeria, but Senegalese passport holder) and Zulfiqar Ali of Pakistan. More people have stepped forward to urge President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo not to proceed with the executions because of possible miscarriages of justice. Pakistani convict Ali has been suffering from the effects of liver damage since May, allegedly the result of torture committed by security personnel during his detention. According to Ali's lawyer Saut Edward Rajagukguk, he has been treated unfairly since he was arrested in 2004 at Soekarno-Hatta International Airport for heroin possession. The government of Pakistan has sought a postponement of the execution and requested a review of his trial. Pakistani Ambassador Aqil Naseem said the government of Pakistan respected the Indonesian legal system, but believed that the legal process against Ali was flawed. "It didn't provide justice to Zulfiqar. In the case, the prosecutor did not seek the death penalty," Naseem told The Jakarta Post. National Commission on Human Rights (Komnas HAM) commissioner Hafid Abbas has revealed neglected findings by an investigative team of the Law and Human Rights Ministry between 2002 and 2003. After thorough examination of court rulings, historical background and field checks in Ali's home country, the team concluded that the convict may be innocent. It also recommended then president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono to cancel Ali's death sentence and order a further investigation into the case. "I swear that the work of the team back then was accountable. I am sure that Zulfiqar is innocent," Hafid said. He added that then law and human rights minister Patrialis Akbar had submitted a thorough confidential report on the findings to Yudhoyono. "I believe the document is still at the State Palace. It's worth re-checking to save Zulfiqar's life. Every life matters," Hafid declared. Nigerian Eleweke is also among the death row convicts that reportedly received an unfair trial. Director of the Institute for Policy Analysis of Conflict (IPAC), Sidney Jones, has submitted a dossier to the Post, containing chronology and evidence that indicates Eleweke may be innocent. The dossier outlines police procedural violations, including the lack of a search warrant, a signed confession allegedly obtained through torture, as evidence pointing to Eleweke having no connection to the drugs for the possession of which he was convicted. Eleweke filed appeals in 2004 and 2006 to the Supreme Court, in which key witnesses and related convicts testified that he had nothing to do with the case and was framed by Charles "Kelly" Kanu, a drug smuggler, because Eleweke implemented a no-drug policy and did not allow drug transactions in the restaurant he owned. The court rejected both of his appeals. Indonesia's Merri, meanwhile, was arrested by Soekarno-Hatta officials in October 2001 for possession of 1.1 kilograms of heroin. Tangerang State Court sentenced her to death in 2002, after which she filed a plea to a higher court. But the Tangerang High Court supported the earlier verdict. In 2003, the Supreme Court also rejected Merri's appeal, and she had been on death row for 13 years before the Attorney General's Office (AGO) finally set her execution date for this week. As the executions are expected in less than 72 hours, Cilacap Prosecutor's Office gathered legal and family representatives of the convicts and special envoys for document checks. Cilacap Police spokesman Adj. Comr. Bintoro said there would be 1,500 personnel deployed to secure the execution area. Despite the irregularities in the cases raising questions as to whether the legal processes behind all the convictions were sound, the government has insisted the executions will go ahead. Vice President Jusuf Kalla said that imposing the death penalty was in the hands of the courts. "The government only carries out the courts' sentences, which are final and binding," he said. (source: Agus Maryono, Ganug Nugroho Adi and Andri Hajramurni ---- The Jakarta Post) ************* Indonesia ready to execute 14 this week despite doubts over prisoners' guilt ---- 10 foreign nationals and four Indonesians face firing squad, in spite of claims of forced confessions, torture allegations and ongoing legal appeals; Who are the 14 people who could face the firing squad this week? Lawyers in Indonesia are racing to lodge last-minute clemency appeals with President Joko Widodo as it appears increasingly certain that 14 prisoners will be executed this weekend. 14 prisoners on death row, including inmates from Nigeria, Pakistan, India and South Africa, and four Indonesians, have been moved to isolation holding cells on Nusa Kambangan. The prison island off Central Java is the site where 2 rounds of executions were conducted last year: six prisoners were killed in January and eight, including Australians Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumuran, in April. Ostensibly hoping to avoid the international outcry that surrounded those executions, the government is yet to formally announce the specifics of the third round, stating only that it is fast approaching. However, it is understood that after the diplomatic strain that followed the executions of 14 inmates last year, nationals from the US and Britain, including Britons Lindsay Sandiford and Gareth Cashmore, and American Frank Amado, will not face the firing squad this round. Based on visits to prisoners held in isolation cells at Nusa Kambangan on Tuesday, a group of lawyers from the Community Legal Aid Institute (LBH) have compiled an unofficial list of those set to be executed. Ricky Gunawan, the director of LBH and the lawyer for Nigerian national Humphrey Jefferson Ejike Eleweke, known as Jeff, was with his client on Tuesday when the inmate was called to sign a letter confirming the court decision on his narcotics case was final and binding. The letter is essentially legal notice that a prisoner can be executed after 72 hours. "Jeff did not sign the acceptance letter, though," said Gunawan. "He signed a letter of refusal and told the prosecuting officer: 'We are in the process of seeking clemency.'" Lawyers say there is evidence to suggest that Jefferson is not guilty of the crime for which he was condemned to death - possessing 1.7kg of heroin - including an admission of guilt on his deathbed by the man who allegedly framed him. Merri Utami, an Indonesian woman, is facing imminent execution in Indonesia and has made a last-minute appeal to the president, Joko Widodo, for clemency, on 27 July 2016. Picture supplied by her legal representatives, Lembaga Bantuan Hukum Masyarakat. Jefferson has previously refused to apply for clemency, arguing that it would equate to an admission of guilt to a crime he did not commit. But in a last-ditch effort, his lawyers lodged an appeal for clemency on Monday morning. Under Indonesian law executions cannot be carried out while a clemency appeal is still pending. "Legally speaking it should be enough," Gunawan told the Guardian on Wednesday morning. "Whether or not that will happen in practice, we don't know." A clemency appeal for Merri Utami, 42, an Indonesian woman being held in an isolation cell, was also lodged on Tuesday morning, together with a handwritten appeal to the president. "I would like to extend my apologies for what I have ever done to this country," she wrote to the president. "My respected sir, I'm asking for forgiveness and leniency from you so that my sentence can be lightened." The National Commission on Violence Against Women (Komnas Perempuan) argues that Utami was duped into smuggling 1.1kg of heroin into Indonesia, after becoming involved with a Canadian man who showered her with gifts and then asked her to carry a bag back from their holiday together in Nepal. Once arrested at Soekarno Hatta airport, Utami was allegedly taken to a hotel where she was beaten and threatened with rape. News that the next round of executions is just days away has sparked outrage from rights groups, which argue that many of the cases of prisoners on death row in Indonesia are marked by questionable and inhumane practices, including beatings, torture and forced confessions. Pakistani national Zulfiqar Ali - believed to be among those due to be executed this week - was violently beaten by police until he confessed to possessing 300g of heroin, according to a report by Amnesty International, Flawed Justice: Unfair Trials and the Death Penalty in Indonesia. Ali later required kidney and stomach surgery for injuries sustained in custody and was denied access to consular services and a lawyer for a month after his arrest in 2004, Amnesty said. The Pakistani embassy in Jakarta confirmed it had been notified of Ali's imminent execution. The deputy ambassador, Syed Zahid Raza, said: "The embassy of Pakistan has approached all the concerned high officials to convince them it was not a fair trial for Mr Zulfiqar." According to Amnesty International, at least 165 people are on death row in Indonesia, and more than 40% of those for drug-related crimes. Executions for drug-related crimes are in violation of international law. The intense resumption of executions under Widodo, and his fight against a purported drug emergency, has come as a shock to many. "President Widodo's era was supposed to represent a new start for human rights in Indonesia," said Josef Benedict, a deputy director for Southeast Asia at Amnesty International. "Sadly, he could preside over the highest number of executions in the country's democratic era at a time when most of the world has turned its back on this cruel practice." There has also been some criticism that Widodo, popularly known as Jokowi, is also singling out foreigners to be killed. Ten of the 14 expected to be executed are foreign nationals. "I think it's quite a clever move," said Gunawan. "The public supports the death penalty, and probably Jokowi knows that if he executes he needs public support. If he chooses foreigners, he is shielded from criticism." (source: The Guardian) ******************* Stop Imminent Executions----Death Penalty for Drug Crimes Violates International Law President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo of Indonesia should urgently commute the death sentences of at least 14 people who face imminent execution for drug trafficking, Human Rights Watch said today. The Indonesian government has not announced a date for the executions, but has warned that "the time is approaching." Jakarta-based diplomats have reported that the attorney general's office informed them that the executions will take place on July 29, 2016. "President Jokowi should acknowledge the death penalty's barbarity and avoid a potential diplomatic firestorm by sparing the lives of the 14 or more people facing imminent execution," said Phelim Kine, deputy Asia director. "Jokowi should also ban the death penalty for drug crimes, which international law prohibits, rather than giving the go-ahead for more multiple executions." Authorities have already transferred several death row prisoners, including Indonesian national Merry Utami and Pakistani national Zulfiqar Ali, to Nusa Kambangan island, where the executions are slated to occur. Pakistan's government is seeking to dissuade Indonesia from executing Ali, who has been on death row since 2005 for drug smuggling, alleging that Ali's "trial was not fair." Foreign embassy personnel and media reports have confirmed that the death row prisoners also include 4 Nigerians, 1 Zimbabwean, and several Indonesian nationals. The Nigerians are Eugene Ape, Humphrey Jefferson Ejike Eleweke, Michael Titus Igweh, and Obinna Nwajagu, who were all arrested for drug trafficking in 2002 or 2003. The government has not released an official list of prisoners facing the death penalty in the coming days. Indonesia's security chief, Luhut Binsar Pandjaitan, told reporters on May 13 that he wants these executions to occur without a "soap opera," a reference to Brazil's and Australia's highly publicized but unsuccessful efforts to prevent the execution of their citizens in Indonesia's most recent mass executions in April 2015. Indonesia ended a 4-year unofficial moratorium on the death penalty in March 2013. President Widodo has sought to justify the use of the death penalty on the basis that drug traffickers on death row had "destroyed the future of the nation." In December 2014 he told students that the death penalty for convicted drug traffickers was an "important shock therapy" for anyone who violates Indonesia's drug laws. The alleged deterrent effect of the death penalty has been repeatedly debunked. Most recently, on March 4, 2015, the United Nations assistant secretary-general for human rights, Ivan Simonovic, stated that there was "no evidence that the death penalty deters any crime." Even with respect to murder, an Oxford University 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." According to the most recent statistics issued by the minister of law and human rights, Yasonna Laoly, 133 people were on death row in Indonesia as of January 2015. They included 57 convicted of drug trafficking, 2 for terrorist offenses, and the remaining 74 for murder or robbery. Human Rights Watch opposes the death penalty in all circumstances because of its inherent cruelty. Indonesia's use of the death penalty is contrary to international human rights law, statements of UN 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. Indonesia should join the many countries already committed to the UN General Assembly's December 18, 2007 resolution calling for a moratorium on executions, a move by UN member countries toward abolition of the death penalty. In a March 2010 report, the UN Office on Drugs and Crime called for an end to the death penalty and specifically urged member countries to prohibit use of the death penalty for drug-related offenses, while urging countries to take an overall "human rights-based approach to drug and crime control." In its 2014 annual report, the International Narcotics Control Board, the agency charged with monitoring compliance with UN drug control conventions, encouraged countries to abolish the death penalty for drug offenses. The UN Human Rights Committee and the special rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions have concluded that the death penalty for drug offenses fails to meet the condition of "most serious crime." In September 2015 the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights reaffirmed that "persons convicted of drug-related offences ... should not be subject to the death penalty." "President Jokowi should recognize the well-documented failure of the death penalty as a crime deterrent and allow Indonesia to join the growing number of countries that have abolished capital punishment," Kine said. "Jokowi would demonstrate leadership and respect for human rights by granting clemency to convicted drug traffickers on death row and restoring Indonesia's unofficial moratorium on the death penalty." (source: Human Rights Watch) ***************** Women's Commission Pleads for Mercy for Death-Row Inmate Merry Utami The National Commission on Violence Against Women, or Komnas Perempuan, appealed to President Joko Widodo on Tuesday (26/07) to postpone the execution of Merry Utami - a convicted drug-trafficker now on death row. Merry, 42, 1 of the death-row inmates scheduled for a 3rd round of executions by the Indonesian government, was moved from the Tangerang Women's Prison to the notorious Nusakambangan prison island on Sunday morning. Merry was sentenced to death in 2003, after being arrested at the Soekarno-Hatta International Airport and charged with possession of 1.1 kilograms of heroin. The commission's chairwoman, Azriana R.M., said it had sent a letter to President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo on Tuesday morning urging a stay of Merry's execution until a clemency decision is announced. In the letter, the commission said it fully supports the government's effort to fight drug abuse but rejects the death penalty for people who have been coerced into smuggling drugs by human trafficking syndicates. "The government needs to consider clemency for Merry. She is a victim of domestic violence and human trafficking. The state should not execute innocent people," said Azriana during a press briefing in Jakarta on Tuesday. In 2001, having divorced a man who forced her to become a migrant worker in Taiwan, Merry began a relationship with a man named Jerry. After 3 months the 2 traveled to Nepal. After 3 days, Jerry headed to Jakarta for a business trip and asked Merry to join him 1 day later as there were some items he needed her to bring from Nepal. "Merry was told to bring a new handbag to be sold at the Tanah Abang market. She complained that the bag was unusually heavy, but she was told that was normal since it was an expensive bag," said Komnas Perempuan commissioner Adriana Venny. Merry's appeal was rejected by the Tangerang High Court in 2002. In 2014, the Supreme Court refused to annul her death sentence. Adriana said Merry and her lawyers are still in the process of requesting a pardon from President Jokowi as the copy of the 2014 Supreme Court ruling was delivered only days before Merry was moved to Nusakambangan Prison. In 2015, despite repeated pleas for mercy from foreign governments and international organizations, Indonesia executed 14 people for drug trafficking - among them citizens of Australia, Brazil, the Netherlands and Nigeria. Only Mary Jane Veloso of the Philippines received a stay of execution last year after a woman, who allegedly planted drugs in Veloso's luggage, gave herself up to that country's police. Veloso will not be in the next round of executions. ********************* MPR Speaker Supports Drug Executions Jakarta. Zulkifli Hasan, speaker of the People's Consultative Assembly (MPR), supports the death penalty for drug convicts, he said in Jakarta on Tuesday (26/07). "It has been a full legal decision, as also reminding that our country is in drug emergency," Zulkifli, adding that the illegal drug distribution chain in Indonesia should be cut off down to its roots. The death penalty is a major aspect in the government's war against drugs. "Narcotics have ruined the future of our youth. Therefore, let us battle it together," Zulkifli added. He praised the work of law enforcement agencies, particularly the Attorney General's Office, in combating the threat. The AGO will execute 16 drug convicts currently on death row, with preparations taking place now. The imminent executions will be the 3rd in President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo's administration, a sharp difference in policy between him and predecessor Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono who put the sentence on hiatus for a number of year. (source for both: Jakarta Globe) ********************** 3 university students could face death penalty 3 public university students are facing the prospect of being sent to the gallows after they were caught in possession of cannabis during an operation by anti-narcotics police. State Narcotics Crime Investigation Department (NCID) head Supt Lukas Aket said the detained students comprised 2 males and a female aged in their early 20s. "The 3, all locals, were arrested during an operation carried out last Friday (July 22) around 11.45pm at Jalan Datuk Mohd Musa in Kota Samarahan. "During an inspection, roughly 367 grams of cannabis worth some RM2,000 was found and seized from the suspects," he told a press conference yesterday. Lukas further revealed that the 2 male students tested positive for amphetamine during a subsequent urine test. "All 3 have been remanded until July 29 for further investigation under Section 39B of the Dangerous Drugs Act 1952, which carries the mandatory death penalty upon conviction," he said, adding that police expect to make more arrests soon as a result of the trio's arrest. The state NCID chief disclosed that Friday's case was the 3rd drug-related arrest this year involving university students. He thanked the public for their assistance in channelling information to the NCID and the police in general on drug-related activities, saying such cooperation is vital in helping to wipe out the drug menace in the state. (source: Borneo Post) ***************** Executions will put Jokowi on the wrong side of history Indonesian President Joko Widodo, popularly known as 'Jokowi', will be putting his government on the wrong side of history if he proceeds with a fresh round of executions, Amnesty International said today. Amnesty International received credible reports that at least 14 people could be executed this week, who consist of four Indonesian and 10 foreign nationals, including a Pakistani, an Indian, a Zimbabwean, a Senegalese, a South African, and 5 Nigerians. "President Widodo's era was supposed to represent a new start for human rights in Indonesia. Sadly, he could preside over the highest number of executions in the country's democratic era at a time when most of the world has turned its back on this cruel practice," said Josef Benedict, Amnesty International's Deputy Director for South East Asia and the Pacific. Amnesty International has learned that at least a dozen death row prisoners could be executed as soon as this weekend, many of them for drug offences. The organization is also concerned that some of the prisoners who could face the firing squad were convicted in manifestly unfair trials and have not submitted clemency request to the President. In a report published by Amnesty International last year, the organization found that in 12 cases defendants were denied access to legal counsel at the time of their arrest, and at different periods thereafter. Some claimed they were subject to torture and other ill-treatment while in police custody, and were forced to "confess" to their alleged crimes. To date, these claims have not been investigated by the authorities. The Indonesian government's decision to go ahead with a third round of executions has already met with an appeal for clemency by Pakistan and many others. The Pakistani authorities have called on their Indonesian counterparts to halt the execution of Zulfiqar Ali, a Pakistani national and textile worker, who has described how he was tortured in custody and has spent more than a decade on death row for a drug offence. During his pre-trial detention, he was refused the right to contact his embassy and was not permitted any access to a lawyer until approximately 1 month after his arrest. "As the case of Zulfiqar Ali shows, international law has been repeatedly violated in death penalty cases, from the time of arrest, throughout the trial, and at appeal stage. Regardless of what we think of the death penalty, no one must have their life decided on the basis of such flawed proceedings," said Josef Benedict. "The international community should be alarmed by the revival of executions, and other countries should speak up for those facing the death penalty in Indonesia." The decision to resume executions is also proving controversial inside the country, including opposition from religious clerics and parliamentarians. Indonesia has a strong record of fighting for the rights of its citizens abroad on death row, but that is a position that the authorities do not consistently uphold at home, where President Widodo has claimed that the death penalty is needed to deter drug crime. "There is no evidence to support President Widodo's position. The death penalty does not deter crime. Carrying out executions will not rid Indonesia of drugs. It is never the solution, and it will damage Indonesia's standing in the world," said Josef Benedict. "If President Widodo is serious about claiming a place for Indonesia on the world stage and as a leader for the region, he cannot ignore its human rights obligations. The 1st step towards that must be a moratorium on executions with a view to ridding Indonesia of the unjust punishment once and for all." Background The last executions to occur in Indonesia were carried out in January and April 2015, when 6 and 8 people, respectively, were put to death by firing squad. The previous administration under Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono carried out 21 executions between 2005 and 2013. At least 4 death row prisoners were moved to Indonesia's Nusakambangan prison island in recent weeks, where 13 of the 14 executions carried out in 2015 took place. The death row prisoners have been convicted of drug-related offences and some did not receive a fair trial. In cases examined by Amnesty International, some prisoners claimed the police tortured them, including to extract 'confessions'. Many weren't given access to a lawyer at the time of their arrest and at other stages of the process. In a 2015 report, Flawed Justice: Unfair Trials and the Death Penalty in Indonesia, Amnesty International highlighted the cases of 12 death row prisoners whose cases illustrate the manifestly flawed administration of justice in Indonesia that resulted in flagrant human rights violations. Amnesty International opposes the death penalty in all cases without exception, regardless of the nature or circumstances of the crime; guilt, innocence or other characteristics of the individual; or the method used by the state to carry out the execution. (source: Amnesty Internatnional) CHINA: Chinese corruption prosecutors seek death penalty for mother of Wanting Qu, pop star girlfriend of Vancouver's mayor----Qu Zhang Mingjie is accused of embezzling 350 million yuan in a real estate scam in Harbin, where she was a city official Last week, Wanting Qu, the Chinese pop star girlfriend of Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson, released a new song. Titled Your Girl, the single is dedicated to her mother, Qu Zhang Mingjie. "Though I haven't been able to talk to her, feel her or reach her in any way in the last 2 years, I know deep down in my heart, there's a place that's warm like the sun and bright like the moon. It's a place for a daughter like me and a mother like her. I believe that place exists in everyone's heart. I hope she can hear the song and it gives her love and strength," the singer said, according to her record label, in a statement released on Wednesday. Zhang likely needs all the strength she can get. On the very day that her daughter was paying tribute, Zhang, a former official in Harbin city, was told at her Chinese corruption trial that prosecutors want her executed.' The accusations against Zhang are grave - she is accused of embezzling about 350 million yuan (C$69 million), in a real estate scam that reportedly left hundreds of impoverished farm workers in appalling conditions. The accusations are strongly denied by her defence, which told the July 19-20 trial at the Harbin City Intermediate People's Court that her confession had been obtained illegally. According to a lengthy account of the trial by the official Xinhua news agency, the case against Zhang centres on a 2009 deal to transfer control of a state-owned Harbin corn farm into the hands of Harbin Dongjiang Agricultural Technology Co, a private agricultural firm. But Zhang - the city official in charge of the transfer - secretly conspired with the firm's representative, Wei Qi, and co-accused Wang Shaoyu to doctor the terms of the sale. "Zhang deceived, with multiple reasons, the management of the farm and senior officials in charge of the matter into signing a final agreement that included terms on the transfer of the rights of using state-owned land," Xinhua reported. It said that Wang - reportedly a friend Zhang's who worked as an architecture professor - later represented her to sign a deal with Wei to split hundreds of millions of yuan in profits from their 3-year deception in July 2012. Although the Xinhua account does not clearly explain the exact purpose of the alleged fraud, private outlets covering the trial said the terms of the sale of the farm illegally included its land-use rights; instead of the rights being transferred to various city bodies, they went to Dongjiang. The land rights were then transferred to another company controlled by Wei, Harbin Xianfa Real Estate Development Co, with plans to transform the site into a huge housing project. Harbin Xianfa then hired Wang as general manager and Zhang's brother, Zhang Mingzhe, as his deputy, thepaper.cn reported. Zhang Mingzhe's son was also reportedly hired. Workers 'left without heating' in frigid dorms According to thepaper's account, the victims of Zhang's alleged scam were not only the state bodies that were deceived. They included 420 staff and 146 retired workers who lived in dormitories on the 50-hectare farm. The Xinhua account alludes to this, saying that Zhang failed to enforce the payment of resettlement fees to the workers, and instead allowed Dongjiang Co "to unlawfully transfer 61.6 million yuan into a bank account which was opened under the name of the farm, which was actually controlled by Dongjiang." Thepaper's account is more stark: it says the live-in workers were offered a pittance in severance - one 20-year employee was given less than 2,000 yuan - and left to suffer in appalling conditions. After the 2009 deal went through, the farm's new owner simply stopped paying the workers' pension insurance, health insurance, and other benefits. Alarmingly, thepaper reported, the boiler room that heated the farm's dormitory was shut down in 2009, leaving workers to suffer frigid conditions in a province where the January low averages -24 Celsius. The dorm's frozen water pipes burst. Workers resorted to coal fires to stay warm.' The deprived staff were so far owed more than 11.4million yuan, Xinhua reported. "The court was told that Zhang had not only breached her duty as a civil servant, but also committed the crimes of embezzling public properties worth an enormous amount of money," Xinhua reported. "Zhang was also said to have committed the crimes of bribe-taking and abusing authority, leading to a severe loss of public assets." In addition to embezzlement, Zhang is accused of taking a 100,000 yuan bribe from subordinate Sun Wenjun, who was Party Secretary of Yushu County, and county chief Liu Xiaoming, "as a reward for her to provide them with a benefit relating to land requisition matters". Xinhua said that Zhang and Wang were both subjected to cross-examination. "Both defendants and their defence teams claimed that the confessions given during investigations had been taken using illegal methods so they should be rendered useless and could not prove that the defendants had committed the crimes," the report said. The state-run China Daily newspaper carried only a 1-paragraph report of the trial, but included a crucial point omitted by Xinhua: prosecutors concluded by recommending that Zhang Mingjie be sentenced to death. The case has been adjourned, without a date for a verdict or sentencing. Wanting Qu did not respond to an interview request lodged with Nettwerk, her Canadian record label. "I experienced so much emotion, so much confusion, anger, sadness and anxiety," she said of her mother's detention in her July 20 press release. "I knew the only way for me to survive was through songwriting, my therapy to stay sane ... to hold myself together." (source: South China Morning Post) PAKISTAN: Capital punishment: Man awarded death penalty in Swabi A man was awarded the death penalty in Swabi for killing an Awami National Party leader. Chota Lahor court additional session judge Fakharul Zaman Khan convicted Sher Ali and sentenced him to death. A fine of Rs500,000 was also imposed on him. As per the verdict, if Ali failed to pay the fine, he would be sentenced to 2 years of imprisonment. On August 27, 2010, Ali had opened fire on an ANP leader and a former district council nazim Shah Roam Khan. He was taken into custody soon after. (source: The Epxress Tribune) TURKEY: Turkey Undecided on Reinstating Death Penalty Post-Coup Attempt - Deputy PM Turkey has not yet decided on the reinstatement of the death penalty following a coup attempt that took place this month, Turkish Deputy Prime Minister Mehmet Simsek said Tuesday. A coup attempt took place in Turkey on July 15 and was suppressed the following day. Over 240 people were killed and more than 2,000 injured during the failed coup excluding the victims among the coup plotters, according to the country's authorities. "The decision is still pending," Simsek told reporters on a visit to Russia as head of the Turkish delegation. Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said the country would have capital punishment back on the law books if the people demanded this. (source: Sputnik news) From rhalperi at smu.edu Thu Jul 28 12:06:32 2016 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Thu, 28 Jul 2016 12:06:32 -0500 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, FLA., MO., OKLA., CALIF., USA Message-ID: July 28 TEXAS: High court rejects state appeal in capital murder bond The state's highest criminal court rejected an appeal Wednesday by McLennan County District Attorney Abel Reyna that challenged an intermediate appellate court's order reducing the bond of a capital murder defendant. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals ruling upheld an April decision by Waco's 10th Court of Appeals that reduced bond for James Ray Brossett from $5 million to $1 million. Reyna's office appealed the 10th Court's ruling, and the Court of Criminal Appeals rejected the appeal without comment or written opinion. The legal exercise could prove moot because Brossett likely is still unable to post bond and secure his release, said one of his attorneys, Michelle Tuegel. "We respect the decisions of the Court of Criminal Appeals and the 10th Court of Appeals, and we are pleased to see the 10th Court of Appeal's decision is basically going to be the final decision on the bond issue," Tuegel said. "But I don't think this will result in the release of our client because he has been sitting in jail and unable to work for this period of time. It's hard to own and operate a business when you are sitting in jail." Neither Reyna nor his first assistant, Michael Jarrett, returned phone messages left at their office Wednesday. Brossett, of Arlington, is charged with capital murder in the July 2015 death of Laura Patschke, with whom he once had a dating relationship. Prosecutors intend to seek the death penalty against the 49-year-old Brossett, who they said confessed to the crime. Brossett was free at the time of Patschke's death on 2 bonds related to stalking and violating a protective order involving Patschke. He also is charged with shooting Patschke's 18-year-old son, Trevor, in the arm during the early-morning incident at their home in Crawford. Judge Matt Johnson of Waco's 54th State District Court set Brossett's bond at $5 million and declined to reduce it during a hearing in November. Tuegel and Walter M. Reaves Jr., Brossett's other attorney, appealed Johnson's ruling. No trial date has been set for Brossett, who had been jailed for 387 days as of Wednesday. Tuegel said prosecutors still are waiting for the results of forensic testing, including DNA and ballistics. At the previous bond hearing, Reyna told the court it was not by chance that Brossett drove from Arlington to Crawford that Sunday night or early Monday morning, when Trevor and his younger brother and sister had just returned to their mother's home from a holiday visit with their father. Brossett intended to kill the whole family, Reyna said. Brossett parked his truck about a mile from Patschke's home on Bosque Ridge Boulevard and walked through the woods, Reyna said. He got lost along the way, and it took him more than 2 hours to reach Patschke's house, Reyna said. In arguing against the bond reduction, Reyna told the judge that Brossett sent Patschke more than 200 harassing text messages on the day he was freed from jail the last time. Because of the harassment, Patschke's sons slept with loaded weapons near their beds because they were aware of Brossett's violent nature, Reyna said. Brossett kicked open a door and went to Patschke's bedroom and fired a shot at her, Reyna said. The boys came running from their rooms with guns, and Brossett shot Trevor Patschke in the arm, Reyna said. As their sister hid in her room, the boys fled the house, Reyna said. Brossett then returned and fired 2 more shots at Patschke, striking the 48-year-old at close range with his 12-gauge shotgun, Reyna said. Brossett had a flashlight taped onto his shotgun barrel and went outside to look for the children to "finish what he had started," the district attorney said. Brossett later found the keys to Patschke's car, which he drove to where he had parked his truck, Reyna said. Brossett left her car and drove his truck to the Fort Worth area, where authorities arrested him, Reyna said. Brossett served 3 years in prison after pleading guilty to assault-family violence with bodily injury in 2003 and has a 1997 conviction for violating a protective order. He has 3 other arrests relating to violence against women dating back to 1987, prosecutors said. (source: Waco Tribune) FLORIDA: Republican Liberty Caucus To Host Conservatives Concerned About Death Penalty Event Conservatives Concerned About the Death Penalty, a national network of conservatives and libertarians questioning the alignment of capital punishment with their principles, will make a presentation to the Republican Liberty Caucus of Central East Florida on August 1 in Indian Harbor Beach. "I believe that it is important for conservatives and libertarians alike to consider how the death penalty operates and determine if it fits within our political philosophy," said Robert White, Chairman of the Republican Liberty Caucus of Florida. "The facts are clear that the death penalty risks innocent lives and costs far more than the alternatives." Conservatives Concerned About the Death Penalty national coordinator Marc Hyden, a representative of the National Rifle Association in Florida prior to taking this position, will make a presentation to the group about why conservatives in Florida and across the nation are re-thinking the death penalty. "Increasingly, conservatives from across the country are opposing the death penalty because it fails to align with our principles. It's simply a broken and incredibly costly government program that risks killing innocent Americans," said Hyden. To date, more than 155 individuals have been released from death rows across America because they were wrongfully convicted and Florida leads the nation in death row exonerations with 26. The event will begin at 6 p.m. followed by the meeting at 7 p.m. It will take place at MeMaw's BBQ, located at 600 E. Eau Gallie Boulevard in Indian Harbor Beach. (source: Space Coast Daily) ************** Mark Sievers' attorneys file motion to strike death penalty The man accused of organizing the murder of his wife appeared in court again on Wednesday. This time for his criminal charges of murder. Mark Sievers appeared before a judge Wednesday afternoon for an update on his case. This is the 2nd time in just 2 days that Mark Sievers has been in a Lee County courtroom. On Tuesday, there was a hearing about the custody of the Sievers' daughters. On Wednesday, we learned more about the criminal case where he is accused of planning the murder of his wife, Teresa Sievers, and faces the death penalty. The brief hearing focused on just a few details of the developing case. "We've filed a motion to strike the death penalty," said Michael Mummert, Mark Sievers' attorney. "Both Mr. Mummert and the state have a number of motions," said Hamid Hunter with the State Attorney's Office. Motions filed by the attorneys for Mark Sievers include arguments to strike the death penalty in the case based on improper filing and a request to review testimony in the grand jury case that led to the death penalty filing. "We just received a new disk of discovery for this case this afternoon that I haven't yet gone through," said Mummert. A mountain of items for review from years of cell phone records to photos and crime scene details required a continuance on the case on Wednesday. The review of the motion is already on the judge's calendar. The motion to strike the death penalty and the state's response will be heard in a week, along with the Sievers' attorney's request for grand jury testimony. The next case update is scheduled for September 1st -- the same day Jimmy Rodgers, 1 of the 2 men awaiting trial for the actual murder, is back in court. (source: NBC news) **************** Hans Tanzler attacks John Rutherford on death penalty opposition The Congressional District 4 GOP race thus far has been a race to the right. And in that context comes Hans Tanzler's recent attacks on John Rutherford for the former Jacksonville sheriff's opposition to the death penalty. On Wednesday morning, Tanzler sent out a press release saying that "I am not sure that with a blanket approach to this [death penalty] issue, Rutherford can be trusted to protect America." "In light of recent terror attacks on our own soil and overseas, it is more important than ever that leaders be willing to take out evildoers to prevent greater harm to the innocent. We must prosecute the War on Terror as aggressively as possible, which includes the death penalty for terrorists. I am not sure that with a blanket approach to this issue, Rutherford can be trusted to protect America," Tanzler said. "Any indication of weakness that we give our enemies is a green light to them for their murderous plans," Tanzler added. Rutherford's position on the death penalty was voiced at a recent Republican forum, in which he talked of the "culture of death" in our country, of which he sees the death penalty and abortion as linked. "I'm adamantly opposed to abortion," Rutherford said, adding that "all life is sacred" and "that is why I'm no longer supportive of the death penalty." There is, said Rutherford, no "qualifier on the sanctity of life." "I do not believe in the death penalty because it weakens our position on abortion," Rutherford added. This position is not new for Rutherford; he said the same thing in January 2015. "I think the 1st degradation of the sanctity of life began with Roe v. Wade," Rutherford said. "It goes on, and you see the movies, the games the kids play. The video games, the violence in those games, all of that contributes to what I call a culture of death. "And I believe in the sanctity of life. Whether you kill a baby in the womb or you kill a baby ... neither one of those respects the sanctity of life, and that has been an issue with me for a long time. And that changed my position on the death penalty, because every saint has a past and every sinner has a future." Rutherford, with over 3 decades in law enforcement, has seen the consequences of the "culture of death" (as he calls it) more closely than most. Certainly more than the other candidates in the CD 5 race ... unless those board room meetings of Tanzler's were more interesting than the minutes would have let on. However, this is not an election cycle where nuanced positions are allowed at the table. It is a dialogue of grievance and bold strokes, and a dialogue in which simplistic solutions are routinely touted as answers for complex questions. (source: Florida Politics) MISSOURI: Appeals Court Rejects Suit Over Missouri Execution Protocol A state appeals court has rejected a lawsuit over how Missouri obtains its lethal injection drug, the latest of many challenges to the execution protocol that the courts have rejected. In its ruling on Tuesday, the Western District of the Missouri Court of Appeals cited a technical reason for its decision to uphold a lower court's ruling dismissing the case. The appeals court said the lawsuit failed to state a claim upon which relief could be granted. The plaintiffs 2 former state lawmakers, a minister and a nun argued that Missouri was breaking state and federal law by using an illegal prescription to obtain pentobarbital from a compounding pharmacy. Their attorney, Justin Gelfand, said in a statement that the case raises "profoundly important issues." He stopped short of saying an appeal would be filed but said, "We are disappointed by the appellate court's ruling and intend to consider all possible options." A spokeswoman for the Missouri attorney general's office declined comment. The plaintiffs former lawmakers Joan Bray and Jeanette Oxford, Baptist minister Elston McCowan and Mary Ann McGivern, a member of the Sisters of Loretto were not challenging the death penalty, only practices used to obtain the drugs. Several death row inmates, the media, including The Associated Press, and others have also filed lawsuits challenging the secretive nature of Missouri's procurement of lethal drugs. Cole County Circuit Court Judge Patricia Joyce dismissed the lawsuit last July, ruling that members of the public don't have standing to challenge Department of Corrections' operations and that the Missouri Supreme Court has jurisdiction in lawsuits related to the death penalty. The attorney general's office argued that the lawsuit was trying to privately enforce federal food and drug laws and was a last-ditch effort to block the execution of David Zink, who had filed and lost similar lawsuits. Zink, who abducted and killed a southwestern Missouri woman in 2001, was executed July 14, 2015, the day after Joyce's ruling. Missouri obtains its execution drug from a compounding pharmacy that corrections officials refuse to name. They also refuse to discuss whether the drug is tested. The procedure has drawn several lawsuits from death row inmates and others. The lawsuit alleged that federal and state laws prohibit the use of compounded drugs commercially available in the marketplace and copies of drugs that are FDA-approved, such as pentobarbital. The plaintiffs also argue the state violates state and federal laws by requiring a physician to fill prescriptions for the drug without conducting a medical exam, and that taxpayer money should not be used to buy the drugs. (source: Associated Press) OKLAHOMA: Department of Corrections chooses new warden for Oklahoma State Penitentiary ---- A Florida corrections official is picked to run the Oklahoma State Penitentiary. The Oklahoma Department of Corrections announced Wednesday it has appointed a Florida warden be in charge of the Oklahoma State Penitentiary, the state's highest-security prison and home to its death-row unit. Terry Royal, 44, of Clermont, Florida, will replace interim warden Kevin Duckworth. The appointment is pending approval from the Oklahoma Board of Corrections, which will take up the issue at its September meeting. The DOC said in a news release that Duckworth, who began his interim role in May, will assume a different role within the agency. Duckworth succeeded Jerry Chrisman, who served simultaneously as warden of OSP and the nearby minimum-security Jackie Brannon Correctional Center, both located in McAlester. Chrisman assumed the role last October after warden Anita Trammell retired amid a multicounty grand jury investigation into the DOC's handling of the January 2015 execution of Charles Warner and the events leading up to a stay being issued for Richard Glossip's planned execution last September. Warner's lethal injection included potassium acetate rather than potassium chloride, which the state's execution protocol at that time required. Glossip's execution was stayed after officials realized they again received potassium acetate. "Terry Royal has successfully navigated the corrections ranks throughout his career, beginning as a correctional officer to overseeing entire state regions as an administrator," DOC Director Joe M. Allbaugh said in a statement. "He has been instrumental in the initial accreditation or the re-accreditation of 6 facilities by the American Correctional Association and has overseen facilities of every security level. When conducting a nationwide search to fill a position, you hope someone with Terry's background applies." Royal has been warden of the Lake Correctional Institution in Clermont since January. Previously, he spent four years serving as warden at the Tomoka Correctional Institution in Daytona Beach. From 2011 to 2012, Royal was the Florida Department of Corrections' southern region director of institutions, overseeing 29 facilities and about 41,000 people of varying custody levels. According to Oklahoma DOC records, 80 % of people currently housed at OSP were convicted of committing a violent crime, primarily 1st-degree murder. As of Tuesday, the penitenitary has 764 inmates, including 49 on death row. "I am honored to be selected for this position and I look forward to coming to Oklahoma to be a member of this great agency," Royal said in a statement. "Corrections agencies throughout the nation are facing very significant challenges. With the director's leadership and the rest of talented staff at the department, we will face challenges head-on to ensure the goals and mission of the facility and agency are met. I appreciate Director Allbaugh's confidence in me to lead the Oklahoma State Penitentiary." The grand jury in May issued a report that strongly criticized multiple officials within the DOC and Gov. Mary Fallin's office, including Trammell, DOC general counsel David Cincotta and Fallin;s general counsel, Steve Mullins, who resigned earlier this year before the report was complete. The grand jury's report indicated problems with Trammell's oversight of the lethal injection process, as she testified she did not notify anyone that the DOC received potassium acetate in September because she thought the pharmacist provided what the agency needed. The doctor retained for Glossip's planned execution notified Cincotta of the drug discrepancy but advised him that potassium acetate was "medically interchangeable" with potassium chloride. The jurors found that Trammell and other DOC officials wrongly assumed everyone around them did their jobs correctly, and therefore also did not verify the drugs were correct before Warner's execution. It called for the DOC to again revise its protocol and improve departmental oversight to better safeguard against errors. The Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals has mandated since October that the state file a status report every 30 days indicating whether the DOC has proposed any death penalty-related policy changes. The state will have 150 days after the DOC finalizes its newest lethal injection protocol to set execution dates for Glossip and other death row inmates, but the new protocol will likely be litigated at the federal level. The state added execution by nitrogen hypoxia to the law last November, but a protocol governing its application has not yet been made. (source: Tulsa World) *************** Prosecutors Seek Death Penalty In Bartlesville Murder Case Prosecutors will seek the death penalty for a Dewey man charged with the murder of a Bartlesville man in April. Scott Offutt, 21, is charged with 1st-degree murder in the death of Kyler Holeman. Holeman's body was found near the intersection of East Adams Road and North 4000 Road on March 31. The Washington County DA has filed a Bill of Particulars in the case saying the murder of Kyler Holeman was "especially heinous, atrocious and cruel." A 2nd man, 21-year-old Derek Hamblin is also charged with 1st-degree murder in Holeman's death. Both Offutt and Hamblin remain in the Washington County jail. Court records show the pair's next court hearing is September 7. (source: newson6.com) CALIFORNIA: Brit faces DEATH PENALTY in the US if he is convicted of shooting dead his mother and stepfather at their home----Glasgow-born Derek Connell, 29, who moved to America over 20-years-ago, has been ordered to stand trial on 2 counts of 1st degree murder A BRIT accused of shooting dead his mother and stepfather at their home in the United States could face the DEATH PENALTY after being ordered to stand trial on two counts of 1st degree murder. Derek Connell is charged with the killing of his mother, Kim Higginbotham, and her American husband, Christopher. The couple, both 48, were found dead at their home in Bakersfield, California, on April 30 by police officers. Connell, 29, originally from Shawlands, Glasgow, confessed to the killings during a preliminary court hearing this week. However, his lawyer Paul Cadman said there was no evidence of premeditation or malice on his part and argued he should be tried for 2nd-degree murder or voluntary manslaughter. Kern County Superior Court Judge Thomas C. Clark turned down his request and said Connell's statements showed "a fair amount" of thought and planning after the killings. Connell has said he used bleach in an effort to clean up blood pooled around the bodies. Mr Cadman said the killings were a result of post-traumatic stress disorder and drug addiction problems which Connell suffered after serving with the US Army in Iraq and Afghanistan. He said: "Derek is disappointed by the decision of the magistrate to continue this case as a death penalty case since the preliminary hearing showed clearly that he has no recollection of the events and certainly had no premeditation, deliberation, or malice aforethought regarding the incident. "He believes he did it but he doesn't know how. "His heroic yet frightening experiences serving our country in Iraq and Afghanistan and the subsequent substance abuse problems that he was forced to deal with due to his horrific experiences remain directly responsible for the tragedy that has unfolded in this case." During an interview, played to the court Connell told investigators he believed he had killed his mother and stepfather. "I had to have done it," he said. :There was no one else in the house." Connell said he spent the evening drinking heavily, then returned to his parents' home. He began living with them after serving a 9-month jail sentence for drink driving in Colorado. He told investigators he spoke with his stepfather briefly before going to bed. They didn't argue, and he said he got along well with both his mother and stepfather. Connell said the next thing he recalled was finding their bodies. He cried as he described lying next to his mother's body and telling her he was sorry. Investigators pushed him for information as to what happened from the time he went to bed to discovering the bodies, but Connell said he couldn't remember anything. 2 shotguns, 5 handguns and 7 rifles were seized from the home. Connell said the weapons belonged to his stepfather. Connell served in the U.S. Army from 2005 to 2008, and was discharged due to an incident involving alcohol, he said in court filings. Upon returning to the U.S., he worked in oil fields in Colorado and Texas. Connell was born in Rutherglen Maternity Hospital and lived with his mother in Shawlands in Glasgow's south side as a child. Kim worked as a secretary and met her future husband while he was stationed with the US Navy in Scotland. She moved with her son to be with Christopher when he went back to America more than 20 years ago. Kim had worked for 16 years as a teacher at the Princeton Street Elementary School. The next hearing in the case is scheduled for next month. (source: thesun.co.uk) USA: Court rebuffs Sampson's plea to exclude evidence in death-penalty trial A federal appeals court appeared Wednesday to rebuff an emergency plea by convicted serial killer Gary Lee Sampson to have evidence excluded from his upcoming death-penalty trial. Sampson, a drifter from Abington who admitted to killing 3 people during a carjacking spree in 2001, was sentenced to death in 2003. A federal judge later overturned that decision, finding juror wrongdoing. A new sentencing trial is slated for Sept. 14. Sampson, 56, asked the US Court of Appeals for the First Circuit on Wednesday to exclude certain evidence introduced in his 2003 sentencing trial, saying the jury's verdict shows that jurors - even though he was sentenced to death - had rejected some of the prosecutors' arguments related to that evidence. It is rare for an appeals court to review a party's legal argument before a trial. But the lawyers involved in Sampson's case agreed they would rather resolve the question now, rather than have it affect a jury's sentencing verdict after the fact. "The court of appeals will likely have to resolve this issue at some point in time," US District Judge Leo Sorokin, who is overseeing the case, said in a separate proceeding Wednesday. The evidence at issue pertains to 2 claims prosecutors cited in 2003 as reasons that Sampson should be sentenced to death, known as aggravating factors: that he killed his victims because he thought they would report his carjacking to authorities, and that he would be a future threat who would cause harm to others in prison. Sampson's lawyers argued that, because jurors in 2003 rejected those claims, a new jury should not be asked to consider them again under the Double Jeopardy Clause of the Fifth Amendment, which forbids authorities from seeking to prosecute a defendant on multiple occasions with the same evidence. But the 3 judges on the appeals court panel seemed to reject that claim Wednesday, saying the US Supreme Court already has ruled that a defendant can raise a double jeopardy defense only in cases in which the evidence was essential to the original judgment. In this case, prosecutors had argued, Sampson was still sentenced to death, and so the Fifth Amendment claim does not apply. "How can these 2 [jury] rulings possibly be essential to that judgment?" Judge Sandra Lynch asked. Judge Bruce M. Selya argued that the judges could not deviate from the Supreme Court ruling, even if they believed they should. "The Supreme Court has made the rule pretty categorical," he said. The judges did not say when they would issue a ruling, but a decision is expected sometime before the September trial date. Earlier Wednesday, Sorokin held an open hearing in which he sought to explain the trial process to the families of Sampson's victims. Sampson pleaded guilty to the killing of 19-year-old Jonathan Rizzo of Kingston and 69-year-old Philip McCloskey of Taunton. He was sentenced to death for those killings but also pleaded guilty to the killing of Robert "Eli" Whitney, 58, of New Hampshire in separate proceedings in that state. Sorokin told family members that he would make a conference room outside the courtroom available to them for their personal use away from the public. He also urged them to convey any questions or concerns to his staff. Wednesday was the anniversary of Rizzo's death, and his father, Michael Rizzo, welcomed the judge's invitation. The families had often been at odds with US District Judge Mark L. Wolf. "The families appreciate Judge Sorokin's approach and consideration of our feelings . . . throughout this process," he said. (source: Boston Globe) ************************* Dems are right to want to end the death penalty Remarkably, for the 1st time, the Democratic Party proposes a platform plank saying: "We will abolish the death penalty, which has proven to be a cruel and unusual form of punishment. It has no place in the United States of America." Hurrah! This is another breakthrough among progressive advances that keep improving America and Western civilization. Of course, a platform plank is just an ideal, a goal. Years of work and legal changes would be required to make it a reality. But the plank is a healthy start. It was adopted by the Democratic Platform Committee largely because of pressure from delegates loyal to Democratic-socialist Bernie Sanders. But presidential nominee Hillary Clinton concurs. When asked about executions in March, she said: "States have proven themselves incapable of carrying out fair trials." Executions are inflicted mostly on blacks and other poor defendants who can't pay for strong defenses. Nearly all Western democracies - except America - have abolished the death penalty. Today, it exists chiefly in brutal societies. Thank goodness, West Virginia ended it a half-century ago. In the 1980s, around 40 U.S. states still prescribed executions, but most of them didn't put people to death. Currently, the number of pro-death states has dropped to 31, chiefly in the Deep South. Texas is, by far, the top killer state. In 1999, states executed a total of 98 defendants - but only 28 were executed last year. "The death penalty is kind of dying a slow death, because we aren't executing people at the rate we used to," former New York Times editor Bill Keller commented. President Obama told Keller he had "very significant reservations" about the death penalty because "racial bias" sways it. Law professor Evan Mandery, who wrote a book on capital punishment, commented: "It doesn't make sense to talk about the American death penalty anymore. The death penalty is almost exclusively a Southern phenomenon, driven mostly by Texas and few right-leaning prosecutors." Putting citizens to death is more about retribution than about justice or public safety. In the cause of justice, the death penalty must be abandoned, because there could always be a mistake. When investigators, judges and communities find they have made an error, as frequently happens with improvements in forensic science, an incarcerated person can always be released. An executed person cannot be brought back to life. Thank heaven, the Democrats have included this important goal among their positions. (source: Editorial, Charleston (W.Va.) Gazette-Mail) *********** The Abolitionist Pope Francis' position on the death penalty is abolitionist. He believes there is no moral ground in Catholic teaching that would justify any state using capital punishment today, and he has set up a commission to review the question and the relevant section of the Catechism of the Catholic Church to amend this. Right now the catechism does not exclude the use of the death penalty in extreme situations. It says in No. 2267: Assuming that the guilty party's identity and responsibility have been fully determined, the traditional teaching of the Church does not exclude recourse to the death penalty, if this is the only possible way of effectively defending human lives against the unjust aggressor. If, however, non-lethal means are sufficient to defend and protect people???s safety from the aggressor, authority will limit itself to such means, as these are more in keeping with the concrete conditions of the common good and more in conformity to the dignity of the human person. Today, in fact, as a consequence of the possibilities which the state has for effectively preventing crime, by rendering one who has committed an offense incapable of doing harm - without definitely taking away from him the possibility of redeeming himself - the cases in which the execution of the offender is an absolute necessity "are very rare, if not practically nonexistent." Over the past half century, a development has taken place in the church's position regarding capital punishment. Some consider it a development in church teaching. This has come about in parallel to growing opposition to it in civil society, particularly in Europe, but also in the United States and elsewhere. Ever since John XXIII, popes, whenever requested, have appealed to state authorities on behalf of individuals about to be executed. It became common practice for the Holy See to do so under St. John Paul II. Bishops' conferences in many lands, including the United States, have done likewise and pushed for abolition. As for church teaching, the historical record shows there was considerable discussion around this issue during the drafting of the new catechism. Some wanted the abolitionist stance recognized, but that did not happen. Many were unhappy with the 1st published text (1992), but this was amended following St. John Paul II's encyclical "The Gospel of Life" in 1995. As a growing movement in the Catholic world continued to push the church to take an abolitionist stance, St. John Paul II took another step in January 1999 without changing Catholic teaching. He appealed for a global consensus to end the death penalty because it is "both cruel and unnecessary." Benedict XVI made a similar appeal in November 2011. Francis, however, has moved beyond his predecessors' positions and advocates abolition from convictions of faith. He stated this clearly on Sept. 14, 2014, when, addressing a joint session of the U.S. Congress, he cited the Golden Rule: "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you" (Mt 7:12). He told Congress, "this rule points us in a clear direction" and "reminds us of our responsibility to protect and defend human life at every stage of its development." He confided that "this conviction has led me, from the beginning of my ministry, to advocate at different levels for the global abolition of the death penalty. I am convinced that this way is the best, since every life is sacred, every human person is endowed with an inalienable dignity, and society can only benefit from the rehabilitation of those convicted of crimes." The pope recalled that his brother bishops in the United States had "renewed their call for the abolition of the death penalty," and stated, "Not only do I support them, but I also offer encouragement to all those who are convinced that a just and necessary punishment must never exclude the dimension of hope and the goal of rehabilitation." He sent the same message to the United Nations and reiterated it several times this year. On Feb. 21, 2016, for example, he not only followed his predecessors by appealing "to the consciences of those who govern to reach an international consensus to abolish the death penalty"; he went further by stating clearly that "the commandment 'You shall not kill' has absolute value and applies to both the innocent and the guilty." (source: Gerard O'Connell is America's Vatican correspondent; America Today) From rhalperi at smu.edu Thu Jul 28 12:08:01 2016 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Thu, 28 Jul 2016 12:08:01 -0500 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide Message-ID: July 28 BOTSWANA: Death row inmates make one last plea 2 convicted hit men on death row have made one last plea to the Court of Appeal (CoA) bench in an attempt to have their lives spared. On Monday the duo, Daniel Semi and Gaolatlhe Thusang, made a brief final appearance before the bench for mitigation, which the bench shall address only if it finds no extenuating circumstances. The duo, who hail from Ntlhantlhe in the Southern District, were condemned to death in 2010 by Justice Michael Leburu of Lobatse High Court following a controversial remark by Justice Tshepo Motswagole that the death penalty was unconstitutional. The 2 were said to have been hired by Agisanyang Motukwa to kill his father after believing he was bewitching him. They had pleaded not guilty to the charge of murder. In his submissions, Semi's lawyer Dumezweni Mthimkhulu said his client was a first offender and nursing a chronic illness. He said the court should be lenient on account that Semi also had a small child and had recently lost his mother in a car accident on her way to check her son in prison. "All these factors should be taken into account and especially the 1st that as a death row inmate he was sharing a cell with Patrick Gabaakanye who was recently hanged. That on its own has been very traumatic for him. It has had a toll on him and the effects will stay with him for long," he said. Thusang's lawyer, Moses Kadye also made a passionate plea for his client even though he has a string of convictions. Kadye expressed hope that the court would take into account the fact that despite Thusang's previous convictions, none of them involved violence against human beings. "He is not a new comer in crime circles. They were not against any person but just property and in this case he also killed for material benefit," he submitted. Earlier on the State lawyer outlined Thusang's offences, which he all confirmed. In 2006 he was convicted of theft; 2007 for escaping from lawful custody and 2009 for 2 counts of house breaking, 2 counts of stealing from a dwelling house, he served jail time for all the offences. Meanwhile the duo's appearance follows last week's court appearance where they appealed their sentence on grounds that they were never the masterminds behind the murder. In an emotionally charged court appearance, they called on the bench to consider their circumstances leading to the killing of one Motlhanka Motukwa in what was described as a motive for financial stimulus. (source: mmegi.bw) BANGLADESH: HC upholds death penalty for 6 JMB men The High Court on Thursday upheld death penalty for 6 members of banned Islamist outfit Jama'atul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) for their involvement in the Gazipur Bar Association office bomb blast in 2005. The court also sentenced 2 others for life in jail while 2 were acquitted in the case. A joint bench of Justice Enayetur Rahim and Justice JBM Hassan passed the order after completion of the appeal hearing on death reference of 10 militants. Earlier, a lower court had awarded death penalty to all these 10 people. 9 people, including a suicide bomber, was killed in the blast on 29 November in 2005. (source: prothom-alo.com) QATAR: Indian government to ask Qatar for leniency in murder case The family of a man facing the death penalty in Qatar for murder has appealed to the Indian government for help with his defense. He and 2 other men were sentenced to death by firing squad in December 2014 after they were found guilty of killing an 81-year-old Qatari woman in her home 4 years ago. After several rounds of appeals, Qatar's courts upheld death penalty convictions for Subramanian Alagappa and Chilladurai Perumal, and commuted Shivkumar Achunan's sentence to life in prison. Speaking to Indian media, the family of Perumal said he is innocent, and pleaded for his release due to their financial difficulties. "Somehow he has to be brought home. I'm struggling with my children. We are all in pain thinking about him. I'm unable to settle the debts," his wife told NDTV. The men's final chance to appeal to Qatar's highest court is at the end of this month, and local lawyer Nizar Kochery confirmed to Doha News he will submit this tomorrow. Meanwhile, responding to community pressure, India's Ministry of External Affairs said it will file a petition for leniency this week with Qatar's Court of Cassation. Notably, the death penalty has not been carried out in Qatar for more than a decade, according to rights groups. Retribution sought Qatar's courts will close shortly for the summer break, so are not likely to revisit this issue until after Eid Al Adha in September. And how they rule remains to be seen. The family of the Qatari woman has previously sought retribution instead of blood money payment in court, and lamented the lengthy legal process. Last year, after an appeal verdict was postponed for several months, the nephew of the deceased told Doha News, "My aunt was killed in 2012. It's 2015 now and it's still not over." One factor that will likely be considered by the court is that the crime was especially violent. According to court documents, the woman was stabbed to death after the men broke into her Al Salata villa to rob it. What happened The victim lived alone next door a construction site where the defendants worked, and used to interact with them during Ramadan by inviting them over for meals, even though they were not Muslim and did not observe the fast. According to the official court verdict, once the men entered the home, the 2 older defendants knocked on the woman's ground-floor bedroom door. The victim opened it and was pulled outside. While one man pinned her arms behind her back, the other covered her mouth and stabbed her in the right side of her chest with a knife. Forensic examiners later determined that wound to be fatal. As she fell, the victim was apparently stabbed in the back by the other man, kicked in the face and dragged into the bathroom. "They killed the victim for fear of her identifying them," the court ruling concluded. The men were later tracked down by police after being identified by a domestic worker in the home, and apparently confessed to the crime. In court, defense attorneys argued that the confessions were coerced. Additionally, the defendants did not have legal representation during at least part of the appeal process. Currently, all 3 are suffering from health problems, Indian media reports. According to the Hindu, Perumal's kidneys are failing and he needs dialysis. Meanwhile, Achunan and Alagappa are in "deep depression," the News Minute reports. (source: Doha News) PHILIPPINES: Death penalty restoration expected within 1 year The restoration of the death penalty and the lowering of the age of criminal liability from 14 to nine years old may take effect in a year's time in order to sustain the success-bound anti-criminality program of the Duterte administration. Speaker Pantaleon "Bebot" Alvarez said that the House supermajority should be expected to act on the two legislative proposals, and added that it will take Congress only a year's time to pass them. Alvarez said Senate's cooperation is vital and urgent in order for Congress to pass the bills at the soonest possible time. There is no constitutional issue that can stop the restoration of the death penalty for heinous crimes, the Davao del Norte lawmaker stressed. He said that since the 1987 Constitution provides for the imposition of the death sentence for heinous crimes, all that Congress has to do is to define and classify what crimes the capital punishment may be applied to. Alvarez said defects in the current Juvenile Justice Law will be addressed in order to further strengthen the fight against criminality in the country. According to him, foremost in the provisions of the law is the determination of the age of criminal liability and discernment that is currently set at 15 years old. Under the PDP-Laban proposal, criminal liability will be set at 9 years old. Alvarez explained that the proposed age is 2 years higher than those provided under criminal laws of Singapore and many states in the United States. (source: Manila Bulletin) **************** Lagman's counter-SONA: Death penalty is 'anti-poor'; Albay 1st District Representative Edcel Lagman opposes the death penalty, lowering the minimum age of criminal responsibility, and the shift to federalism Albay 1st District Representative Edcel Lagman on Wednesday, July 27, thumbed down what he called the "anti-poor" priority measures of President Rodrigo Duterte, such as the proposed revival of the death penalty and lowering the age of criminal responsibility. Lagman, who is part of the so-called "authentic and real minority" in the House, aired his opposition to some of Duterte's priority measures in a privilege speech. "The death penalty is anti-poor because indigent and marginalized litigants could not afford the high cost of top caliber and influential lawyers to secure their acquittal," the lawmaker said in his counter-State of the Nation Address (SONA). "During the campaign for the abolition of the death penalty, it was shown that 73.1% of death row inmates belonged to the lowest and lower income classes, and only 0.8% came from the upper socio-economic class," he added. According to Lagman, the death penalty is not a deterrent to the commission of heinous crimes "as validated by worldwide empirical and scientific studies." "What deters the commission of crimes are certainty of apprehension, speedy prosecution, and inevitable conviction once warranted," he said. "Human justice is fallible....Only God can forfeit life. No human authority has the power to kill, even if judicially mandated as a recompense for another lost life," Lagman added. In his 1st SONA, Duterte bared his legislative agenda which includes a shift to federalism, tax reform, extending the validity of passport and driver's licenses, and emergency powers to address traffic, among others. Duterte did not mention the reimposition of the death penalty for heinous crimes as well as the lowering of the minimum age of criminal responsibility in his SONA. But the 2 measures are among the priorities of Duterte's PDP Laban party mates, Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez and Senate President Aquilino Pimentel III. No to lowering age for youth offenders In his speech, Lagman said owering the minimum age of criminal responsibility from 15 to 9 years old is a "retrogression" like the death penalty revival. Alvarez co-authored the bill lowering the age for youth offenders in a bid to address the problem of criminal syndicates using children 15 years old and below to commit crimes. He clarified that juvenile violators would be rehabilitated, not imprisoned with hardened criminals. Lagman, however, said lowering the minimum age of criminal responsibility is not the proper solution. "The correct response is to make the use of children 15 years old and under in criminal activities as an aggravating circumstance which cannot be offset by a mitigating circumstance, and charge parents or guardians with culpable default in due exercise of parental authority and discipline in the rearing of their children," he said. Lagman added that Alvarez's bill violates the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, to which the Philippines is a signatory. "Lowering the age of culpability to 9 years old is a patent backsliding which is inconsistent with our treaty obligations," he said. (source: rappler.com) From rhalperi at smu.edu Thu Jul 28 12:09:18 2016 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Thu, 28 Jul 2016 12:09:18 -0500 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide Message-ID: July 28 INDONESIA----impending executions Jokowi called on to stop imminent executions President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo should commute the death sentences of at least 14 people who face imminent executions for drug trafficking, the Human Rights Watch (HRW) said on Wednesday. The group says the government has not announced a date for the executions, but has warned that "the time is approaching." Jakarta-based diplomats have reported that the Attorney General's Office (AGO) informed them that the executions will take place on Friday, it further says. "President Jokowi should acknowledge the death penalty's barbarity and avoid a potential diplomatic firestorm by sparing the lives of the 14 or more people facing imminent execution," HRW deputy Asia director Phelim Kine. "Jokowi should also ban the death penalty for drug crimes, which international law prohibits, rather than giving the go-ahead for more multiple executions," he went on. Merry Utami, a Sukoharjo resident, and Pakistani national Zulfiqar Ali, have been transferred to Nusakambangan prison island in Cilacap, Central Java, where the executions will take place. The death row prisoners also include 4 Nigerians, 1 Zimbabwean, and several other Indonesians. The Nigerians are Eugene Ape, Humphrey Jefferson Ejike Eleweke, Michael Titus Igweh, and Obinna Nwajagu, who were all arrested for drug trafficking in 2002 or 2003. "Indonesia's use of the death penalty is contrary to international human rights law, statements of UN human rights experts, and various UN bodies," HRW says. The group says 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. "Indonesia should join the many countries already committed to the UN General Assembly's December 18, 2007 resolution calling for a moratorium on executions, a move by UN member countries toward abolition of the death penalty." *************************** RI pressed to abolish death penalty Pressure is mounting ahead of the executions of at least 14 drug convicts to be carried out later this week, as international organizations and foreign countries call on Indonesia to put off using the death penalty, which they say has tainted Indonesia's reputation as an emerging democracy. Attorney General Muhammad Prasetyo confirmed on Wednesday that 14 people - including convicts from Nigeria, Pakistan, India and Zimbabwe - had been put in isolation on the Nusakambangan prison island off Cilacap, Central Java, and would be executed this week. The executions will be the third round under President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo, after the country put 14 drug convicts, mostly foreigners, to death in 2 groups in 2015, to much international outrage. The upcoming executions are no different, with a number of foreign missions in Indonesia and international rights organizations having conveyed their concerns about how the planned killings might lead to Indonesia committing miscarriages of justice. EU Ambassador to Indonesia Vincent Guerend said that if the executions were indeed confirmed, the EU would come out with a statement as it does worldwide, including about countries with which it has friendly relations. The EU, he said, was against the death penalty as a matter of principle and was in favor of a worldwide abolition of the death penalty and the EU is calling on all states and all members of the international community to abolish the death penalty or to implement a moratorium on the death penalty. "Indonesia is a strong democracy and Indonesia is, in many respects, a model in this part of the world. We believe that Indonesia should strongly consider joining the vast majority of countries, 140 out of 190, that have abolished the death penalty," he said. Among the convicts to be executed is Pakistani Zulfiqar Ali, whom an investigative team from the Law and Human Rights Ministry had concluded might be innocent. For Pakistan, which still applies the death penalty, the concern is different, said Pakistani Ambassador to Indonesia Aqil Naseem. Pakistan restored the death penalty last year after a terrorist attack in a public school that claimed the lives of 150 children. Only terrorists will be hanged in Pakistan now and while Naseem respects Indonesia???s legal system, his main concern is the unfair trial of Ali. Amnesty International believes that Jokowi would put his government on the wrong side of history if he proceeded with a fresh round of executions, said the group's Southeast Asia head Josef Benedict. British Ambassador to Indonesia Moazzam Malik said in a recent interview that he did not think the death penalty had helped Indonesia's standing in the world. "Does Indonesia want to be seen alongside China and Iran, or does it want to be seen alongside 130 countries, developed and developing and emerging economies, giving up on the death penalty?" he asked. "We have miscarriages of justice in the UK, in the US, all over the world. If there's some risks that innocent lives may be taken, I don't think that is acceptable." UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein expressed alarm at the planned executions. "The increasing use of the death penalty in Indonesia is terribly worrying and I urge the government to immediately end this practice, which is unjust and incompatible with human rights," he said in a statement. As the executions are imminent, information has spread that the State Palace has sent letters to the Attorney General's Office to cancel the executions of Ali and Indonesian Merri Utami. Calls to presidential chief of staff Teten Masduki to confirm the information were not answered. Meanwhile, preparations at the Nusakambangan prison island in Cilacap, Central Java, for the executions of 14 convicts have been completed. All equipment and property needed for the executions were sent there on Wednesday. "All has been prepared, including security personnel. About 1,500 people have been deployed to secure the execution area so the process can run smoothly," Cilacap Police spokesman Adj. Comr. Bintoro said. (source for both: The Jakarta Post) *************** Police Order 16 Coffins Ahead of Death Row Inmates' Executions Cilacap Police have ordered 16 coffins ahead of a 3rd round of executions likely to take place on the notorious prison island Nusakambangan in the next few days. It is generally understood that death row inmates are moved to Nusakambangan days before they are executed by a firing squad. "I used to prepare the coffins but this time the Cilacap police are handling it. They've got 16 coffins ready this time," said the Javanese Christian Church's (GKJ) funeral director Suhendro Putro on Wednesday morning (27/07). The church will send six men to the island to take care of the bodies of the Christian and Catholic inmates after their executions. During the previous round of executions, Suhendro's team was called in just four hours before the firing squad started executing the inmates. Together with officials from the District Attorney's office, lawyers, priests and Islamic clerics and the police, they crossed the Segara Anakan strait between the Java mainland and Nusakambangan. "Then they asked us to wait at the Sodong pier, only a kilometer away from where the executions took place," Suhendro said. The executions are usually carried out at midnight and take around one hour. Suhendro and his team will carry the bodies to the mainland, hand them over to their families or perform the burial themselves. **************** AG Secures Job by Capitalizing on Executions: Watchdog H.M. Prasetyo has continued to secure his position as attorney general despite President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo's cabinet reshuffle due to his tenacity to execute drug convicts, Hendardi, chairman of political watchdog Setara Institute told Suara Pembaruan on Thursday (28/07). "[Attorney General] Prasetyo, who lacks any [significant career] achievements, continues to capitalize on the executions [and the president's apparent zero tolerance policy on the issue] to mask his shortcomings in anti-corruption enforcement and resolving human rights violations," Hendardi said. Prasetyo, according to Hendardi, was in panic over the cabinet reshuffle as plans for the executions were already underway. "The future of human rights is hardly [promising given that we have] an attorney general who has no interest in human rights. Moreover with [newly appointed] Chief Security Minister Wiranto, it is almost certain that Jokowi's campaign and promises on human rights would be hard to fulfill," Hendardi added. Misguided priorities "[On an] evaluation of law enforcement process, drug eradication and penitentiary management should be the main priorities instead of taking the lives of death row convicts, which ultimately does not have any deterrent effect," Hendardi said. Hendardi strongly condemned capital punishment saying that it is against basic human rights and its enforcement is a violation of the Indonesian constitution. "I refuse and condemn [capital punishment] and I urge the government to scrap death penalty sentences from the Indonesian legal system," Hendardi said. (source for both: Jakarta Globe) *************** Indonesia's decision to execute drug convicts shows risks to migrant workers, rights activists warn----Women's rights commission believes female migrant workers are soft targets for drug trafficking. Indonesia's announcement to execute 14 drug convicts on Friday, 29 July, may pose a risk to migrant workers, especially women, as it is feared they could be duped into becoming drug mules, human rights activists have warned. The rights campaigners have said female migrant workers, with valid passports, are vulnerable targets for drug trafficking, sometimes due to their limited education. "This has become a pattern and the modus operandi is always the same," said Azriana, chair of Indonesia's National Commission on Violence against Women (Komnas Perempuan). The women's rights commission said, one of the Indonesian prisoners, Merri Utami, who was convicted in 2003 of smuggling 1.1kg of heroin and likely to be executed this week, could have been framed in the case. According to the government-backed body, Utami said she was not aware of carrying of bag of drugs that was reportedly given to her by a man she was involved with. The group compared Utami's case to that of Filipino maid, Mary Jane Veloso, who was about to be executed last year. She was granted an official pardon in the last-minute after the person who planted drugs in Veloso's bag confessed to the crime in the Philippines. Azriana has urged the Indonesian government to investigate into each convict's case. Mic Catuira from Migrante International, Manila told Reuters: "Governments should consider [migrant workers] as people who are victimised by the drug trade, they are tricked into being mules - but they are the ones being punished for the crimes." The Philippines-based migrant workers' group that led the campaign to halt Veloso's execution said they feared more such women are being targeted and wrongly framed. Meanwhile, the fourteen prisoners found guilty of drug peddling and sentenced to death penalty are expected to be executed amid the international outcry over the previous executions that took place in 2015. The lawyers of the death row inmates were thought to be filing for a last minute clemency. The Indonesia government has not officially released the list of prisoners to be executed but the leaked list reveals Pakistani, Nigerian, Zimbabwean, Indian and Indonesian nationals are among the 14 prisoners who are due to be executed on Friday by the firing squad. It has emerged that the convicts were moved to the execution site. UN human rights chief is said to have called for the government to immediately reinstate a moratorium on the death penalty that was suspended in 2013, according to Reuters news agency. (source: ibtimes.co.uk) ****************** Govt makes last-minute efforts to save Indian on death row in Indonesia New Delhi has mounted last minute efforts to save Indian national Gurdip Singh, who is among 14 people set to be executed after midnight on Thursday in Indonesia. In a statement, Attorney General M Prasetyo said the executions of the 14 death row inmates would be conducted early on Friday. He said all technical and legal aspects of the executions had been fulfilled, according to the Indonesian media. The Jakarta Post quoted a source in the Central Java Prosecutor's Office as saying that the executions of the 14 "drug convicts" will take place after midnight on Thursday. In a tweet late on Wednesday night, Swaraj said: "We are making last minute efforts to save him (Singh) from execution on 28 July." She said in another tweet Singh was "facing death sentence in a drug case". Singh, 48, was found guilty of trying to smuggle 300 grams of heroin into Indonesia in 2004 and was sentenced to death by a state district court at Tanggerang in Banten province in February 2005. He was given the death sentence even though prosecutors had recommended a 20-year jail term for Singh, who is also known as Vishal and belongs to Jalandhar in Punjab. Singh also retracted a statement he made against Pakistani national Zulfiqar Ali, who is among the prisoners facing execution. Singh admitted he was coerced into making the false admission against Ali in return for a lenient sentence for himself. Reports in the Indonesia media said there is little chance of the 14 condemned people escaping the firing squad since the Attorney General's Office had on Wednesday confirmed that all legal requirements had been fulfilled. The executions will take place in Nusakambangan prison island in Cilacap, Central Java, where authorities have tightened security by deploying an additional 1,500 police personnel and army and navy units. The soldiers are guarding a nearby dock and naval personnel are patrolling the waters surrounding the prison island. 17 ambulances, 14 of which carried coffins, arrived at the prison island on Thursday morning, The Jakarta Post reported. This was seen as a signal that the executions would be conducted soon. "It has been a long-standing tradition on Nusakambangan that ambulances are readied to pick up bodies of the condemned from the prison less than 24 hours before the executions," the report said. According to Indonesia law, each convict will be shot to death by a squad of 10 people. Amnesty International has criticised the Indonesian government's decision to go ahead with the execution of the 10 foreigners and 4 Indonesians, saying some of them were "convicted in manifestly unfair trials and have not submitted clemency request to the President". Among the 10 foreigners a Zimbabwean, a Senegalese, a South African and 5 Nigerians, Amnesty International said. "Indonesian President Joko Widodo, popularly known as 'Jokowi', will be putting his government on the wrong side of history if he proceeds with a fresh round of executions," it said in a statement. In a report published last year, Amnesty had found 12 of the prisoners were "denied access to legal counsel at the time of their arrest, and at different periods thereafter". Some claimed they were subjected to torture and other ill-treatment while in police custody, and were forced to "confess" to their alleged crimes. These claims have not been investigated by authorities, it said. The last executions in Indonesia - which has some of the world's toughest anti-drug laws - were carried out in January and April 2015, when a total of 14 people were put to death by firing squad. The previous administration under Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono carried out 21 executions between 2005 and 2013. Indonesia has a strong record of fighting for the rights of its citizens abroad on death row but that is a position the authorities do not consistently uphold at home, where President Widodo has claimed the death penalty is needed to deter drug crime, Amnesty said. "There is no evidence to support President Widodo's position. The death penalty does not deter crime. Carrying out executions will not rid Indonesia of drugs. It is never the solution, and it will damage Indonesia's standing in the world," said Josef Benedict, deputy director of Amnesty's Southeast Asia and Pacific regional office. (source: Hindustan Times) ************** Jokowi should not become the most prolific executioner in recent history The Indonesian authorities have told the relatives of 14 death row prisoners that they will execute them by firing squad tonight, Amnesty International has learned. The 14 include 4 Indonesians, and 10 foreign nationals - all convicted of drug-related offences. Contrary to Indonesian law and international standards, the families were only informed of the decision this morning. Indonesian law requires that relatives be informed at 72 hours in advance. "President Jokowi should not become the most prolific executioner in recent Indonesian history," said Rafendi Djamin, Amnesty International's Director for South East Asia and the Pacific. "He still has time to pull back from these unlawful executions, before inviting global notoriety." If the executions are not halted, President Jokowi will have implemented the death penalty more times than in any South East Asian country, and more often than any Indonesian leader this century. "The Indonesian authorities are proceeding with indecent haste. There are 4 clemency appeals that are still to be heard, and there are serious fair trial concerns about many prisoners??? cases." "At a time when a majority of the world's countries have turned their back on this cruel and irreversible punishment, President Jokowi is recklessly hurtling in the wrong direction," said Rafendi Djamin. Systemic flaws Amnesty International has documented systemic flaws in Indonesia's criminal justice system and its implementation of the death penalty. The imposition of the death penalty for drug-related offences violates international law, which only permits the use of the punishment for "the most serious crimes." These include violations of the right to a fair trial; the right not to be subjected to torture or to other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment; the right to apply for clemency or pardon of a death sentence; and foreign nationals or others who do not understand or speak the language used by the authorities are entitled to the assistance of an interpreter following arrest, including during questioning, and at all other stages of the proceedings. Background information Under Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, who was President of Indonesia from 2004 to 2014, there were 21 executions. By tomorrow, President Jokowi could bring the total number of executions under his rule to 28 if they are not halted. An Amnesty International report on Indonesia, Flawed Justice: Unfair Trials and the Death Penalty, published in October 2015 highlighted systemic flaws in the administration of justice resulting in violations of the right to fair trial, as outlined in the cases below of prisoners who are at imminent risk of execution at Nusakambangan Island: Indonesian nationals Agus Hadi and Pujo Lestari were arrested for attempting to smuggle benzodiazepine pills from Malaysia in 2006. They were detained at Riau Islands Police Headquarters on 22 November that year, interrogated there for 20 days and then transferred to the Batam prosecution detention centre. They were held in total for 9 weeks before they appeared before a judge at their 1st trial hearing in the Batam District Court at the end of January 2007. Court documents indicate that Agus Hadi only received assistance from a lawyer on 12 December, 20 days after his arrest. Pujo Lestari had legal counsel appointed by the Batam District Court on 8 February, 78 days after his arrest and a week after the court had scheduled the first trial hearing. Indonesian national Merri Utami was arrested by the Soekarno Hatta Airport Police force after the police found 1.1kg of heroin in her bag on 31 October 2001. Merri Utami told her current lawyer that shortly after her arrest the police repeatedly beat her, sexually harassed her and threatened her with rape to make her "confess" to possessing the drug; and that her sight has been damaged as a consequence of the beatings. She was convicted and sentenced to death in 2002. Her conviction and death sentence were upheld by the Supreme Court in 2003. She submitted an application for clemency to the President on 26 July 2016. Zulfiqar Ali, a Pakistani national, was arrested at his home in Bogor, West Java province on 21 November 2004, and charged with possession of 300g of heroin based on his friend???s confession to the police. However during his trial, Zulfiqar's friend retracted his statement that the heroin belonged to him. During his pre-trial detention, he was refused the right to contact his embassy and was not permitted any access to a lawyer until approximately 1 month after his arrest. Tangerang District Court documents show prosecution granted an extension of Zulfiqar's detention from 4 March to 2 May 2005, meaning he was detained for at least 3 months before being brought to the 1st trial hearing, although there is no information as to when the 1st trial hearing started. Whilst being interrogated by the Soekarno-Hatta Airport district police, Zulfiqar Ali was kept in a house for 3 days and punched, kicked and threatened with death unless he signed a self-incriminating statement, which he later did. After three days his health deteriorated to the extent that on 24 November 2004 he was sent to a police hospital, where he required stomach and kidney surgery due to damage caused by the beatings. He was in the hospital for 17 days. During his trial he described this torture, but the judges allowed the "confession" to be admitted as evidence. There has been no independent investigation into his allegations. Zulfiqar Ali did not speak Bahasa Indonesia. He received limited translation assistance throughout his detention and during the proceedings against him. At the trial, he was provided with translation only from Bahasa Indonesia to English, but he understood only a little English. He was convicted and sentenced to death in 2005. His death sentence was upheld by the Supreme Court in 2006. Humphrey Jefferson "Jeff" Ejike, a Nigerian man, who was arrested on 2 August 2003 in Jakarta for possessing drugs after police found 1.7kg of heroin in a room used by one of his employees at the restaurant he owned and ran. Jeff was convicted of and sentenced to death for offences relating to the import, export, sale and trafficking of drugs in 2004. His conviction and sentence were upheld by the Jakarta High Court in June 2004 and the Supreme Court in November 2004. He did not have access to a lawyer at the time of his arrest, interrogation or detention. He was detained for a total of 5 months without legal representation, in breach of Article 14 of the ICCPR as well as Indonesia's Criminal Procedure Code which guarantees the right to be assisted by and to contact counsel. He has claimed that he was repeatedly beaten during interrogation and threatened with being shot if he refused to sign papers in which he "confessed" to possessing the heroin or if he refused to implicate others. Trial records of April 2004, however, show that Jeff told the court that he was not subjected to any form of coercion, although he such statements are themselves sometimes made as a result of threats. The trial judgement includes the statement that "black-skinned people from Nigeria" are under surveillance by police because they are suspected of drug trafficking in Indonesia. In November 2004, the former owner of Humphrey Jefferson Ejike's restaurant, reportedly told police that he had organized for drugs to be planted in the restaurant so that Jeff would be arrested and convicted. The former owner later died in prison but several people testified that they had witnessed him making this confession while in prison on drug charges. Such witness statements formed part of an appeal for a review of Humphrey Jefferson Ejike's case to the Supreme Court, which was rejected in September 2007. That same year the court upheld the constitutionality of the death penalty for drug offences. He applied for clemency from the President of Indonesia just a few days ago. No execution must be carried out while legal or clemency procedures are pending. (source: Amnesty International) SINGAPORE: 2 women charged for murder of Myanmar maid 2 women have been charged for the murder of their 24-year-old domestic helper from Myanmar. Gaiyathiri Murugayan, 36, and Prema S Naraynasamy, 58 caused the death of Ms Piang Ngaih Don some time between Monday (July 25) and Tuesday, according to the charge sheet. The police said they received a call for help at Blk 145 Bishan Street 11 at about 11.03am on Tuesday. When the police arrived, they found the 24-year-old Myanmar national lying motionless on the floor. She was pronounced dead at scene. After media reports about the murder surfaced, the chairman of the Centre for Domestic Employees (CDE), Mr Yeo Guat Kwang, posted his reactions on Facebook, saying that the CDE "will work closely with the authorities to see how we can offer help and support to her family". "Through our various outreach efforts, we understand and empathise with the fact that the position of our foreign domestic employees is a uniquely vulnerable one. Thus, they are deserving of greater care and concern from their employers," Mr Yeo wrote. The 2 women were remanded for investigations and will next appear in court on Aug 4. If convicted, they could face the death penalty or life imprisonment. (source: todayonline.com) CUBA: What do Cubans think about the death penalty? At the beginning of July, Havana Times put forward a new initiative: to find out what Cubans think about different national and/or global issues. As far as we know, only the government and government institutions carry out surveys; the results of these are not normally very accessible to ordinary Cubans. The aim of our project is to contribute towards public opinion surveys not being administered by a centralized body and that the results of these are made easily accessible to everyone. We kicked off this project with a simple survey where the person taking it didn't have to give any personal information; all they had to do was mark the option they believed to be correct with a cross. We chose to begin with the death penalty, because it's a very sensitive and important issue when building a civilized country. In Cuba, capital punishment was abolished by the 1940 Constitution and was later reinstated in 1959; the last executions of this kind took place in 2003 and since then there has been a de facto moratorium, even though Raul Castro publicly reminded us that it still exists, 3 years ago. The 1st question of the survey looked into whether the death penaly should remain or be abolished from our Penal Code. A slight majority of 52% of those surveyed would like it to be abolished, 35% want this kind of punishment to apply to a more limited number of crimes and 13% stand up for it to stay in our Penal Code just as it is. Among those who would like to get rid of the dealth penalty entirely, 17% believed this wasn't a corrective measure; 48% believed that it's a violation against out most basic individual human rights and 35% think that life sentences should be the maximum punishment given for any kind of crime. Those who defend the death penalty believe that it's a necessary evil (16%); believe that it prevents serious crimes from being committed and ensures civil peace (24%); and the majority, (60%), think that Life Imprisonment is not enough to punish someone in extreme cases. Who should decide whether the death penalty is abolished or remains in the Penal Code? 85% of those surveyed think that a public referendum is the best way to settle these kinds of issues; 4% believe that it's an issue that lawyers should agree on, and 11% trust that the government should be who decides. Conclusions >From our survey's results, we can see that the majority want the death penalty to be abolished. However, this isn't a great majority, the difference is very small (52% against 48%) and this could change if we had surveyed a greater number of people. The main argument used by those against the death penalty is that it denies the person being punished their most basic individual human rights. Amongst those who defend the death penalty, the main justification given is that life imprisonment isn???t enough for certain crimes. The immense majority of those interviewed believe that this issue should be resolved by a popular referendum, before leaving it to be decided by judges or the government. The sample taken for this investigation is not representative of the Cuban people because of its small scale and because of the bias that including only people who have access to an email address implies; a minority sector with certain socio-cultural characteristics. Nevertheless, we are happy with this survey because it's our 1st attempt to make this kind of very sensitive information accessible to Cubans. We hope that we are able to contribute a little to their emancipation in this way. (source: Havana Times) PAKISTAN: Pakistan's Death Penalty Hypocrisy----Government Seeks Death Row Mercy From Indonesia Pakistan's government is working hard to dissuade Indonesia from executing Zulfikar Ali, a Pakistani citizen on death row since 2005 for drug smuggling. Pakistan says Ali's "trial was not fair." The Indonesian government has yet to respond to the request to spare Ali from its latest looming death penalty spree. Those executions are part of President Joko Widodo???s signature policy of executing convicted drug traffickers as a form of judicial "shock therapy" against a perceived domestic drug emergency. Pakistan's pursuit of mercy for a death row prisoner in Indonesia stands in stark contrast to its own embrace of the death penalty, not just for drug smugglers, but in response to the horrific December 2014 attack by the Pakistani extremist group Tehreek-e-Taliban on a school in Peshawar. The attack, which left at least 148 dead - almost all of them children - prompted the government to lift an informal moratorium on the use of the death penalty and push through a constitutional amendment permitting military courts to prosecute civilian terrorism suspects. The human toll of those decisions has been appalling: 416 executions since late 2014, through June 2016. Pakistan is right to be concerned about the fairness of Ali's trial in Indonesia, but the government has been dismissive of allegations of unfair trials of its own death row prisoners. Among those executed was Shafqat Hussain, hanged on August 4, 2014, despite evidence he was 14 or 15-years-old when sentenced in 2004 for kidnapping and killing a 7-year-old boy, and that his confession may have resulted from police torture. Pakistan should urge Indonesia to stop the execution of Zulfikar Ali, but it should also call a halt to its own hangings. Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and Indonesian President Joko Widodo could each end these killings by recognizing the well-documented failure of the death penalty as a crime deterrent and reinstating the unofficial moratorium on capital punishment. This is an opportunity both leaders should take advantage of. (source: Human Rights Watch) ****************** Murder convicts hanged in 2 cities of Punjab 2 criminals charged with murder case were hanged early morning on Wednesday in 2 cities of Punjab. According to details, the murder convict, Sibtain Shah was handed the death penalty in 1998 after killing his brother-in-law over personal enmity and was hanged in Sargodha District Jail. Ghulam Mustafa was hanged in Sahiwal Central Jail. Ghulam was hanged for killing 3, including a woman and 2 children, while resisting robbery in 1992. Both the criminals where hanged at dawn, on Wednesday, right after their meeting with their family members. After the Army Public School massacre, the moratorium on executions was lifted by Prime Minster in Pakistan. According to figures gathered by the organization Reprieve, there had been 78 executions in 2016 as of July 26. The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan reported 76 executions in 2016 as of June 2016. (source: The News) IRAN/SAUDI ARABIA: Iran and Saudi Arabia execute more than 350 people in 6 months----Iran and Saudi Arabia execute more people than anywhere else in the region - with Iran killing at least 250 in 2016 Iran and Saudi Arabia have between them executed more than 350 people in the 1st half of 2016, according to statistics released by rights groups this week. Iran is 2nd globally only to China in executing their own citizens, and is far ahead of Saudi Arabia which occupies 3rd place. Iran executed at least 250 people in the 1st 6 months of the year, according to a report released on Tuesday by the Norway-based group Iran Human Rights. In the same period Saudi Arabia executed 108 people, according to a report released on Wednesday by Human Rights Watch. With a population of nearly 80 million, as opposed to Saudi's less than 30 million, Iran may have a much higher total number of executions but their per capita rate of state-sanctioned killings is slightly lower than their regional rival. The number of people killed in Iran has also fallen dramatically, year on year. In the first 7 months of 2015 Iran executed more than 700 people, and by the end of the year at least 969 were killed - the highest toll in more than 25 years. Iran Human Rights spokespman, Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam, however said there was no indication that the reduction was due to a change of policy. "The numbers are lower than last year most probably because of the parliamentary elections in February and March and Ramadan in June," he said. Amiry-Moghaddam said the international community should "put the death penalty ... on top of their agenda in bilateral talks with the Iranian authorities". Nearly 1/2 of those executed in Iran this year faced drug-related charges, while 39 percent were put to death after being convicted of murder. Amnesty International raised concerns earlier this year about juveniles being executed in the Islamic Republic - girls as young as 9 and boys aged 15 can be executed in the country. The UN reported in January that at least 160 juveniles were on death row at the start of the year - it is not known if any of the juveniles are among the 250 reported executions so far in 2016. Iran Human Rights reported that 19 people have been hanged in public spaces so far this year. Due to the fact Iranian authorities do not report all executions that take place, Iran Human Rights said the number of people put to death may be much higher than reported. While Iranian executions have fallen in 2016, regional rival Saudi Arabia's use of the death penalty has been maintained this year, although Iran remains far ahead in their total number of executions. Human Rights Watch reported that of the 108 people executed by Saudi authorities this year, 47 were convicted of murder, 13 were drug smugglers, and 1 was convicted of rape. Close to 1/2 of Saudi's total executions this year took place in 1 day on 2 January, when 47 people were killed for terrorism convictions. Among those executed in January was Shia cleric Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr, whose killing sparked angry protests in Iran, leading to the ransacking of the Saudi embassy there. Others killed in the group of 47, as revealed by Middle East Eye, included prisoners suffering from mental illness and individuals detained as juveniles. Human Rights Watch said the kingdom was "on track" to match the 158 executions it carried out in 2015, while it has already surpassed the total of 88 people killed in 2014. The New York-based watchdog criticised continued use of the death penalty by Saudi authorities, warning that it does not reduce crime in the kingdom. "Executions are never the answer to stopping crime, especially when they result from a flawed justice system that ignores torture allegations," Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East director at Human Rights Watch, said in a statement. "There is simply no excuse for Saudi Arabia's frequent use of the death penalty for non-violent drug crimes." (source: Middle East Eye) From rhalperi at smu.edu Thu Jul 28 15:04:39 2016 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Thu, 28 Jul 2016 15:04:39 -0500 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----USA Message-ID: July 28 USA: Death Penalty For Man Who Killed NYPD Officers A New York City street gang member was given the death penalty on Wednesday in the execution-style slayings of 2 undercover police officers in 2003 - the latest chapter in a case that's seen his original death sentence overturned, his behind-bars affair with a prison guard exposed and the massive cost of his defense questioned. It took a jury just 1 day to deliberate in federal court in Brooklyn before deciding the fate of Ronell Wilson. Another jury had found Wilson guilty in the point-blank shootings of undercover officers James Nemorin and Rodney Andrews. The gunman shot both men in the head after one pleaded for his life. The 1st jury also sentenced Wilson in 2007 to die by lethal injection, making him the 1st federal defendant to receive a death sentence in New York City since the 1950s. But an appeals court threw out the sentence in 2010 and prosecutors chose to repeat the penalty phase rather than let Wilson serve an automatic life term. U.S. District Judge Nicholas Garaufis questioned the decision, saying that it put taxpayers on course to spend millions of dollars more on Wilson's defense. He noted that he had just presided over a capital case for a mobster where the defense bill was $5 million and the jury chose to impose a life sentence. (source: lawofficer.com) From rhalperi at smu.edu Thu Jul 28 15:05:19 2016 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Thu, 28 Jul 2016 15:05:19 -0500 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide Message-ID: July 28 INDONESIA----executions Indonesia executes 4 drug traffickers The Indonesian government on Friday said it had executed 4 drug traffickers, giving a reprieve of uncertain duration to 10 others it had said would also be put to death. Deputy Attorney-General Noor Rachmad said 1 Indonesian and 3 Nigerians were executed by firing squad not long after midnight local time. He said the government hasn't decided when the other executions will take place. Earlier this week, Indonesia's attorney-general said 14 people, mostly foreigners, would be executed. Relatives, rights groups and foreign governments had urged Indonesia to spare their lives. It is the 3rd set of executions under President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo who was elected in 2014 and campaigned on promises to improve human rights in Indonesia. (source: Associated Press) *********************** Reports: Indonesia executes convicted drug traffickers----Reports say the Indonesian government has executed 4 of the 14 convicted drug traffickers. The Indonesian government has carried out executions of 4 convicted drug traffickers, while sparing the lives of 10 other prisoners, Al Jazeera has learned. The convicts were shot by firing squad at the Nusa Kambangan penal island shortly after midnight on Friday local time (1700 GMT on Thursday) amid pouring rain, according to TV reports. Al Jazeera's Step Vaessen, reporting from Jakarta, said among those who were executed were 2 Nigerian citizens, a South African citizen and 1 Indonesian. "All the others are still waiting their trials to be reexamined," our correspondent said. "It's not very clear what actually were the last conclusions why these executions didn't take place. But the government is saying it has something to do with legal issues." The attorney general's office had said earlier on Thursday that 14 people, including foreigners, would be executed "soon". The lawyer of Pakistani prisoner Zulfikar Ali earlier told our correspondent that his client was not among those who had reportedly been executed. Al Jazeera's Vaessen said there had been "a lot of pressure" until the last minute to stop the executions. The executions were the 3rd set carried out since President Joko Widodo took office in October 2014. Widodo's 2-year-old administration will have executed more people than were executed in the previous decade. 14 were put to death last year. But 1 prisoner, a woman from the Philippines, was spared the death penalty at the last minute. The European Union and the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights had called on Indonesia to impose an immediate moratorium on executions, and the Indian and Pakistani governments also made urgent efforts to save 2 nationals among the condemned. The Indonesian government said the death penalty is necessary for narcotics-related crimes because the country was facing a drugs epidemic, particularly affecting young people. But critics argue that capital punishment is not an effective deterrent and some have also questioned the accuracy of the government's drug abuse statistics. The government of Jokowi's predecessor did not carry out executions between 2009 and 2012, but resumed them in 2013. (source: aljazeera.com) ************************ 'Be strong': Indian man's last call to kin before execution in Indonesia Gurdip Singh, the Indian man who was executed by midnight along with others in Indonesia on drug charges, appeared to have given up hope when he called his wife on Thursday morning, despite the Indian government's bid to save his life. "This is my last call to you. They are going to kill me today. Now you will be able to see my body only. Take care of both children," were his words to wife Kulwinder Kaur, who was undergoing treatment at a local private health centre at the time of the call. After midnight, his younger sister Binder Kaur confirmed having got a call from the Indian embassy officials that Gurdip was executed by a firing squad. It was not immediately clear if all other 13 convicts were also executed along with him. On Tuesday, Kulwinder had fallen ill with anxiety after Gurdip informed her in another call about the planned execution on Thursday night. He also talked to daughter Manjot Kaur (17) and asked her to be strong. Kulwinder broke down talking about the "last", 5.30am phone call from Gurdip, who belongs to Sitalpur in Saharanpur (UP). But she said she still believed the Almighty would halt the execution. External affairs minister Sushma Swaraj telephoned Kaur, 41, at 5.30 pm on Thursday and assured her the Indian government was doing its best to halt the execution. "She said she has taken up the matter with the Indonesian government and a delegation of Indian officials has already gone there. She told us to pray too," Kaur told HT at her parents' home in Nakodar. Singh, 48, was found guilty of trying to smuggle 300 grams of heroin into Indonesia in 2004 and sentenced to death by a state district court in Banten province in February 2005. His appeals against the death penalty were turned down by Banten high court and the Supreme Court. Kaur said she had requested the minister during the 10-minute call to do everything possible at the earliest. Singh, who worked as a driver, and his family belong to Uttar Pradesh but Kaur and her 2 children have been staying in Nakodar. Relatives and neighbours were visiting the house to express solidarity. He had wanted to go to New Zealand in 2002 to seek employment as a driver but got stuck in Indonesia "as his agent cheated him", Kaur said. According to Kaur, Singh was arrested in 2004 as the agent, who belongs to Uttar Pradesh, did not give him back his passport and then "made him do the crime". She also blamed an unnamed "Pakistani agent" for his imprisonment. Kaur, who works in the packing section of a local candy-manufacturing unit to support her family, said she was hoping that Gurdip would come soon and plan for the kids' future. "In the last 12 years, he used to call every 2 or 3 months with the embassy's help, and we had hopes that he would come soon after completion of jail sentence." She said his younger brother Gurpreet Singh, who lives in Dehradun, had met him in jail in Indonesia through the embassy 2 years ago. "We married in 1995 and he (Gurdip) went back to Libya for a driver's job after a few months of marriage." He returned after 3 years before leaving again in 2002 with the aim to reach New Zealand. Daughter Manjot, a student of Class 11 in a local private school, said "I was 4 years old when my father left us here to earn better." She said she wants to go to college and dreamt that her father would come to support her education, "but all the dreams are now shattered". Son Sukhbir Singh (14) - who has never met the father as he was born after his father left a pregnant Kaur behind to explore chances of going to New Zealand via the Southeast Asia route - did not speak any words to HT when asked to comment. (source: Hindustan Times) ******************* The Long Cruel Reach of Indonesia's Death Penalty On July 25, in the Indonesian port town of Cilacap, a 52-year-old Pakistani man was placed in an ambulance and transferred to Nusa Kambangan, otherwise known as "execution island." Zulfiqar Ali, a textile worker, was arrested for possessing heroin in 2004; like many caught with drugs in Indonesia, he was convicted and sentenced to die. Human rights activists denounced his case; Ali had been tortured into signing a confession, they said, and his primary accuser had retracted his statements at trial. Nonetheless, on Monday, the Sydney Morning Herald reported, while Ali recovered from stomach and kidney surgery, government officials came for him at the hospital. 3 days later, he would be dead, executed by firing squad in the middle of the night. Ali would not die alone. Earlier this year, the Indonesian government announced it would soon execute of more than a dozen unnamed prisoners, the third round of executions following a four-year moratorium on capital punishment. The announcement - part of a zero-tolerance drug policy implemented under President Joko Widodo in 2013 - sparked grim speculation about who might be next to die. There were the 3 drug offenders transferred to Nusa Kambangan from Batam, a different island prison, in early May, as reported by the Jakarta Post. Or 4 "black-skinned people from Nigeria," in the words of the sentencing judge in the case of Humphrey "Jeff" Ejike Eleweke, who was targeted for surveillance because of his nationality - and who swore he was innocent. By Thursday, newspapers reported, coffins were being ferried to Nusa Kambangan, while family members and spiritual advisers were given name tags for their final visits - "an indication that executions were imminent." But 1 prisoner was spared from the firing squad. In late June, thousands of miles from Nusa Kambangan, a diminutive Filipino woman spoke from a stage at the Oslo Opera House, a sleek white building on the harbor of Norway's capital city. "My name is Celia Veloso," she said in her native Tagalog. "I am the mother of Mary Jane Veloso, who is on death row in Indonesia." Arrested at the Java airport with heroin in her suitcase, Mary Jane was nearly executed in April 2015 alongside 8 other drug convicts, but was spared at the last second. The hasty reprieve was so unexpected, people in the Philippines awoke the next day to inaccurate headlines reporting her death. Family members of Philippine death row drug convict Mary Jane Veloso, (L-R) father Caesar Veloso, mother Celia Veloso and sons Mark Darren and Mark Danniel show the press presents they brought as they wait outside the Yogyakarta prison, in Yogyakarta on January 12, 2016, before visiting Mary to celebrate her 31st birthday. Veloso was sentenced to death in Indonesia after being arrested in 2009 with 2.6 kilograms (5.7 pounds) of heroin sewn into the lining of her suitcase. She had been due to face the firing squad along with other foreign drug convicts in April but was granted a temporary reprieve after a woman suspected of recruiting her was arrested in the Philippines. Family members of Philippine death row drug convict Mary Jane Veloso, father Caesar, mother Celia, and sons Mark Darren and Mark Danniel wait outside the Yogyakarta prison, on January 12, 2016, before visiting Veloso to celebrate her 31st birthday. Mary Jane is the youngest of 5 children and has 2 sons of her own. Her mother, who struggled to make a living as a street vendor, described how her daughter had been offered employment as a domestic worker abroad, at the behest of a relative named Kristina Sergio. In reality, Sergio was a drug smuggler who allegedly planted the heroin inside Mary Jane's suitcase. Even as her daughter sat in an Indonesian jail in the spring of 2010, Veloso recalled, Sergio assured her and her husband "that Mary Jane was happy and that her employer was kind." It was only when Mary Jane called home that her parents learned the truth. Yet it was Sergio who later stood in they way of Mary Jane's execution, by turning herself in to police in Manila just hours before she was to die. With Sergio's own trial now underway, Mary Jane is set to testify against her. Her family hopes that her testimony will force the Indonesian government to recognize she was a victim and commute her sentence altogether. "We long for the day when she will be reunited with her sons," her mother said in Oslo, breaking down in tears. "We hope with your help that she can return to the Philippines and start a new life." The people in the audience included lawyers, academics, and human rights activists. They had traveled from 121 counties for the Sixth World Congress Against the Death Penalty, a 3-day event featuring speeches, panels, and artistic performances. Inside the Opera House, there was anti-death penalty artwork by high school students; an "Abolitionist Village" housing activist booths and literature; and a large map of the world highlighting "retentionist countries" - the label given to nations that hold on to capital punishment. Outside, in the heart of Oslo's fashionable tourist center, red and blue banners lined the street where visitors dined and shopped, carrying the event's official logo, a handprint reading ABOLITION NOW! The first World Congress, in 2000, was inspired by a French polemic titled "Open Letter to the American People for the Abolition of the Death Penalty." The organizers' scope soon broadened beyond the United States; today, Ensemble Contre la Peine de Mort (ECPM) - or Together Against the Death Penalty - holds the World Congress in a different city every 3 years. Although there were plenty of Americans in Oslo, the panels and speakers focused largely on other regions, particularly Asia and the Arab world. One major theme was the growing problem of terrorism, which has sparked a resurgence of capital punishment in many countries. But in Indonesia, the deadliest offenses are drug crimes. All 14 people executed last year were convicted of drug trafficking, and all but 2 were foreign nationals. With hundreds of Indonesians on death row in other countries, many have decried the hypocrisy of a government that fights to save their own people while targeting foreigners for execution. As a reporter for the Jakarta Globe wrote in 2011, "How can Indonesia expect other countries to grant clemency for our citizens while standing firm on the death penalty for foreign convicts in this country?" With Indonesian officials hinting they would carry out new executions after Ramadan ended, the specter of new executions loomed in Oslo last month. One Indonesian speaker displayed a graph showing how executions rise during election years. Another presenter discussed the case of a Brazilian man named Rodrigo Gularte, among those shot to death after Mary Jane won her reprieve. A paranoid schizophrenic, news reports described how he was unaware of what was going to happen to him until he was taken out of his cell. "Am I being executed?" he asked. A few rows from the front as Celia Veloso spoke was Paul Wilkins, an Australian man in his 30s. A bartender from Melbourne, he traveled to Oslo alone after seeing the event advertised by the human rights group Reprieve. Wilkins did not know Veloso or her daughter. But he knew as much about Mary Jane's plight as anyone in the room. He could picture the visiting area where she had said her tearful goodbyes to her sons; he had seen the guards who according to media reports had cried as Mary Jane begged for more time. And he knew the field where the others had met their deaths later that night. He had glimpsed it in person and seen it again and again in his mind. It was the place where his friend, 31-year-old Andrew Chan, had died - 1 of the 8 shot by a firing squad in April of last year. Chan was one of the famed Bali Nine, a group of Australians convicted of drug trafficking in 2006. Along with a man named Myuran Sukumaran, Chan had recruited drug mules to smuggle heroin into Australia. Both were sentenced to death. While in prison, Chan had become deeply religious, evolving into a role model for his fellow prisoners. As his execution neared, his case became a cause celebre, with politicians and celebrities trying to intervene. But Paul knew Chan simply as Andy, a family friend whose company he'd come to enjoy. They talked trash about each other's favorite rugby teams and cracked dark jokes - "We had a fairly similar sense of humor," Paul recalls. After Chan was flown in shackles from Bali to Nusa Kambangan, Paul recalled, he laughed at the absurdity of the security video that had been played prior to takeoff. "If the plane's going down, I'm clearly going down with it," he said. Wilkins had never given much thought to the death penalty before he met Chan, but then members of his family began visiting him in 2006. His parents were retired and very active in their church; they forged a deep connection with Chan and his family, returning to Bali repeatedly and eventually constructing a guest house near the prison where relatives could stay. Wilkins was skeptical at first. "It was like, what are you helping this guy out for?" he recalled. Chan was undeniably guilty of serious crimes, even if he did not necessarily deserve to die for them. But in early 2012, while working as a travel agent, Wilkins went to Bali and met Chan in person. With a scar across his head and "tattoos everywhere," Chan looked every bit the thug Wilkins had read about in the press. Yet he found Chan to be disarming, laid back, "very personable." Wilkins was especially impressed with his strength behind bars - he could tell during his visits that many of the drug convicts were finding ways to sustain their addictions behind bars. Yet Chan stayed clean, focusing on cooking and teaching religion. The same traits that had helped him rise up in the drug trade now made him an influential leader in prison. In the months leading up to his death, Wilkins recalled, "there was a steady stream of ex-prisoners who would come in and visit him." Many were doing well, had jobs and families. "And they'd come in basically to thank him for that. Seeing that firsthand made me think 'Well, if Andrew could do it, then you know, other people's lives can be changed.'" On March 4, 2015, Chan and Sukumaran - a talented artist known to Wilkins by his nickname, "Myu" - were flown from Bali to Cilacap, a signal that their execution was weeks away. The transfer was a show of force; police in riot gear stood by while an armored "Barracuda" vehicle came to take the men. The next month, on April 25, Indonesian officials gave the state's minimum 72 hours of notice that Chan, Sukumaran, and 6 others would be executed within days. On April 28, they were dressed in white and led to the field, with Chan leading them in singing "Amazing Grace." Tied to cross-shaped poles and lined up in a row, the group declined to wear the blindfolds offered to them by the prison. At his funeral, Chan's wife, Febyanti - who he married as a last wish granted by the government - described how Chan had worn his much-hated glasses, so he could look his executioners in the eye. Chan's funeral was held at the largest church in Sydney. Hundreds attended and thousands more watched it via live-stream. A childhood friend of Chan's read a eulogy he had penned for himself before he died. "Ask yourself, what story did I leave you with?" he wrote. "That will determine my legacy." In Oslo, Wilkins introduced himself to as many people as he could. It was the 1st time he had been surrounded by so many people who had some lived experience with the death penalty. For all the public support showered upon his friend - rare for any prisoner - Wilkins had not escaped the strange, disenfranchised kind of grief often felt by those whose loved ones are killed as a matter of law. When the state takes a life in the name of justice, mourning is not socially sanctioned; even as Wilkins received kind text messages from friends last year, he gave up social media to avoid the nasty comments from strangers. As the 1 year anniversary of Chan's death approached, Wilkins decided to make some changes. 2 old friends had unexpectedly died in rapid succession after the execution; he realized he had neglected other relationships. He stopped drinking and focused on exercise. Perhaps most important, Wilkins decided to start telling his story. He began by putting his thoughts on paper. He wrote about his visit to Nusa Kambangan to see Chan for the last time, describing the moment he realized the field behind them was the place where he would die. He wrote about the many loved ones Chan left behind - his mother, his brother, his nephew. He wrote about the uselessness of executing drug offenders as a deterrent when there was always someone new to take their place. He wrote about his friend's selflessness in his final hours, how he arranged for a delivery of KFC to other death row prisoners, how counterproductive it was for Indonesia to have killed a man who had done so much good in such a bleak place. Wilkins did not know what he would do with the essay. But it represented a bigger goal he set for himself. It had been nearly 50 years since his own country had executed anybody, he concluded. "My hope is that in the future, Indonesia, and other countries around the world that still carry out the death penalty, will be able to say the same thing." On the last day of the World Congress, after the closing ceremony, participants marched downtown from Oslo's City Hall. Drummers led the march and chants rang throughout the city's busy shopping district. Holding a sign in English and French - "SAY NO TO THE DEATH PENALTY"- Wilkins wore the suit he wore to Chan's funeral, which now hung loose on his frame. He walked alongside Ndume Olatushani - a man from Tennessee who spent decades facing execution for a crime he did not commit - and Susan Kigula, a Ugandan woman, also innocent, who was released from death row just this year. At the end of the march, in a square across from the Opera House, participants gathered around a plain white banner. They put on blue plastic gloves and dipped their hands in bright paint, pressing their hands on its surface. Red and blue handprints collected until the banner was covered. Later, Wilkins posted a photo on Instagram from earlier that day. Wilkins is smiling, with his arm around Celia Veloso. Underneath it, he explained who she was, her connection to Andrew, and the uncertain fate of her daughter. "She's still in prison on death row," he wrote. "Celia and I are both committed to seeing the death penalty ended worldwide." (soruce: theintercept.com) PHILIPPINES: Some minority lawmakers oppose death penalty, other Duterte priority bills Some Minority members in the House of Representatives on Thursday said they oppose the restoration of the death penalty and question other priority bills being pushed by President Rodrigo Duterte. Despite the leadership dispute between the 2 Minority blocs, some said they stand against capital punishment. Duterte wants the return of the death penalty and a bill to reinstate it has been logged as the 1st measure filed in the House of Representative by a group of pro-administration congressmen. In his Kontra-SONA (State of the Nation Address) on Wednesday, Albay Rep. Edcel Lagman said the measure is anti-poor. He also said the death penalty has not been proven to deter heinous crimes. "What deters the commission of crimes are certainty of apprehension, speedy prosecution and inevitable conviction once warranted," said Lagman. "The death penalty is anti-poor because indigent and marginalized accused cannot afford the high cost of [top] caliber and influential lawyers to secure their acquittal." His group, the smaller of the 2 Minority blocs, is also critical of moves to lower the age of criminal culpability from 15 to 9 years old. Lagman and the others say 9-year-old children still lack discernment and discretion. "If children under 15 are used as couriers, accomplices and accessories in criminal activities, the solution is not ensnaring them into criminal culpability but subjecting the principal criminal adults to an aggravating circumstance which cannot be offset by any mitigating circumstance," Lagman added. Lagman's group also believes there is a need to study the proposed shift to a Federal form of government. "The greatest drawback of federalism is that most of the regions may sink deeper into poverty due to their inability to survive without subsidy from the central government," Lagman said. "The anchorage of the proposed federalism is nebulous and the projected benefits are grossly tentative." Several bills supporting a constitutional convention to introduce amendments for a shift to the federal system of government have already been filed in Congress. Members of the other minority group, particulary Buhay party list Rep. Lito Atienza and Kabayan party list Rep. Harry Roque, also said they are against 3 of the administration's priority measures. However, they elected as minority leader Quezon Rep. Danny Suarez, who is co-author of the bill restoring the death penalty for heinous crimes and the bill granting Duterte emergency powers. Both Roque and Atienza also said they are against granting emergency powers to the president to solve the country's traffic problem. "There are many dangers that come with emergency powers, and President Duterte may not be able to control what happens in the bureaucracy," Atienza said. Together, the 2 House minority blocs number 38 members, but they face the formidable "super majority" of 252 pro-administration congressmen. House Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez is unfazed by the opposition and remains confident the priority measures will pass. (source: cnnphilippines.com) From rhalperi at smu.edu Fri Jul 29 10:21:36 2016 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Fri, 29 Jul 2016 10:21:36 -0500 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----CONN., VA., OHIO, USA Message-ID: July 29 CONNECTICUT: Resentencing Of Another Death Row Inmate Scheduled Sedrick "Ricky" Cobb, sentenced to death for kidnapping, raping and killing 22-year-old Julia Ashe of Watertown in 1989, will be resentenced Aug. 5 as Connecticut continues to dismantle its death row. Cobb, 54, will be the 4th inmate to officially leave death row once he is sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of release and the 1st of 4 awaiting resentencing in Waterbury Superior Court. Cheshire home invasion killers Steven Hayes and Joshua Komisarjevsky and Russell Peeler Jr., convicted of ordering the murders of a mother and her 8-year-old son in Bridgeport, have already had their death sentences voided and were sentenced to life following the state Supreme Court's ruling in May that affirmed the justices' August 2015 decision banning capital punishment in Connecticut. Cobb was waiting in the parking lot of a Waterbury department store the night of Dec. 16, 1989 as he watched Ashe, a University of Connecticut student, park her car and go inside the building to Christmas shop. Cobb then flattened 1 of her tires. When Ashe returned to her car just after 8 p.m., Cobb offered to help change the tire and she accepted his offer. Once the tire was changed, Cobb asked for a ride to his car, parked at a nearby gas station. Once in the car, Cobb grabbed Ashe around the neck and ordered her to drive to a nearby wooded area. He forced her into the back seat, rummaged through her purse, then raped her. He bound Ashe's wrists and ankles with packing tape and stuffed her glove down her throat and taped her mouth shut. He then carried her, alive, to a dam and threw her 24 feet into the ice and water below. Ashe survived the fall and struggled to stay alive. She rubbed her taped wrists on a jagged piece of metal fence that went around the dam and was able to break free. She reached the bank and made it out of the water but somehow either fell back or was pushed in. She was not able to get the gag off of her mouth. For more than a week, investigators searched for Ashe, a graphic artist, until her body was discovered in the icy water by a group of children on Christmas Day. At 2 points during Cobb's time on death row, he announced that he wanted to forgo his appeals and face execution. He later changed his mind. In April 2012, Connecticut legislators abolished the death penalty but made the law prospective, meaning it applied only to new cases and kept in place the death sentences already imposed before the bill was passed. Death-row attorneys challenged the 2012 law, saying it violated the condemned inmates' constitutional rights. Critics of capital punishment also argued that the death penalty laws were impractical and that executions were rarely carried out. Connecticut's only execution in the last half-century was the lethal injection of serial killer Michael Ross on May 13, 2005. Ross, who had spent 2 decades on death row, had not exhausted all his appeals, but waived them and asked to be executed. In August 2015, the state Supreme Court ruled 4-3 that capital punishment should be banned for all defendants, saying in the majority decision that Connecticut's death penalty no longer comported with societal values and served no valid purpose as punishment. The justices affirmed their decision in another ruling last May. (source: Hartford Courant) VIRGINIA: Prosecutor to seek death penalty after jury finds man guilty in 2013 slaying of Virginia state trooper in Dinwiddie A Dinwiddie County jury on Thursday found Russell E. Brown III guilty of capital murder in the March 2013 shooting death of master trooper Junius A. Walker, rejecting defense claims that Brown was psychotic and legally insane at the time of the killing. After 8 hours of deliberation over 2 days, and on the 14th day of the trial, jurors found that Brown had the mental capacity to appreciate the consequences of his actions when he shot Walker 4 times in his police cruiser off Interstate 85. "Finally, justice for Walker," Elizabeth Walker, the trooper's widow, said minutes after the verdicts were read, her eyes red with tears. Brown, 31, bowed his head as the court clerk began to read the jury's 6 verdicts, revealing he was found guilty on all counts. One of his attorneys rubbed Brown's back to console him. After consulting with attorneys, Dinwiddie Circuit Judge Paul W. Cella adjourned the proceeding for the day, instructing the 6-man, 6-woman jury to return today to begin the sentencing phase of the trial. Both sides plan to call witnesses. Dinwiddie Commonwealth's Attorney Ann Cabell Baskervill said she will seek the death penalty but declined further comment until after today's sentencing hearing. Brown also could be sentenced to life in prison. To obtain the death penalty, prosecutors must prove there is a probability that Brown would commit future criminal acts that would constitute a continuing threat to society, or that his conduct in committing the crime for which he was convicted was outrageously or wantonly vile, horrible or inhuman in that it involved torture, depravity of mind or an aggravated battery to the victim. The jury also found Brown guilty of attempted capital murder of trooper Samuel Moss and attempted murder of truck driver Thomas Hales, along with 3 firearm counts for each of the murder or attempted murder charges. In a frenetic gunbattle, Brown exchanged shots with Moss after killing Walker, and fired several rounds at Hales in his truck after he saw Walker's cruiser in the woods and stopped to investigate. Neither Moss nor Hales was hit. As other officers began to arrive at the scene, Brown fled into the woods, dropped his .308-caliber Saiga semi-automatic rifle and began to disrobe, leaving behind all his clothes. He was found a short time later hiding naked in the back of a vehicle in a salvage yard between U.S. 1 and I-85. Walker's cruiser caught fire after rolling into the woods, and officers risked their lives trying to recover the trooper's body under what they believed was a continuing threat of gunfire. Brown could not be seen and police initially were unaware he had fled. Brown's defense team - composed of deputy capital defender Karin Kissiah, assistant capital defenders Seth Shelley and Shameka Hall, and private defense attorney Jacqueline Reiner - had no immediate comment on the trial's outcome. Brown had pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity. 2 forensic psychologists - 1 hired by the defense, the other by the prosecution - issued opinions that Brown was insane at the time of the March 7, 2013, killing. The more prominent of the 2, Dr. Evan Nelson - who performed a 2nd-opinion sanity evaluation on Beltway sniper Lee Boyd Malvo, as well as Ricky Gray, who with a companion killed Bryan and Kathryn Harvey and their daughters in Richmond - said Brown suffered from bipolar disorder with psychotic features that included delusions, and believed he was on a religious mission from God when he encountered Brown off I-85 and shot him. In closing arguments to jurors Wednesday, Reiner called Nelson the "best" in his field. Baskervill largely dismissed insanity as the reason for Brown's actions, calling him "crazy like a fox." Insanity defenses are considered rare, and experts say only 1 in 10 cases reviewed by sanity evaluators such as Nelson meet the criteria for an insanity defense. The defense had a lower legal burden of proof than the prosecution. Virginia law requires the defense to prove their case by what's called a preponderance of the evidence, which means just enough evidence to make it more likely than not that Brown was insane, or greater than 50 %. In contrast, the prosecution must prove the defendant is guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, which means there is a great likelihood that the defendant willfully, deliberately and with premeditation committed capital murder for the purpose of interfering with the performance of the trooper's official duties. Jurors had the option of finding Brown guilty of capital murder, guilty of a reduced count of 1st-degree murder, not guilty by reason of insanity or not guilty. The jurors so far have devoted nearly 3 weeks of their time since being called for jury duty with scores of other Dinwiddie residents on July 11. After an exhaustive jury selection process took 6 days, a 12-person jury, with 4 alternates, was seated July 19, and testimony and presentation of evidence got underway. (source: Richmond Times-Dispatch) OHIO: Froman Wants Change of Venue in Death Penalty Trial The man accused of murdering a Mayfield woman and her 17-year-old son nearly 2 years ago is requesting that his trial be moved because of a racial imbalance in the county in which it's to be held. According to the Journal-News, Terry Froman, who is African-American, wants the trial moved out of Warren County, Ohio because it's 90 % white. The paper also reports Froman has filed a motion to fire his court-appointed attorneys. Froman, from Brookport, Ill., faces the death penalty for the murder of Eli Mohney and the kidnapping and murder of Eli's mother, Kim Thomas. Froman also shot himself after being stopped by police outside Cincinnati. Froman faces charges in Graves County after his trial in Ohio. (source: WKMS news) USA: Federal appeals court rejects plea from Gary Lee Sampson----Sampson wanted evidence excluded from upcoming death penalty trial A federal appeals court has rejected an emergency plea from convicted killer Gary Lee Sampson. Sampson wanted to have evidence excluded from his upcoming death penalty trial. Sampson pleaded guilty to carjacking and killing 2 men in 2001. A federal judge ordered a new sentencing trial after learning a juror had lied. The new trial is set for September. Sampson was also convicted of killing 58-year-old Robert Whitney, of Meredith. (source: WMUR news) From rhalperi at smu.edu Fri Jul 29 10:22:21 2016 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Fri, 29 Jul 2016 10:22:21 -0500 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide Message-ID: July 29 INDIA: Govt not in favour of abolishing death penalty: Kiren Rijiju Government today said in Rajya Sabha that it is "not in favour" of abolishing the capital punishment considering the "prevailing circumstances" in the country. "The prevailing circumstances in which we are living does not warrant abolition of death penalty," Minister of State for Home Kiren Rijiju said while replying to a private member's resolution moved by D Raja (CPI) for the abolition of capital punishment in the country. India has its own basis of formulating laws and it has to respect the "sentiments of the people", Rijiju added. He said there are several provisions in the Constitution such as Articles 71, 134 and 161 for commuting of death sentence and the Supreme Court has made it clear that it should be used in "exceptional circumstances" and as an "unavoidable alternative". Enumerating the remedies available regarding death sentence, he said even if capital punishment has been awarded by a lower court and has been upheld by the High Court, the person can approach the Supreme Court. "Even if that fails, one can approach the Governor and the President of India," the minister added. On awarding of the death sentence, he said several factors such as the accused's socio-economic condition, health, age and sex are considered before awarding such a sentence. Referring to recommendation made by the Law Commission, Rijiju said it suggested abolishing death sentence except for terrorism and for waging war. The Minister, as well as Deputy Chairman P J Kurien, suggested to Raja to withdraw his resolution, but he did not agree saying he has taken up the issue as a "mission and a missionary zeal". Raja said: "It is not a question of technicality or legality, but we should look at it philosophically and morally. Now the time has come when India should emphatically say no to capital punishment." The resolution was negated by the House by voice vote. Earlier, during the discussion on the resolution, BJP's Basavaraj Patil said government should amend rules related to capital punishment and until then "death penalty should be stopped". However, he said "some kind of fear is needed and the government should do serious thinking in this regard". Vishambhar Prasad Nishad (SP) said rules that provide for death penalty for "some crimes" should be changed, arguing that "many crimes are committed due to deprivation". (source: The Times of India) IRAN: 52 executions in 17 days 9 prisoners were hanged on July 27, 2016, in prisons of Orumiyeh, Mashhad, Yazd and Tehran. 6 of them were hanged together in the Central Prison of Orumiyeh. On July 20, another 9 prisoners were executed in Gohardasht and Central prisons of Karaj, and on July 23, 3 prisoners were executed in the Central Prison of Rasht. Another prisoner was hanged in public in the city of Songhor (in the western province of Kermanshah). With 30 executions taking place from July 11 to July 17, the number of those executed amounts to 52 in just 17 days. Beset by numerous internal and international crises, the Iranian regime is incapable of responding to the most basic demands of the people of Iran. Fearing another upheaval by a restive populace, the regime resorts to wave of executions in cities across the country. The Iranian Resistance calls on the nation and particularly the youths of Iran to voice their protest to the mullahs' pervasive repression. (source: The Secretariat of the National Council of Resistance of Iran) EUROPE/TURKEY: PACE Should Bar Turkey From PACE If Ankara Reinstates Death Penalty The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) should bar the Turkish delegation from participation in the organization if Ankara decides to reinstate the death penalty following a coup attempt that took place this month, French parliament Foreign Affairs Committee member Thierry Mariani, who is also a member of the French delegation to PACE, told Sputnik on Friday. On July 15, a faction in the Turkish military attempted to overthrow President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's government. Following its failure, Ankara launched a large-scale military, governmental, academic and media crackdown. Erdogan also said the country would reinstate the capital punishment if the people demanded this. "The next meeting of PACE is in October, I hope that before that meeting a position of the Turkish government will be more clear. I was shocked when I saw a list of journalist, newspapers which are now detained or banned. If Erdogan will push thorough a death penalty for those attempted to declare a coup, PACE should bar the Turkish delegation from participation in the organization immediately," Mariani, who is also heading a delegation of French lawmakers on their 3-day visit to Crimea said. He added that the current situation in Turkey in regard to human rights and freedoms should be closely observed amid crackdowns and arrests. Over 240 people were killed and more than 2,100 injured during the failed coup attempt in Turkey, excluding the victims among the coup plotters, according to the country's authorities. Turkey has issued decrees to shut down more than 130 media outlets and arrest warrants for 89 journalists as well as fired more than 50,000 judges, civil servants, soldiers and educators in the wake of the failed coup. (source: Sputnik News) SINGAPORE: Man posts photos of burning Singapore flag on Instagram An Instagram user has sparked fury online by claiming to have burned a Singapore flag and challenging authorities to give him the death penalty. 2 photos uploaded by the user show part of a Singapore flag in flames. "They have to throw the death penalty on me if I keep doing this right?" he wrote on one post. In another post, he wrote: "I don't enjoy patriotism/this is an act of treason/will something happen yet?" The user, whose profile page is public, was lambasted for treating the national emblem with disrespect. Some netizens questioned the motive behind his actions while others advised him to remove the photo to avoid getting in trouble with the law. In one of his replies, he tells a netizen to "go back doing your slave s***". He also tells him to "eat s*** and die". Despite this show of defiance, the user subsequently removed the post, puzzling netizens even further. Many have continued to leave comments on his other Instagram posts.Under the Singapore Arms and Flag and National Anthem Act, it is an offence to treat the flag with disrespect. Those who do so could be fined up to $1,000.The rules state that the flag should not be allowed to touch the ground. When displayed, the flag should also be clean, undamaged and not faded. Flags also cannot be appropriated for any commercial use, and they should not be used as part of decoration, attire and private funeral activities. According to the National Heritage Board, flags that have been damaged or are worn-out should be disposed of properly, and "not left visible in dustbins". Torn or worn-out flags should be packed into a sealed black trash bag before disposal. (source: asiaone.com) ***************** Indian-origin woman, daughter charged with murder in Singapore A 58-year-old Indian-origin woman and her 36-year-old daughter have been charged with murdering a Burmese maid at their home here and may face death penalty, a media report said on Friday. Prema Naraynasamy and Gaiyathiri Murugayan were arrested on Wednesday for allegedly murdering 24-year-old Piang Ngaih Don earlier this week, the report said. According to police, they received a call on Tuesday morning for assistance. When they arrived, Piang was found dead. A court has extended their police remand. If they have killed the domestic help, they must be hanged without any mercy. Both the accused will be produced in the court on Thursday. If they are convicted of murder, the duo will face the death penalty. Gaiyathiri, whose husband is believed to have worked in the police force, has a minor daughter. (source: The Times of India) PHILIPPINES: Contra Sona bucks bid to revive death penalty Of the 293 House members only one, Albay Rep. Edcel Lagman from the bickering minority, was brave enough to deliver a Contra-Sona or counter-State of the Nation Address to the one delivered by President Rodrigo Duterte on Monday. Lagman slammed as "retrogressive measures" the proposed re-impositon of the death penalty and the reduction of the minimum age of criminal responsibility to 9 years old from 12. While the House has yet to officially recognize the duly elected Minority Leader, Quezon Rep. Danilo Suarez, his group is nonetheless slated to unveil the "minority agenda" on Monday. Kabayan Rep. Harry Roque, the incoming House Deputy Minority Leader under Suarez, will also deliver his Contra-Sona speech against extra-judicial killings on Monday. Lagman said although Duterte failed to mention the 2 measures in his delivered Sona after he meandered from his prepared speech and missed reading them, those legislative initiatives had previously been announced by him and were now contained in priority administration House Bill 001 (reimposition of the death penalty) and House Bill 002 (reduction of the minimum age of criminal responsibility). Lagman also called for a prior thorough study of the merits and demerits of a shift to federalism, a constitutional change that appears to be the centerpiece agenda of the new administration. Lagman said the "anchorage of the proposed federalism is nebulous and the projected benefits are grossly tentative." "We must not be galvanized into frenzied approbation of the proposed federal system - which is principally based on motherhood statements of purported superior efficacy and unvalidated benefits," Lagman said. However, before demurring from some of the President's policy statements and directions, Lagman underscored the minority's qualified agreement with the following presidential pronouncements, either in the Sona or previously pronounced: -- The President's commitment to fully implement the responsible parenthood and Reproductive Health Law with adequate funding support. This should be complemented by the immediate implementation of the mandated reproductive health and sexuality education; -- The outlawing of labor contractualization or what is commonly known as "Endo" or end of contract, a scheme many employers use to avoid giving workers permanent status; -- The uncompromising campaign to obliterate the drug menace, arrest and prosecute drug lords and pushers, dismantle drug syndicates and rehabilitate drug users and dependents - but all must be within the parameters of due process and the rule of law. -- Giving priority to the construction and development of railway systems in the country like the PNR South (Bicol) Line because the "carcass of the antiquated Bicol Railways is beyond resuscitation, and a modern system must be constructed and developed"; -- The liberation of impoverished individual farmers from the burden of irrigation fees, which must include the condoning of their rental arrears. Lagman said the death penalty violates human rights and should not be revived because: -- It is not a deterrent to the commission of heinous crimes as validated by worldwide and empirical scientific studies; -- What deters the commission of crimes are certainty of apprehension, speedy prosecution and inevitable conviction once warranted; -- The death penalty is anti-poor because the indigent and marginalized accused cannot afford to pay top lawyers to secure their acquittal; -- Human justice is fallible; -- Rehabilitation, not retribution, is the thrust of modern penology; -- Only God can forfeit life. No human authority has the power to kill even if judicially mandated as a recompense for another lost life; -- The death penalty exacerbates the culture of violence and emboldens the monster in man. Lagman also said that 'since children lack adequate discretion and discernment, they must not be saddled with criminal culpability at the tender age of 9.' (source: The Standard) From rhalperi at smu.edu Fri Jul 29 10:23:40 2016 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Fri, 29 Jul 2016 10:23:40 -0500 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide Message-ID: July 29 INDONESIA: After executions, Indonesia says it will review death penalty----The government's statement comes just hours after it executed 4 drug convicts including 3 foreigners It looks as if international and local pressure on the Indonesian government to abolish the death penalty is making some progress. On Friday, July 29, the same day Indonesia executed 4 drug convicts 45 minutes after midnight, Cabinet Secretary Pramono Agung said the government would rethink its stance. "The government is taking everything into consideration, because this is not an enjoyable thing to do," he said, echoing the words of Deputy Attorney General Noor Rachmad, who during his 2am announcement that 4 had been executed, said the job was not enjoyable but something they must do. Agung did defend the capital punishment however, saying "drugs can damage the nation's next generation." "Executing drug convicts is for the protection of the Indonesian nation from the dangers of drugs," he said. He also that those who have already been convicted and have exhausted legal means, and those that have not repented, will still be executed as the decisions are legally binding. Despite this, he said the House would review the death penalty and which crimes are punishable under the law. The government's statement comes after outcry both internationally and locally. The United Nations, The European Union, Amnesty International and various countries like Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States have condemned the death penalty for drug-related offenses, as it is prohibited under international law. Within Indonesia, aside from human rights groups, former president BJ Habibie also asked that President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo review the case of Pakistani Zulfiqar Ali, who was allegedly tortured to confess to a crime he did not commit under police custody. In a letter to Jokowi, Habibie also suggested that the government reconsider the death penalty, adding, more than 140 countries in the world have implemented a moratorium. The government ended up executing 4 of the 14 scheduled to be executed at 12:45am Friday, sparing 10. Indonesia has some of the harshest drug laws in the world. The executions early this morning were the 3rd under Jokowi's presidency, after he killed 14 individuals including foreigners in 2015, in two batches in January and April. Rights groups hopeful Meanwhile, human rights groups are hopeful this is the 1st step for the possible abolishment of the death penalty. "We think that this is a moratorium of death penalty. We hope that the moratorium will lead or become the first step to abolish the death penalty," Arinta Dea Dini Singgi of the Legal Aid Institute told Rappler. Singgi, who also serves as Merri Utami's lawyer, the Indonesian woman spared from execution, said the Attorney General's office had said they will review the 10 other cases. Her client, Utami, had been moved to Cilacap prison at 10:30am from Nusakambangan execution island, while they await her fate. "We won't stop campaigning about her case and ask Jokowi to forgive her. We want to make sure that Jokowi reads the clemency and reviews the case deeply." Utami maintains her innocence and says she was duped into being a drug mule by a Canadian man who wooed her. She was caught with heroin in her bag gifted to her by the Canadian as she landed in the Jakarta airport. Utami, who also says she was threatened rape under police custody, has been in prison for the past 15 years. (source: rappler.com) ******************* Execution not against international laws: Foreign ministry Spokesman of the Indonesian foreign affairs ministry Arrmanatha Nasir has said that executions carried out by the Indonesian government of drug death row inmates is in accordance with, and not against, international laws. "First, capital punishment is part of legal enforcement. Besides, I emphasize that that capital punishment is not against international laws," he said here on Thursday. He made his statement in response to appeals by the UN and the EU to a implement moratorium on capital punishment. Nasir added that Indonesia is forced to impose capital punishment on drug traffickers and manufacturers, because the country has become a target for drug trafficking. Some 4.1 million Indonesians, particularly youths, are drug addicts, and some 40 to 50 people die every day due to drug abuse. Further, drug abuse has resulted in state losses of Rp63 trillion annually, he said. The death penalty has been seen as a positive law in Indonesia, and is not against the principles set forth in the 1945 Constitution, he explained. Further, capital punishment is the final resort used to stop extraordinary crimes, including drug offenses, he noted. Drug criminals have gone through the legal process, while drug victims have gone into rehabilitation programs, he added. The foreign ministry has informed concerned foreign embassies about foreign death row inmates who are to be executed in the near future. The attorney general's office has announced that 14 death row inmates face executions, including foreigners from Nigeria, Pakistan, Zimbabwe, and India. >From Indonesia, drug kingpin Freddy Budiman is also on the list of prisoners to be executed. (source: ANTARA news) ********************** Death-row inmates in Indonesia allegedly tortured to confess Indonesia's latest round of executions have sparked outrage amid allegations that confessions were obtained through torture of the inmates on death row Allegations that a number of the prisoners due to face the firing squad as soon as tomorrow were tortured to confess have sparked a round of fresh condemnations of their imminent executions in Indonesia. The international outrage comes in the wake of the Indonesian government's last-minute confirmation this week that 14 alleged drug traffickers, 12 of whom are believed to be foreign nationals, would be executed within 72 hours. Local media reported that the sentence is likely to be carried out tomorrow. An Amnesty International report released last year detailed allegations that one of the men on death row, 51-year-old Pakistani national Zulfiqar Ali, was kept in a house for 3 days after his arrest in 2004 and beaten until he confessed to possession of 300kg of heroin. Ali reportedly spent the following 17 days in a police hospital, requiring surgery on his stomach and kidneys due to the extent of his injuries. Amnesty also alleged in an earlier report that another man sentenced to die tomorrow, Nigerian-born Humphrey Jefferson Ejike Eleweke, was detained for 5 months without legal representation and repeatedly beaten and threatened at gunpoint into confessing to a slew of drug-related crimes. "Somehow President Jokowi just doesn't seem to understand that his so-called 'war on drugs' that results in people being executed is immoral and unjust," he said, using a popular nickname for the Indonesian leader. Robertson accused the Indonesian government of using the executions as a publicity stunt to make the regime appear tougher on crime. "They are now [blaming] drug smugglers and other [street-level crime] for the larger failures of the justice system within Indonesia, and it's costing people their lives," he said. "It's frankly outrageous, it's unconscionable, and it needs to stop." The international fury echoes last year's campaign against another spate of executions, including Australians Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran, the ringleaders of the so-called 'Bali 9' drug-smuggling ring, whose led Australia to temporarily recall its ambassador to Indonesia. Brazilian national Rodrigo Gularte, a diagnosed paranoid schizophrenic caught smuggling cocaine into the archipelago in 2004, was also among the 14 men executed last year. In a statement released on Wednesday, United Nations high commissioner for human rights Zeid Ra'ad al Hussein condemned the mounting death toll of Indonesia's brutal war on drugs, calling the 19 deaths since 2003 "deeply disturbing". While Zeid expressed sympathy over Indonesia's ongoing struggle with drug-related crime, he maintained that capital punishment did little to solve the problem. "The death penalty is not an effective deterrent relative to other forms of punishment nor does it protect people from drug abuse," he said. "The focus of drug-related crime prevention should involve strengthening the justice system and making it more effective." (source: Southeast Asia Globe) ********************* Zulfiqar Shah's execution delayed in Indonesia Pakistan's ambassador in Indonesia Aqil Nadeem has confirmed that Zulfiqar Shah s execution has been delayed for now, reported Dunya News. Lahore s native, Zulfiqar was given death penalty in drugs smuggling case and was to be executed on Thursday night. His plea was rejected by Indonesian authorities but they decided to reconsider the decision after Pakistani media highlighted the case. Zulfiqar s family was delighted to know the news as they were protesting against the decision of execution since evening. Indonesian authorities will tell about the details later. (source: Dunya News) *********** 4 killed by firing squad, 10 spared as Indonesia carries out latest round of executions 4 prisoners have been executed at Nusa Kambangan prison in Indonesia, while 10 have been spared the firing squad, in the 1st round of executions since 2 Australians were put to death last year. The confirmation came just after midnight (local time) and took place despite heavy rain and thunderstorms. Deputy Attorney-General for General Crimes Noor Rachmad said 1 local and 3 Nigerian drug convicts were executed by firing squad. "The executions were for now conducted on four convicts on death row," he said. "This is not a fun job. For us, this is really a sad job because it involves people's lives. "This was done not in order to take lives but to stop evil intentions, and the evil act of drug trafficking." He did not say why 10 other drug convicts, who had been expected to face the firing squad, were not executed, although the island where the convicts were being put to death was hit by a major storm as the executions took place. There were 14 people on the original list for the executions, including 1 woman, although some were seeking last-minute clemency. The 14 included Nigerian, Pakistani and Indian nationals, as well as a prisoner from Senegal. There were claims a number of prisoners had received unfair trials and some had allegedly been tortured to confess. The Pakistani Government had pleaded for presidential clemency for Zulfiqar Ali, who was sentenced to death in 2005 for supplying 300 grams of heroin. There were also question marks over the guilt of 1 of the Nigerian men and clemency had been sought for the only woman on the list, Indonesian Merri Utami. On Wednesday, the mother of Bali 9 ringleader Myuran Sukumaran, who was executed last year, sent a letter to Indonesian President Joko Widodo pleading with him to show mercy. Sukumaran and Andrew Chan were executed by firing squad in April 2015, after being convicted of drug trafficking. (source: abc.net.au) ********************* Archbishop of Jakarta: We are opposed to the death penalty, we pray for the condemned----The government is preparing the execution of 14 prisoners of different nationalities within three days. They are all accused of drug dealing or drug possession. Msgr. Suharyo asks the faithful for special prayers "so that capital punishment is removed from our legal system." "I encourage all Catholics in the diocese to recite a special prayer, with the hope that one day a moratorium on the death penalty is approved and it is abolished from our legal system", is the call to all the faithful by Msgr. Ignatius Suharyo, archbishop of Jakarta, after the news that by the end of the week 14 death row inmates will be executed in Indonesia. In a message posted on social media, the Archbishop, "personally concerned by this issue," asked all the priests of his archdiocese to "spread the Catholic Church teaching on this subject, and at the same time pray for those who are close to death. " Those condemned to death were locked in solitary confinement for 2 days in the prison of Nusakambangan, Cilacap (Central Java) and by 31 July will be executed by firing squads. Attorney General M. Prasetyo confirmed that the executions will be carried out. The prisoners, all accused of drug dealing or drug possession, come from Indonesia, Nigeria, Zimbabwe, Pakistan, India, and China. Today the authorities have handed over 14 coffins to the prison staff. Msgr. Suharyo criticized the great media exposure to the executions. The Archbishop then quoted the encyclical Evangelium Vitae of St. John Paul II (1995): "Based on Catholic teachings, we consider legitimate the death penalty when the criminal works are extremely serious, but the judges should be advised to prefer other options if possible, to protect the dignity of the human person". For some time the Church in Indonesia, together with the Commission of Justice and Peace, have been strongly opposed to executions planned by the Jakarta government. The Commission has created a team of 11 lawyers who work pro bono for the innocent people who are mistaken for drug traffickers. In recent days the inclusion of Merri Utami on the list of 14 convicted has made headlines. The Indonesian migrant worker, was punished with the death penalty in 2003 for possession of a kilo of heroin. Yesterday a group of peopledemonstrated in front of the government building demanding her release: in fact, the woman is the victim of a scam devised by the traffickers, who planted the drugs on her without her knowledge. The case is very similar to that of Mary Jane Veloso, a Filipino woman also on death row (but not included in this round of executions). Jakarta has been criticized by the international community over its use of the death penalty. The European Union has asked the government to suspend the killings. Today, the Indian Foreign Minister addressed a final appeal to the Indonesian government to save the life of a 48 year old accused of drug dealing. Even Pakistan has stepped up diplomatic efforts to obtain the suspension of the sentence for its own citizens. Indonesia has one of the strictest anti-drug laws in the world, to fight what President Joko Widodo has called "a national emergency." From 1979 to 2015,66 executions have been carried out. (source: heraldmalaysia.com) ********* Death Penalty Not the Solution for Drug Crimes, Rights Group Warns Despite international condemnation, the Indonesian government pressed ahead with the 3rd round of executions, citing what it has declared a state of emergency over drug abuses in the country. The number of drug users Indonesia in 2015 was recorded at more than 5 million, an increase of around 2 million from 2008, according to data from the National Narcotics Agency (BNN). This is despite the Indonesian government having put to death 21 drug convicts from 2004 until 2015. "Capital punishment has been proven to be ineffective in reducing rates of drug-related or other crimes," Jakarta Legal Aid Foundation director Alghifarri Aqsa said on Friday. "It instead violates the right to life that should never be diminished in any way." 3 Nigerians and an Indonesian faced the firing squad in the early hours of Friday on the prison island of Nusakambangan off Cilacap, Central Java. It is not clear when the 10 other death row inmates on the island, most of whom are foreign nationals, will get their turn. The government has called on the international community to respect Indonesia's right to exercise its justice system. 14 convicted drug offenders were executed in Indonesia in 2015. (source: Jakarta Globe) AUSTRALIA: As Indonesia conducts more executions, Australia's anti-death-penalty advocacy is still lacking Indonesia has carried out a 3rd round of executions under President Joko Widodo. Attorney-General H. Muhammad Prasetyo had announced that 14 people would face the firing squad, but only 4 were killed on Thursday night - 3 Nigerians and an Indonesian national. All those executed under Widodo have been convicted of drug offences. Deputy Attorney-General Noor Rachmad said the most recent executions were: ... done not in order to take lives but to stop evil intentions, and the evil act of drug trafficking. The remaining 10 executions were delayed. The attorney-general's office has not justified this delay. The 10 remaining prisoners include Indonesians and Nigerian, Indian, South African and Zimbabwean nationals. Those prisoners face another agonising and indefinite wait for their execution. Indonesia faces renewed international criticism Human rights organisations have renewed criticism of Indonesia's practice of capital punishment for drug offences. Amnesty International has highlighted problems in the judicial process for many of those involved in the current round of executions. Several were denied proper access to legal counsel. Some have claimed they were subject to torture and ill-treatment to induce confessions. Reprieve International condemned Indonesia for its failure to name those due to face imminent execution: Many prisoners on death row simply do not know who will be plucked out and shot. Such critiques highlight the many means by which capital punishment threatens human rights standards and undermines the value of human life. The practice is not only barbaric but also futile. Capital punishment has never been established as a more effective deterrent to crime than imprisonment. Australia's response to this round of executions has been muted in comparison to the previous round, which resulted in the executions of Australians Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran, and 6 others. This partiality was a key issue raised before the recent federal parliamentary inquiry into Australia's advocacy for the abolition of the death penalty. What did the parliamentary inquiry recommend? Foreign Minister Julie Bishop initiated the parliamentary inquiry following her strong but unsuccessful advocacy for clemency on behalf of Sukumaran and Chan. Its terms of reference sought to improve Australia's capacity to advocate effectively for death penalty abolition. The inquiry committee received 62 written submissions and held nine public hearings. The committee was persuaded Australia could do much more to ensure its laws and actions were consistent with its abolitionist policy stance. Its report made 13 detailed recommendations. The key recommendations included: --a review of extradition law to ensure compliance with Australia's abolitionist stance; --the amendment of Australian Federal Police (AFP) guidelines "to include a stronger focus on preventing exposure of all persons to the risk of the death penalty"; --AFP refusal to contribute to international policing operations on drug crime unless partner countries guarantee they will not seek capital punishment; --the grounding of Australia's advocacy against the death penalty in human rights principles; --the development, by the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, of a strategy for the abolition of the death penalty. This would mirror the whole-of-government abolitionist stance taken by the UK and Norway; and --government intervention in death penalty cases involving foreign nationals, particularly in cases of severe human rights threat. Amnesty International Australia welcomed the recommendations. It said, if implemented, these could drive progress towards global abolition. But so far the federal government has not publicly responded to the report. Will Australia show leadership? Australian law and policy incorporate international obligations regarding death penalty abolition. Yet Australia's practice has been to advocate in respect of its nationals facing execution overseas. As in the case of Chan and Sukumaran, this weakens the principled basis of Australia's efforts towards abolition. Advocacy efforts are easier to dismiss when they are seen to reflect vested interests more than principled foundations. Australia's abolitionist advocacy must be less partial and more principled if it is to be persuasive. The parliamentary committee acknowledged this by encouraging Australia to emphasise the human rights principles that ground opposition to the death penalty. It also encouraged Australia to leverage the influence it has on key partners - the US and Asia-Pacific countries. As Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull seeks to strengthen ties with Indonesia, advocacy against capital punishment may seem politically unpalatable. Countries often appear allergic to outside "interference" in their domestic affairs. Recent Australian governments have certainly fallen into this camp. They have adopted human rights standards as desired and rejected international criticism when Australia fails to meet its obligations. However, advocacy for death penalty abolition presents an opportunity for Australia to improve its increasingly dire international reputation. Here is a central human rights problem where Australia has a well-established domestic legal position. No Australian parliament has shown any interest in returning to the practice of capital punishment. In the wake of the federal election, the committee's report stands as a challenge to the newly formed government. Will Australia choose death penalty abolition as a movement through which to rebuild its commitment to human rights? It would be a great shame if the recommendations before the government were left to gather dust. (source: theconversation.com) GLOBAL: Indonesia's firing squad executions: Which parts of the world still follow capital punishment----According to Amnesty International, as of July 2015, the capital punishment still continues to be legal in 58 countries. Indonesia's decision to bring back the death penalty has met backlash from several international organisations including European Union (EU) and United Nations (UN). The United Nations described the rising number of executions in Indonesia as "alarming" and asked the country to stop executions of 14 convicts, who are set to face the death penalty by this weekend, as per Attorney General HM Prasetyo. Indonesia is not the only country though where the death penalty is still legal. According to Amnesty International, as of July 2015, the capital punishment still continues to be legal in 58 countries. A total of 101 countries have abolished the death penalty for all crimes in law while 140 countries have abolished the death penalty in law or practice. There are several countries, apart from Indonesia, where the method of execution by gun firing/firing squad is still legal. United States In the United States, the method of execution is still followed in two states, Oklahoma and Utah. The state of Utah, in 2015, reinstated the death penalty by firing, when lethal injections were not available. The state, in 2004, had abolished the practice. The last time an execution by firing squad was practiced in Utah, was back in the year 2010, when Ronnie Lee Gardner, a convicted murder, was given the death sentence. Even though the state abolished the practice in 2004, Gardner was given the sentence before 2004, and had the option to choose the method of execution. Asia In India, hanging is the method of execution in the civilian court system, according to the Indian Criminal Procedure Code. Under the 1950 Army Act, hanging as well as shooting are both listed as official methods of execution in the military court-martial system. The number of people executed in India since independence in 1947 is a matter of dispute since there are no official figures. The last execution took place in 2015 when Yakub Memon, responsible for the 1993 Mumbai blasts, was hanged to death. China traditionally used firing squads. But in recent years China has begun using lethal injections and that is now believed to be the main technique. The exact number of executions in China is a state secret, but it is thought to be the most in the world. Videos smuggled out of North Korea reportedly show public executions by firing squad. Taiwan's death row total stands at more than 100. The number of executions, carried out by handgun shooting either to the heart or to the brain, declined after 2000 due to public opposition, with none between 2006 and 2009. They resumed in 2010 following a change in president and renewed sentiment in favor of the policy. Vietnam, with nearly 700 people on death row, switched from firing squads to lethal injection on humanitarian grounds in 2011. Since then, it has only executed a handful of people because of the difficulty in acquiring the required drugs. Thailand executed prisoners by a machine gun or automatic rifle fired by an executioner until 2002, when the method was changed to lethal injection. There have been no executions since 2009. Middle-east In Iran, Saudi Arabia and Iraq, 3 countries that have some of the highest execution rates in the world, firing squads are rarely used. In Saudi Arabia, the usual method of execution is beheading by a swordsman. In 2013, a firing squad was used in the execution of 7 men convicted of looting and armed robbery. The United Arab Emirates uses firing squads for all executions, but death penalty sentences are rarely carried out. The most recently reported execution was in January 2014. Europe Capital punishment has been completely abolished across Europe with the former Soviet nation of Belarus being the sole exception. The exact number of people executed in Belarus is believed to be t3 in 2014, according to human rights' groups, but there is some uncertainty about that figure because of the general lack of transparency there. It is believed to have been below 10 executions in the past decade. Execution is done by shooting in the back of the head, but the death penalty's use is shrouded in secrecy. Africa In 2013, Somalia executed 34 people while Sudan put 21 to death, according to Amnesty International. Somalia generally uses firing squads to carry out its death sentences; 2 soldiers were executed by shooting on Tuesday, according to the country's military court. In recent years, the only other country in the region to use firing squads was Equatorial Guinea, which shot 4 people last year but then issued a moratorium on future executions, Amnesty said. Latin America In general, the death penalty has been abolished across the region, if not by law in each country, then on a de facto basis, according to the World Coalition Against the Death Penalty. The last known execution in the region was in Cuba in 2003 by firing squad. (source: Indian Express) From rhalperi at smu.edu Sat Jul 30 08:38:51 2016 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Sat, 30 Jul 2016 08:38:51 -0500 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, N.J., TENN., ARK., OKLA., NEB. Message-ID: July 30 TEXAS: Does This Man Deserve to Die?----Jeffrey Wood was sentenced to death under the Texas law of parties. But should someone who didn't pull the trigger be executed? A rally for Jeffrey Wood was held outside of the Texas Governor's Mansion on July 23, 2016. Jeffrey Wood and Daniel Reneau had only known each other for a couple of months when, on the morning of January 2, 1996, Wood waited in the car as his new friend entered a Texaco station in Kerrville. When Wood, a 22-year-old with no prior criminal record, heard gunshots, he went inside the store to find the attendant, Kris Keeran, shot dead. Wood says that Reneau then pointed his .22-caliber handgun at him and forced him to steal the surveillance video and drive the getaway car. Witness reports led police to Reneau and Wood, and the pair was arrested the next day. Reneau, who confessed to the crime, was convicted of capital murder in 1997 and sentenced to death. He was executed 5 years later, in 2002. Wood didn't pull the trigger, but prosecutors tried him for capital murder under the Texas Law of Parties, which holds that someone can be held liable for an offense committed by another person. A jury found Wood responsible for either intending or anticipating the murder Reneau committed and sentenced him to death. His execution is scheduled for August 24, 2016. Both Wood';s family and his lawyer have long maintained that his trial was flawed from beginning to end. A jury first found Wood incompetent to stand trial, and he was committed to a psychiatric institution. Less than 3 weeks later, Wood was determined competent by a psychiatrist to stand trial. After he was convicted, he tried to represent himself during his sentencing, but the judge denied that request, effectively finding him mentally incompetent to do so. Lucy Wilke, who prosecuted Jeffrey Wood in his 1998 trial, writes via email, "He did not pull the trigger, but he was definitely the ring-leader [of the robbery]." She confirms that Wood's lawyers did not present any mitigating evidence and that they didn't cross-examine state witnesses during the punishment phase of his trial. "The reason for that was because Wood specifically, on the record, instructed his 2 very experienced and competent attorneys not to present any evidence or cross-examine any State witnesses," Wilke writes. "Unfortunately, even though the judge found him incompetent to represent himself, nobody stopped the proceeding to inquire as to his competency to stand trial at that point or to make these irrational decisions," counters Jared Tyler, who took on Wood's case in 2008. "I believe Wood was incompetent to make the decision not to defend himself. It was irrational and in line with the evidence on which a jury had previously found him incompetent to stand trial." Tyler adds, "I've never seen a case like Mr. Wood's, in which a person has been executed or will be executed in which there was no defense at all on the question of death-worthiness." And it is precisely this - the question of death-worthiness - that should be seriously considered in Wood's case. Wood has an IQ of about 80, which is below average. According to school and psychological records, he has always had trouble processing information. At home he was severely beaten with a razor strap for his poor grades, and in school he craved attention. When he was 12, a psychologist noted his hyperactivity, impulsiveness and short attention span. He also described Wood's anxiety and tension, his poor grooming and hygiene, as well as his "exceptionally poor judgment" and his "faulty reasoning and reality testing." In an affidavit to the state, his father wrote that Wood had problems planning for the simplest things and that "[w]hen he was small, he would take the blame and the punishment for something that another child had done so he would seem to fit in." Wood was put in a Special Ed program and was never able to catch up with his classmates. In his early 20s, he fell in with the wrong crowd. It was easier for him to be around people with whom he didn't have to compete intellectually. This is where Daniel Reneau, a 20-year-old homeless drifter with an extensive criminal history, came into the picture. "Mr. Wood was very vulnerable to the influence of Reneau," Tyler says, adding, "[Wood] is the kind of person who will just acquiesce to questions of authority. He is a boy in a man's body. Because of his psychological and intellectual impairments, he does not understand the legal and other implications of what he says. He is also not a reliable historian. I believe Mr. Wood to be incompetent." Many states have laws comparable to Texas's Law of Parties, but few apply them to the death penalty; fewer still have actually executed people who didn't directly cause someone else's death. Since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976, only 10 individuals who didn???t directly kill the victim have been executed, 1 each in Florida, Utah, Oklahoma, Indiana, and Missouri, and the remaining 5 in Texas. What sets these cases apart from Wood's is that most capital defendants were present during the murder, sometimes even fired shots or participated in torturing the victim. "What you have is a statute that allows someone who is a party to be sentenced to death under what I believe is a lesser burden than being the actual triggerman," says Tim Cole, a law professor at the University of North Texas and former district attorney of the 97th district. "I think there is a problem with that. These days, defense attorneys are put under a microscope. This kind of case would not be tried as a death penalty case in most places, probably not even here in Texas." Few people know that the death penalty can be applied when someone is convicted under the Law of Parties - and among those who do, it has long been a contentious issue. In 2009, Jeffrey Wood's sister, Terri Been, and a group of advocates from the Texas Moratorium Network came close to having a bill passed by the state Legislature that would have limited the death penalty as a sentencing option under the Law of Parties. The Texas House of Representatives approved the bill, but Rick Perry, who was governor at the time, threatened to veto it if it went through the Senate. It will be reintroduced in the next legislative session, in January 2017. But let's give the law as it stands now the benefit of the doubt: If Wood didn't suffer from emotional and intellectual impairment, one could potentially argue that he should have been able to anticipate that Reneau would murder Keeran. But even then, the Supreme Court has held that the death penalty "be limited to those offenders ... whose extreme culpability makes them the most deserving of execution." The death penalty is reserved for "the worst of the worst," according to the Supreme Court. If Wood wasn't present for the shooting, is he equally responsible as Reneau for Keeran's death? Is an intellectually impaired man who drove the getaway car the worst of the worst? Would a prosecutor seek the death penalty in Jeffrey Wood's case today? "If I had this case to make a decision on today," wrote Wilke, who is an assistant district attorney in Kerrville, "I would make the same decision." But had Wood been tried today, it is unlikely he would be sentenced to death. In 1999 juries \sent 38 people to death row; in 2015 and 2016 combined, they condemned just 5 new individuals to death, none of them under the Law of Parties. Wood's lawyer and family are now seeking clemency, but could it be granted? Clemency is rare but not entirely unheard of. Since the death penalty was reinstated, 280 death sentences have been commuted on humanitarian grounds, often because of possible innocence, but also because some governors considered the death sentence disproportionate to the crimes the prisoners were convicted of, or because they acknowledged a "disturbing racial pattern." (Almost 42 % of all people on death row are black, compared to roughly 12 % in the general population. Wood is white.) In Texas only 2 death row inmates have been granted clemency since 1976. (The state has executed 537 people and counting in that time, more than any other state in America.) In 1998, Governor George W. Bush commuted alleged serial killer Henry Lucas's sentence to life without parole, citing possible innocence. Lucas died in prison in 2001. In 2007, Rick Perry, under whose tenure 319 individuals were killed, spared the life of Kenneth Foster who, like Wood, was sentenced to death under the Law of Parties. Since he was sworn in on January 2015, Governor Greg Abbott has not granted a single clemency. 19 executions have taken place during his time in office, and 7 more death-row inmates are scheduled to die by the end of October. "The commutation process in Texas has been criticized as being virtually non-existent, and that has not changed significantly from Governor Bush to Governor Perry to Governor Abbott," says Robert Dunham, director of The Death Penalty Information Center and former capital defense attorney. Yet, Dunham says, there has been a remarkable change in public opinion on capital punishment. Today 61 % of Americans favor the death penalty, compared to 80 % in 1994, according to a recent Gallup poll. In general, people are more skeptical than ever of the variables that factor into death sentences. "The single most likely fact that determines whether you face the death penalty is what county did the offense take place in and what's the prosecutor's view about the death penalty," Dunham says. "When you look at the crimes committed by people who were sentenced to life and the crimes committed by people who were sentenced to death you can find very little difference between the 2. There's more and more evidence that the death sentence has been administered arbitrarily and unfairly." Dunham adds, "And it does not make the public safer. There is no evidence that the death penalty deters." Wood's chance for life now rests on the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles and on Governor Abbott, who together have the power to commute his sentence. Wood's clemency application is due by Wednesday, August 3, 2016, three weeks before his scheduled execution. The TBPP releases its recommendation to the governor 48 hours before the scheduled execution. If a majority of the board recommends clemency, the governor can grant a commutation of Wood's sentence to life in prison or a 1-time, 30-day reprieve of execution. "Mr. Wood understands that his execution is looming but he has difficulties processing why it is happening to him," his lawyer, Jared Tyler, says. "He doesn't understand why the state is trying to kill him." In the past Wood has claimed that his death sentence was tied to a conspiracy by the Freemasons. In 2008, Wood's bizarre statements during trial and in prison prompted a federal judge to stay his last execution. Even supporters of the death penalty, which is supposed to be reserved for the worst of the worst, should recognize the limits of relying on the flawed and arbitrary procedures of yesteryear to kill a penniless man with reduced intellectual capacities. This case is an opportunity for the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles and Governor Abbot to be empathetic and morally brave, to examine past shortcomings and to save Jeffrey Wood's life. (source: Op-Ed; Sabine Heinlein is a freelance journalist and author----Texas Monthly) ******************** Texas recorded almost 7,000 deaths in custody since 2005 According to statistics made available by the University of Texas at Austin, nearly 7,000 people have died in police custody or in prison in Texas since 2005. The information is contained in an online database published by the school's Institute for Urban Policy Research and Analysis (IUPRA). The Texas Justice Initiative was created by Amanda Woog, a postdoctoral fellow in IUPRA. The data set spans 11 years and contains interactive features, including the names, ages, demographics, time and cause of death. The release of the data comes amid a relentless campaign by the media to delegitimize protests against police violence in the wake of the shootings of police officers in Dallas and Baton Rouge. However, it further substantiates the case that the systematic and endemic brutality on the part of the police against the US population is on the rise. According to the latest figures available, police have killed 551 in the US so far this year. Virtually no one has been held accountable for this toll. This includes officers in Baltimore involved in the death of Freddie Grey, who have now been cleared by the prosecutor's office. According to the University of Texas study, 6,913 people died in state custody in the state between 2005 and 2015, an average of 628 per year. Of those deaths, 1,900 were individuals who had never been charged with a crime. 68 % of deaths occurred in prisons. Significantly, 1,118 people died in police custody before booking. Of those, 562 deaths were classified as justifiable homicides, a catch-all category that includes victims of police violence. Another 16 % were classified as suicides and 7 % as accidental injury. 90 % of these victims had not been charged with any crime. And deaths in police custody are rising. The year 2015 saw the most deaths in custody, with 683 fatalities. Justifiable homicide was the leading cause of nonnatural death for African-American and Latino men, accounting for 30 and 34 % of nonnatural deaths respectively. Suicide was the leading cause of nonnatural death for white males, accounting for 411 deaths since 2005. According to the database, 41 % of those who died in jails had been in custody for 7 or fewer days. Altogether 772 people, 11 % of the total, died from suicide; 275 (4 %) died from alcohol or drug intoxication and 255 (4 %) from other reasons. While whites made up 31 % of the Texas prison population they accounted for 42 % of prison deaths. 90 % died of "natural causes," but the median age of those who died was far lower than the 72-year life expectancy of the average Texan. The huge fatality rate points to the extreme brutality of the criminal justice system in the United States, where those accused of crimes, mostly poor and working class, are treated with cruelty and indifference. Texas in particular is known for its harsh treatment of prisoners. The state carries out more executions than any other US state. According to the Death Penalty Information Center, Texas has carried out 537 executions since 1976 with a current death row population of 263. Between 2005 and 2015, the time of the study, the state executed 195 people. According to the Sentencing Project, Texas has a prison population of 158,000, with a prison incarceration rate of 584 per 100,000 people. Another 66,000 are held in jails. Jennifer Laurin, a law professor at the University of Texas at Austin spoke with the World Socialist Web Site Friday about the Texas Justice Initiative. "I am proud of the work that has gone into this project and that the University of Texas can lay claim to this important initiative," she said. "I think it is an extremely significant project that contributes to the understanding about police use of force and deaths in custody. "The state of Texas required after the last legislative session that reports be submitted on deaths in custody to the attorney general's office. It is unusual for police departments to make that data available. The contribution of the Texas Justice Initiative was to make that data usable. What this does is render it comprehensible to researchers and the public who want to know what police departments are doing." By way of contrast she pointed to the Obama administration's open data initiative. "It is useless," she said. "It is not in an intelligible format." She said that, from her experience, obstacles to the prosecution of law enforcement personnel relating to deaths in custody were difficult for plaintiffs or prosecutors to overcome. "The existence of more data can create leverage," she added, "especially if you can see a consistent uptick over time." In a recent highly publicized case, Sandra Bland, a vocal opponent of police violence, died in an East Texas jail in July 2015 under mysterious circumstances. According to the official version of events, she used a trash bag to hang herself in her jail cell. A few days earlier police had arrested her in a brutal manner, without cause, following a traffic stop. Her death was included in the total of 1,111 who died in jail during the time covered by the study and is listed as "suicide." Bland's family, however, rejected the possibility that she committed suicide. Whatever happened in that Texas jail cell, the police are ultimately responsible. The harsh treatment meted out to Bland is not atypical. According to a report, in the 17 days following Bland's death another 4 black women died in police custody in states across the US. Most had been in jail for 2 days maximum, held on minor charges like shoplifting. Researchers compiled the data used in the IUPRA study from figures reported to the Texas attorney general's office. The only other state where similar data has been compiled appears to be California. According to those figures 684 died annually in police custody between 2005 and 2014, about the same annual number as Texas, although the population of California is 50 % larger (38 million) than the population of Texas (26 million). Of the 6,837 deaths in custody in California, 984, 14 %, were at the hands of law enforcement officers. (source: World Socialist Web Site) NEW JERSEY: Assembly Minority Leader Jon Bramnick calls for NJ to reinstate death penalty A state lawmaker is calling for New Jersey to reinstate the death penalty for certain crimes. Assembly Minority Leader Jon Bramnick is calling for New Jersey to bring back capital punishment in the wake of the recent murders of police officers across the country. Bramnick issued a statement calling for the death penalty's return for "predators that shoot and kill a police officer." (source: news12.com) TENNESSEE: Trial set for killing of toddler An Oak Ridge woman is expected to face a jury this fall for the 2011 abuse and murder of her granddaughter, a toddler. The death penalty case is expected to get underway during the week of Sept. 19. Valerie Stenson, 51, formerly of 208 Teller Village Lane, Oak Ridge, was indicted in 2012 on 5 separate charges in the April 2011 death of Manhattan Inman, age 2 1/2, while she was in Stenson's custody. The 5 charges are 1st-degree murder and 4 charges of aggravated child abuse or neglect. Stenson has been in the Anderson County jail since March 2012. She is being held on $1,075,000 bond. Information filed in Anderson County Criminal Court alleges that between April 15, 2010 and April 16, 2011, Stenson abused and tortured Manhattan and her 3 natural children. Stenson reportedly told the children she was especially hard on Manhattan because she was possessed by a demon and that Stenson was married to God. Stenson allegedly required that the children participate in "extensive Bible study, prayers and punishment." The court documents called the punishment the children received from Stenson "excessive," such as standing all night long for spilling a drink. "The punishment was continuous and systematic, rising to abuse and torture," the documents said. The 3 surviving children, who were older than Inman, reportedly told officers that Stenson would abuse and torture all 4 children afterschool daily. This action was reportedly done as punishment for real or imagined misbehavior. Stenson's actions allegedly included forcing the children to stand all night with their arms outstretched or their hands on their heads. The children were reportedly left on their knees for extended periods of time without food, according to the court documents. They also allegedly reported "being hit with a ruler on their hands until bruised, being hit with a belt and being smacked or punched by the defendant, their mother." Additionally, Manhattan was reportedly at times made to sit on "the potty" from the time she woke until bedtime, or made to stand with the other children. The older children reportedly told investigators that to punish her, Stenson would deprive Manhattan of food and then give her peanut butter and crackers "to make her more thirsty." Then, Manhattan was given vinegar to drink to quench her thirst. One child reportedly told investigators that Stenson would pour water on Manhattan's head in the bathtub to get her to stop screaming. On the night of the toddler's death, Stenson allegedly had the other children help bind Manhattan from "head to toe in bandages and tape, not breathing." The autopsy said the cause of Manhattan's death from the autopsy was suffocation, malnutrition and dehydration. "Evidence discovered in the death investigation revealed a pattern of abuse culminating in the smothering death of the child," according to the court documents. The documents also said 1 of the older children expressed regret for "carrying out the orders of the defendant involving things done to Manhattan and for failing to get help for her." In March 2012, The Oak Ridger reported on Stenson's arrest and Anderson County District Attorney General David Clark's decision to seek the death penalty against Stenson. Those articles also identified Stenson as Inman's grandmother. "I reached this decision (to seek the death penalty) considering all the factors and after careful review and reflection," Clark said in a March 2012 news release. The Oak Ridge Police Department investigated the case after the toddler was found unconscious and not breathing by a family member. She was pronounced dead at Methodist Medical Center of Oak Ridge and an autopsy was performed at the University of Tennessee Medical Center at Knoxville. The autopsy findings in the court documents reported, in addition to the causes of death, "injuries consistent with sexual assault, acute and chronic." The jail's website listed no prior charges against Stenson. (source: oakridger.com) ARKANSAS: 3rd attorney appointed to assist with Bella Vista murder case A 3rd attorney has been assigned to the defense team of a Bella Vista man accused of killing his 6-year-old son last year. George Morledge of Little Rock will assist Jeff Rosenzweig and Bill James in representing Mauricio Torres of Bella Vista. Torres, 46, and and his wife Cathy Torres, 45, are charged with capital murder and 1st-degree battery. The 2 will be tried separately and prosecutors plan to seek the death penalty in both cases. The Torreses are being held without bond in the Benton County Jail. Maurice Isaiah Torres was pronounced dead at an area hospital March 29, 2015. A medical examiner determined the boy suffered chronic child abuse and his death was from internal injuries caused by rape, according to court documents. Mauricio Torres was set to go on trial Aug. 22, but Circuit Judge Brad Karren granted a delay until Nov. 1. The delay is because of a medical issue with Rosenzweig, who recently told the court he had been diagnosed with acute deep vein thrombosis and has blood clots in his leg. Rosenzweig said he has been placed on blood thinners and his health prevents him from traveling. Nathan Smith, Benton County prosecutor, objected to the delay, but he also requested Karren assign a third attorney so the trial wouldn't have to be delayed again if Rosenweig is still experiencing health problems. Gregg Parrish, executive director of the Arkansas Public Defender Commission, wrote Karren that Morledge had been assigned to the case. Parrish told Karren that Morledge meets the requirements to handle capital cases where the death penalty is sought. Cathy Torres was supposed to go on trial Nov. 1, but her trial has been postponed. A new trial date hasn't been scheduled. Mauricio and Cathy Torres could each be sentenced to life imprisonment without parole or the death penalty if convicted of capital murder. They face from five to 20 years if convicted of 1st-degree battery. (source: Democrat Gazette) OKLAHOMA: Oklahoma Hired A New Warden After Botches, But Considered Execution Experience Irrelevant After a string of execution mistakes and resignations, the state is replacing the personnel key to carrying out the death penalty in Oklahoma. But state officials say they view execution experience as "immaterial" in the hiring. posted on Jul. 29, 2016, at 11:16 a.m. After a grand jury investigation found carelessness, secrecy, and ignorance led the Oklahoma Department of Corrections to multiple botched execution attempts, a department spokesperson told BuzzFeed News that a new prison warden's execution experience was "immaterial" to his selection for the job. Oklahoma officials pointed to no experience in the new warden's past with executions, and BuzzFeed News has been unable to find any evidence that the new warden has any experience with carrying out or overseeing death sentences. On Wednesday, corrections head Joe Allbaugh, himself new to the position, announced the selection of Terry Royal to run the Oklahoma State Penitentiary. Both the warden and the director have many responsibilities under the state's current execution procedures. Neither Allbaugh or Royal appear to have any experience with executions. When asked if Royal had any experience carrying out executions, a corrections spokesperson responded that "[t]he execution question is and was immaterial to his hiring." Royal, who most recently ran the Lake Correctional Institution in Florida, has 25 years of corrections experience - but none in any prison that had responsibilities for carrying out executions. Royal's appointment will still have to be approved by the Oklahoma Board of Corrections, which will meet in September. The Board is also expected to discuss the grand jury's findings at the meeting. Asked why the department believed Royal's experience or lack thereof was "immaterial," spokesperson Terri Watkins told BuzzFeed News, "The warden under the protocol doesn't have a role in executions. That is why execution experience is immaterial to the hiring." Under the current protocol, however, the warden has significant responsibilities overseeing executions. The warden, along with another corrections employee, chooses which execution team members are retained and which are replaced. The 34-page execution protocol closes out by stating that "[t]he wardens of Oklahoma State Penitentiary and Mabel Bassett Correctional Center are responsible for compliance with" the procedures. Previously, the warden had also received the execution drugs, and was supposed to verify their contents. In fact, the grand jury report singled out the previous warden, Anita Trammell, who stepped down during the investigation into how the wrong execution drug was used in the 2015 execution of Charles Warner. Earlier, in 2014, Oklahoma took 45 minutes to execute Clayton Lockett in what Trammell described as "a bloody mess." After an investigation run by the Department of Public Safety, which reports to the governor, the state was allowed to carry out another execution. The state changed the protocol, however, giving the warden fewer responsibilities. This time, in January 2015, they used the wrong drug with Warner. The mistake only became public when the state nearly used the same wrong drug in the following scheduled execution, in September of that year. This time, the investigation into execution mistakes was conducted by a grand jury. The grand jury report placed much of the blame at the feet of Trammell and former corrections director Robert Patton. Before the grand jury, Trammell also tried to argue that it wasn't her responsibility. "Warden [Trammell] further testified [s]he was not responsible for what happened at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary facility as it related to executions, despite being the Oklahoma State Penitentiary's warden, because it was the Director's job," the grand jury wrote. "There are just some things you ask questions about, and there's some things that you don't," Trammell told the grand jury. "I never asked questions about the process" of getting the drugs. Trammell also told the grand jury that "there were lots of things that took place at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary that wasn't in the policy." The grand jury report found that "Warden [Trammell] did not do [her] job and, consequently, failed the Department and the State as a whole." The grand jury also wrote that "the Execution Protocol explicitly states the Warden of the Oklahoma State Penitentiary is responsible for compliance with the Preparation and Administration of Chemical provisions of the Execution Protocol." Royal will inherit Trammell's execution responsibilities, provided the protocol isn't changed. "With the director's leadership and the rest of talented staff at the department, we will face challenges head-on to ensure the goals and mission of the facility and agency are met," Royal said in a statement. "I appreciate Director Allbaugh's confidence in me to lead the Oklahoma State Penitentiary." None of the prisons Royal has worked at carried out executions. The Florida Department of Corrections did not respond to repeated questions about his experience, and the Indiana Department of Corrections, where Royal started his career, would not answer questions about its execution personnel. Royal also spent time in Arizona, working at a minimum security private prison. Patton, the Oklahoma corrections director that resigned in the middle of the grand jury investigation, was the Division Director of the Arizona Department of Corrections while Royal was in Arizona. As such, Patton was overseeing a variety of things - including overseeing security assessments of the prison were Royal was warden. The grand jury report noted that there was significant overlap between Arizona and Oklahoma's execution methods. Patton molded Oklahoma's protocol after Arizona's, and also hired the Arizona warden that ran the prison where a 2-hour execution occurred. Allbaugh, the head of the Oklahoma Department of Corrections, also has no execution-related experience. This is his 1st job in corrections, in fact. Allbaugh previously served as director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency under President George W. Bush. When Allbaugh was selected earlier this year, the chair of the Board of Corrections, Kevin Gross, said it "might be interesting" to have someone without direct corrections experience run the prison system, according to the Tulsa World. (source: BuzzFeed News) NEBRASKA: Too many innocents end up on death row I was on the fence about the death penalty for many years, but then Northwestern University Law students did research and found so many on the Illinois death row were in fact innocent. I'm now convinced that even one innocent person executed is one too many. With DNA and other tests, it seems we are hearing every few weeks about someone being released after decades on death row. I don't want Nebraska in that kind of news story. I urge that we vote to retain the repeal of the Nebraska death penalty that the Legislature passed in 2015 by a wide margin. Delores Maycock, Omaha (source: Letter to the Editor, Omaha World-Herald) From rhalperi at smu.edu Sat Jul 30 08:40:14 2016 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Sat, 30 Jul 2016 08:40:14 -0500 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide Message-ID: July 30 CHINA: Corruption and the Death Penalty in China On Monday, July 4, 2016, Ling Jihua was sentenced to life imprisonment by the No. 1 Intermediate People's Court of Tianjin after a closed-door trial. He was convicted of taking bribes, illegally obtaining state secrets and for abuse of power. Upon hearing his sentence, Ling read aloud from a prepared script stating that he did not contest the conviction and "thanked" the court and the lawyers for their work. Ling is a former Chinese politician and one of the principal political advisers of Hu Jintao, the former President and General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). He served as the Director of the General Office of the CCP from 2007 to 2012, and was seen as a promising candidate for promotion to the top leadership at the 18th Party Congress in 2012. Ling's political career took an abrupt turn when his 23-year-old son was killed in Beijing, while driving a Ferrari and being accompanied by two young ladies in March 2012. This accident was widely discussed as a scandal that caused embarrassment for the Party elite. Ling was quickly demoted and officially placed under investigation by the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection by December 2014. In July 2015, Ling was expelled from the Communist Party and was arrested for criminal proceedings. The conviction and the sentence were anticipated. The trial, to some extent, mimicked that of other convicted senior party officials such as Bo Xilai in 2013 and Zhou Yongkang in 2015. All 3 were convicted of taking bribes in addition to other charges. Ling was found guilty of having taken more than 77 million yuan in bribes personally and/or through his family. His wife, Gu Liping, testified against him via video and Ling's deceased son was also mentioned as having taken bribes. Though all of these cases are often discussed as political cases, they are all, officially, outcomes of President Xi Jinping's anti-corruption campaign, which was initiated more than three years ago after Xi had taken power. In contrast to Xi's resolution to eliminate the persistent corruption problem that plagued the Party, what is often little noticed are the changes to laws regarding corruption, in particular the application of the death penalty in corruption cases. Let's start with the current Chinese Criminal Law, the 9th Amendment adopted in 2015. The 9th Amendment makes the death penalty applicable to both embezzlement and bribe-taking, but only when "the amount involved is extremely large, which caused extreme damage to national and people's interests" (Articles 383 & 386). In contrast, a 3rd corruption crime, misappropriation of public funds, is not subject to capital punishment. On Nov. 2, 2015, the Supreme People's Court (SPC) adopted the "Sentencing Guidelines on Embezzlement and Bribe-taking Cases", in which the SPC raised the threshold amount that could trigger the use of capital punishment in embezzlement and bribe-taking cases to 100 million yuan. It was suggested that generally, life imprisonment should be applied for cases with less than 100 million yuan, and that the death penalty with a 2-year suspension be applied for cases with an amount above 100 million yuan, while the death penalty with immediate execution should be available for extreme cases. Although this document is not an official interpretation of the Criminal Law, but an internal document, it is likely to influence lower courts. On April 18, 2016, the SPC and the Supreme People's Procuratorate (SPP) adopted the "Interpretation on Issues with regard to How to Handle Embezzlement and Bribe-taking Cases" - this time, it was an official interpretation. In this interpretation, the SPC and the SPP lowered the threshold amount to 3 million yuan, which is seen as equivalent to the "extremely large amount" stipulated in the 9th Amendment. Moreover, the interpretation points out that the death penalty is also applicable to cases with an amount of 1.5 million yuan or more, when there are other "extremely severe circumstances". Such legal changes regarding the use of the death penalty need to be examined from a historical perspective: In 1979, the 1st Chinese Criminal Law made the death penalty applicable to both embezzlement and bribe-taking, when the "circumstances are extremely severe". In 1988, the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress set the amount threshold to 50,000 yuan for embezzlement and 10,000 yuan for bribe-taking. In 1997, the revised Criminal Law raised the threshold to 100,000 yuan. Despite the tug of war between the SPC and the SPP, the threshold amount, as discussed above, is set much higher now (at 3 million yuan). Of course, how to interpret such legal changes is another story. On the one hand, it reflects China's decision to restrict its use of the death penalty in the new era, which is consistent with the national policy of "balancing leniency with severity". Raising the threshold amount serves this purpose, as corrupt officials such as Ling can be spared. On the other hand, such legal changes may simply reflect the reality in China, including the worsening corruption among Party members over time as indicated by the increasing amounts involved in corruption. What is not clear at this moment is how such legal changes would accommodate President Xi's anti-corruption campaign politically. The message sent via these changes could be seen as counter-productive to the campaign to say the least. Lastly, it is also worth mentioning that the 9th Amendment in 2015, for the 1st time in the PRC's penal history, adopted "Life Imprisonment without Possibility of Parole" (LWOP) as an official punishment applicable to embezzlement and bribe-taking cases (Articles 383 & 386). The LWOP is only optional (subject to judicial discretion) after one is sentenced to the death penalty with a 2-year suspension and successfully serves the 2-year reprieve period. Whether this is a move by the legislature to test the water with the long-term goal of replacing the death penalty with the LWOP in corruption cases remains to be seen. (source: thenewslens.com) SOUTH SUDAN----executions 2 South Sudanese soldiers executed in Wau South Sudan army's (SPLA) 5th division in Western Bahr el Ghazal state on Friday executed 2 soldiers charged with murder and various crimes. The duo were arrested on 17 July and kept at Wau central prison after for allegedly murdering a couple at a residential area situated within Wau town. They faced firing squad in front of a military parade at the army division headquarters. Hundreds of Wau residents also witnessed it. Wau town mayor, Akol Akol Ajith, said the 2 soldiers were sentenced to death after the military high court found them guilty. "The order to execute these soldiers comes from above and this is what will warn the soldiers from involving in such crimes," said Akol. No one, according to the town mayor, is above the stipulated laws. A military judge cautioned soldiers against violating army regulations. "This is a warning to those soldiers who used to violet the military regulation, it is also what tell the people of South Sudan that any soldier found committing crime against civilian should be deal with," a judge, who preferred anonymity said on Friday. This is the 1st such an execution has taken place at the army's 5th division headquarters in Western Bahr el Ghazal state over the years. (source: Sudan Tribune) INDONESIA: Tied to post, blindfolded, given 3 minutes to relax: How Indonesia carries out its death penalty----Here are 15 steps on how Indonesia executes its convicts via firing squad On Friday, July 29, about 45 minutes after midnight, Indonesia executed 4 drug convicts who were handed the death penalty. 14 were scheduled to be executed but in the end, only 4 were killed. Of the 4, 2 were from Nigeria, 1 from Senegal and 1 from Indonesia. For those not already in Nusakambangan prison island, where executions take place, drug convicts are usually transferred the island a few days before they are to face the firing squad. Their families, and embassies for foreign nationals, are given just 72 hours notice before the executions. The 4 that were executed were Indonesian drug lord Fredi Budiman, Osmane Seck of Senegal, Humphrey Ejike from Nigeria, and Michael Titus Igweh also from Nigeria. 31 other individuals were said to have witnessed the executions including members of the police, the Attorney General's office, spiritual advisers, and at least 1 embassy representative, among others. How is the death penalty carried out? This is how executions in Indonesia take place, according to the law, specifically regulated in Article 15 Perkapolri 12/2010: 1. The convict is given clothing that is clean, simple, and white before being taken to the place or location of the implementation of capital punishment. The convicted person, en route to the shooting spot, may be accompanied by a priest or spiritual adviser. 2. 2 hours before execution, the execution team has already been set up. The firing squad is ready on site 1 hour prior to the execution and gathered togethered in a prep area. They will have prepared 12 long-barrelled guns, positioned within 5-10 meters of the pole where the person will be tied for execution. 3. When all preparations are set, the Acting Commander reports the readiness of his team. There is then a final examination by the Execution Team Leader of the weapons that will be used and of the preparations. 4. When the Execution Team Leader is content, the Acting Commander then orders his shooters to fill 12 rifles with ammo. Of the 12, only 3 will have live ammunition while the 9 others will not. The rifles will have 1 bullet each. This is to rid the shooters of guilt, so the shooters will not know whether it was them who killed the convict. 5. The convict is then brought out by a team to the shooting location. Handcuffs are released and the convict's hands and feet are tied to the execution poles. The convict could be in standing, sitting or kneeling position. 6. The convict is then given a last chance to calm down for a maximum of 3 minutes. At this time, they could be accompanied by a priest or a spiritual adviser. 7. When the convict is ready, his or her eyes are covered with black cloth, unless the convict refuses. 8. The convict's white clothing is then marked in black right on his or her heart, as the shooting target. 9. The Commander of the team that escorted the convict then tells the Execution Team Leader that the convict is ready for execution and the death penalty is ready to be carried out. The Execution Team Leader then gives the sign or gesture to the Acting Commander to begin shooting. 10. The Acting Commander then takes his place on the right side of the firing squad. Once he is in place, the firing squad then takes its shooting position. The Acting Commander wields a sword as a symbol for the firing squad to aim towards the heart of the convict. 11. The Acting Commander brandishes the sword forward in a gesture to the firing squad to unlock weapons. The Acting Commander then drops his sword as a gesture to the firing squad to carry out the shooting simultaneously. The gestures, rather than vocal statements, are in order for the convict to not hear when they are about to get shot. 12. When the shooting is finished, the Acting Commander, the Team Leader, and the doctor check the condition of the convict and if, according to doctors, the convict is still showing signs of life, the Attorney Executor and Acting Commander order another shooting. 13. The Acting Commander orders the commander of the firing squad to shoot the convict on the temple, right above the ear. The shooting can be repeated as long as there is sign of life, according to the doctor. 14. The implementation of the death penalty is declared finished, if the doctor has stated that there are no more signs of life in the convict. 15. Once done, the firing squad commander orders its members to release the magazine and empty their weapons. The Acting Commander then declares to the Execution Team Leader, "The death penalty has been delivered." After execution, the bodies are then taken away and identified by family, who have been transported to Nusakambangan island. For those without family, their spiritual advisers are the ones that await the body. The bodies are then transported by ambulance to funeral homes, before being taken home by families for their respective funeral services. International human rights organizations and other countries have condemned Indonesia's capital punishment, as international law has prohibitted the death penalty for drug-related offenses. Hours after the execution, Indonesia said it would review its death penalty. "The government is taking everything into consideration, because this is not an enjoyable thing to do," said Cabinet Secretary Pramono Agung. '15 minutes to die' In the last round of executions, the AFP reports that the shooting spot was in a clearing, in the middle of the jungle. The other 10 drug convicts who were spared were not notified until 6am that they would no longer be executed - about 4 hours after the government announced to the public they were only going to execute 4. The convicts waited 6 hours for their turn, according to Arinta Dea Dini Singgi, the lawyer of Merry Utami. Utami, the only Indonesian woman from this group of convicts that were scheduled to be executed, was spared. Of the 4 that were executed, 1, Nigerian Humphrey Ejike, was cremated. The other 2 Nigerians were sent back to their country of origin, while Budiman, the lone Indonesian, returned to Surabaya where he is originally from. This was his final request. ABC News Australia quoted Father Charles Burrows, a Catholic priest based in Cilacap who spoke with the convicts before their death, said some of the convicts took up to "15 minutes" to die. He said he and some other spiritual advisers "were given some minutes to talk to the prisoners or console them somewhat." Some were also consoled while already tied to the pole, then the convicts "were shot pretty quickly after that." "There was a lot of anger in the 1st (executions), not last night," he said. "They realize they're going to die, so you best try and die with dignity." (source: rappler.com) ******************* ICJ condemns the executions in Indonesia The International Commission of Jurists (ICJ) has condemned the executions of 4 persons in Indonesia. According to a press release on July 29, the ICJ vigorously calls on the Government of Indonesia to impose an immediate moratorium and take steps towards the abolition of the death penalty in the country. The execution of these 4 persons is reprehensible. Indonesia should stop further executions, said Sam Zarifi, ICJ's Regional Director for Asia and the Pacific. These executions damage Indonesia's standing in the international community since they go against the growing international consensus around the world to abolish the death penalty, he added. The individuals executed shortly after midnight on July 29 were Freddy Budiman (Indonesia), Seck Osmane (Nigeria), Michael Titus Igweh (Nigeria), Humphrey Jefferson Ejike Eleweke (Nigeria). Indonesia is a current member of the United Nations Human Rights Council, having been first elected in 2006. The General Assembly resolution that created the Council specifically provides that members elected to the Council shall uphold the highest standards in the promotion and protection of human rights? (res 60/251, 2006, para 9). According to the ICJ, one of the persons executed, Michael Igweh was allegedly tortured by law enforcement authorities to extract his confession. The Geneva-based organization, on several occasions, has called the Government of Indonesia's attention to its violations of Article 14 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), which guarantees the right to a fair and public hearing by a competent, independent, and impartial tribunal established by law. Any reliance on confessions extracted by torture would be a gross violation of the fairness of the trials. Because of the irreversible nature of the death penalty, trials in capital cases must scrupulously respect all international and regional standards protecting the right to a fair trial, Zarifi further said. The ICJ opposes capital punishment without exception and emphasizes the impact of the executions on the families of those who were executed. The 4 persons executed were on a list of 14 people set to be executed soon. The other individuals are: Merri Utami (Indonesia), Zulfiqar Ali (Pakistan), Gurdip Singh (India), Frederick Luttar (Zimbabwe), AgusHadi (Indonesia), Pujo Lestari (Indonesia), Eugene Ape (Nigeria), Okonkwo Nonso Kingsley (Nigeria), Ozias Sibanda (Nigeria) and Obinna Nwajagu (Nigeria). The ICJ strongly urges the Government of Indonesia to stop any further executions, immediately impose a moratorium, and take steps towards the abolition of the death penalty. In December 2014, the UN General Assembly adopted resolution 69/189, affirming for the 5th time that the use of the death penalty undermines human dignity and calling for countries that still maintain capital punishment to establish a moratorium on its use with a view to its abolition. (source: mizzima.com) ******************* Jokowi and the Death Penalty: Weighing the Costs and Benefits----Indonesia's president continues to execute drug offenders, despite international pressure. The 3rd wave of executions announced by the Indonesian attorney general's office has created an uproar and made headlines all around the world. Out of 14 slated to be executed, 4 - 1 Indonesian citizen and 3 Nigerians - were shot dead by a firing squad on early Friday. Jakarta's tough stance on the death penalty during the administration of President Joko Widodo, commonly known as Jokowi, has exposed Indonesia to a wave condemnation. However, despite heavy criticism from the international community, including human rights advocates and foreign governments, Jokowi is determined to continue the executions, based on the argument that Indonesia has an alarming level of drug crime that particularly affects young people. Under this narrative, drug-related crimes are portrayed as the main threat to national security, more serious than terrorism and corruption. Thus far, Jokowi has not compromised on any drug convicts on death row, including foreign nationals, in order to carry out his "war on drugs" policy. In particular, the executions of Australians Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran of the Bali 9 in 2015 triggered a lot of debate on Indonesia"s tough stance on the death penalty. In its position as a retentionist state, Indonesia considers the death penalty as necessary in deterring crime, maintaining the law and order of the society, and safeguarding the interest of their people. The debates in this furor, however, are not just about the death penalty being exercised by Indonesia. It involves a bigger question - that is, the legal process in Indonesia. Under Indonesian law, death row prisoners cannot be executed unless all legal avenues, including clemency appeals, have been fully exhausted. At the international level, Indonesia is a signatory of the UN Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, in which it has clearly stated that every prisoner facing a death sentence has the right to fair trial and the right to go through consideration for clemency before the sentence can be enacted. When the legal process is not fully respected and followed, this raises the question of the Jokowi government's commitment to the rule of law and human rights. Furthermore, the death penalty in Indonesia is also highly dependent on political factors, public pressure, and religious beliefs. While there are many local and international non-governmental organizations that advocate for the abolition of the death penalty in Indonesia, there is also strong support for the death penalty from the local community, especially among anti-drug organizations and religious groups. On the other hand, in the eyes of the Jokowi administration, with its inward-looking foreign policy, national interests are something that should not be compromised, no matter the cost. While international pressure might pose a cost on the use of the death penalty in Indonesia, executions continue to be a tool to uphold national interests. During Indonesia's early democratization process, Jakarta was always seen as a champion in promoting human rights at the regional level in ASEAN. Indonesia together with a few other countries in the region, such as the Philippines, had been strong players in moving ASEAN forward in incorporating regional human rights mechanisms, with the emergence of the ASEAN Intergovernmental Commission on Human Rights (AICHR) and also the ASEAN Human Rights Declaration (AHRD). Now, in the face of pressure from the international community over Jakarta's stance on the death penalty, the executions send a complicated signal on which direction Indonesia is moving in when it comes to upholding the values of democracy and human rights. Will the strong stance of Jokowi on the death penalty affect Indonesia's growth as an emerging power in the region and in the world? Predicting how far the Indonesian government under the Jokowi administration will insist on the death penalty requires an understanding of Indonesian concerns regarding sovereignty, intervention, and security in the long run. Whether Jokowi is willing to reconsider the death penalty or soften his approach will be a tough domestic decision. But viewed in the longer term, his position on the death penalty could pose as a test of Jokowi's commitment to Indonesia's democratic future. (source: Dr. Khoo Ying Hooi is Senior Lecturer at the Department of International and Strategic Studies, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, University of Malaya; Huong Yu Sin is a postgraduate student at the Department of International and Strategic Studies, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, University of Malaya----The Dioplomat) ********************* Jokowi urged to publicly announce clemency decisions A justice reform watchdog has urged the government to publicly reveal information about stays of execution for death row convicts. The Institute for Criminal Justice Reform (ICJR) regretted the government's decision to execute four drug convicts on Nusakambangan prison island in the early hours of Friday. A firing squad killed Indonesian Freddy Budiman, Seck Osmane from Senegal and Nigerians Michael Titus and Humphrey Ejike, despite international and local pleas to halt the executions. 3 of the convicts - Freddy, Ejike and Osmane - had requested pardons from President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo, ICJR executive director Supriyadi W. Eddyono said on Friday, lambasting the executions. The 2010 Clemency Law stipulates that the death penalty cannot be carried out before a convict receives a presidential decree declining clemency. The government used reasons of confidentiality to protect information on whether the President granted or declined the convicts' requests. "We already filed a lawsuit against the State Secretariat with the Central Information Commission [KIP] on the openness of information. We won, but the State Secretariat appealed to the State Administrative Court," he told thejakartapost.com. The Attorney General's Office announced on Friday that the executed convicts had judicial reviews of their cases rejected twice by the Supreme Court, which made their sentences final and binding. It was a different situation for 10 other drug convicts who were initially listed for execution but still had ongoing legal processes. The 4 executed convicts were major drug traffickers, which lead to the decision to execute them by firing squad on the notorious high-security prison island. (source: The Jakarta Post) *********************** Indonesia's cruel death penalty In the midst of torrential rain, just after midnight in the early hours of Friday, 4 men marched onto a sodden prison ground in Indonesia to be executed by firing squad. Indonesia's stubborn insistence on carrying out this cruel and unjust practice of capital punishment is to be condemned, but this latest episode amounted to an especially tortuous farce. Another 10 prisoners had expected to meet the same fate at the same time. They had each said a final goodbye to distraught loved ones, been segregated and locked into special isolation cells, and told their bodies would be delivered to their families soon after the fatal shots were fired. State-sanctioned execution requires the kind of perfect evidence and unimpeachable judicial process no system can ever ...State-sanctioned execution requires the kind of perfect evidence and unimpeachable judicial process no system can ever guarantee, and plainly not in Indonesia. But at the last possible moment, Indonesia's authorities granted the 10 prisoners a temporary reprieve. No proper explanation was offered publicly, although the reason is painfully clear. The Indonesian system for administering the death penalty is woeful and arbitrary. Capital punishment can never be justified. State-sanctioned execution requires the kind of perfect evidence and unimpeachable judicial process no system can ever guarantee, and plainly not in Indonesia. President Joko Widodo has permitted these executions, each convicted of drug offences, claiming it will send a message of deterrence. The only message is regrettably of Indonesia's inhumanity. This round of executions has not generated the same level of international outrage as those carried out last year, which included the killing of Australia's Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran and others from the Netherlands and Brazil. Those killings were the first to break a longstanding national moratorium against carrying out death sentences. But it would be wrong for Indonesia to interpret the more muted international reaction as acquiescence to the country's continued practice of capital punishment. Foreign Minister Julie Bishop also stressed Australia's opposition to the death penalty last week during a regional summit meeting in Laos with her Indonesian counterpart Retno Marsudi. The government has pledged to campaign to abolish capital punishment around the world. Yet Australia should be more vocal in condemning Indonesia's actions, and make clear a diplomatic cost. It would indicate the strength of principled opposition to the death penalty in all cases, not only those involving Australian nationals or from other wealthy nations. The planned execution of the 14 condemned prisoners was to be largest mass killing of convicted drug offenders in Indonesia - 8 Nigerians, 4 Indonesians, 1 Indian and 1 Pakistani. 3 of the Nigerian men and 1 Indonesian were put to death on Friday, while the others find themselves again in the brutal limbo of death row. As a Catholic priest who acted as a spiritual adviser for the condemned remarked, "they have died half a death already." Especially worrying is the case of Pakistani national Zulfiqar Ali, found by an Indonesian internal investigation to be the victim of a conspiracy. Despite the bizarre circumstances of the last-minute reprieve, it does not appear to be the pleas for clemency from the governments of each of the foreign prisoners that won support. Those calls were undermined by the imposition of the death penalty in their home countries, which demonstrates the need for universal opposition to capital punishment. The mother of Myuran Sukumaran wrote an impassioned letter to Mr Joko begging for mercy for those facing execution. "Please don't let those families go through what we have gone through," Raji Sukumaran wrote. "You are the only person who has the power to stop another execution." If only he would listen. (source: Editorial, The Age) ************************* Indonesia cancels Gurdip's execution----However, it was unclear why he was not executed while 4 other convicts were put to death by a firing squad. Indonesia on Friday cancelled execution of an Indian drug convict, after senior Indian diplomats intervened hours before the execution was to take place. Gurdip Singh, 48, of Jalandhar was to face the firing squad in the island of Cilacap, on Friday morning as part of the planned execution of 14 drug convicts who had received the death sentence in Indonesia. External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj acknowledged the development and said "Indian Ambassador in Indonesia has informed me that Gurdip Singh whose execution was fixed for last night, has not been executed." Mr. Singh's wife Kulwinder Kaur told the media in Jalandhar that he has been sent back to jail and that he spoke to her over phone on Friday morning. Appealing the Indonesian government for mercy to Gurdip Singh, Kulwinder Kaur said he has spent years in jail which was enough penance for his crime if he was guilty and he should be sent back to his country. "A priest was invited and a van had also arrived to carry his body but the execution was halted at the last minute. He was then sent back to the prison," she said. Mr. Singh was 1 of the 10 convicts who were allowed to return to the jail while the Indonesian authorities executed four other prisoners. Mr. Singh was arrested in Soekarno Hatta airport in 2004 for smuggling 300 gm heroin. Subsequently he received a death sentence at lower courts which was upheld by the Supreme Court of Indonesia. Several of the death row convicts had applied for pardon but Singh chose not to apply. Human rights organisations had demanded that Singh should have been pardoned in view of the long prison term that he has already served. The Hindu reported on July 28 that the government of President Widodo had notified families of the fourteen drug convicts that it would carry out the death sentence as delivered by the Indonesian court. The notification did not mention the time of carrying out the capital punishment but it was understood that the executions would take place within 72 hours of the notification as required under Indonesian law. Responding to the reports of the planned execution, on Thursday, Vikas Swarup, Spokesperson of the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) said that Indian officials had met Gurdip Singh [in Indonesia] and were camping in the island of Cilacap. (source: The Hindu) IRAN: All Executed Prisoners in Rajai Shahr Prison Identified by HRANA On July 13, 6 prisoners were executed on charge of murder in Rajai Shahr prison. The prisoners along with 5 other prisoners had been transferred to solitary confinements of the prison on July 10. 5 of the prisoners were transferred to their wards and their sentences were not carried out by the consent of the plaintiffs. HRANA has been able to obtain the identities of the 6 executed prisoners: 1. Hassan Mehdilo from ward 2 known as Darolghoran 2. Saeed Akbari from ward 1 3. Hassan Javadi from ward 1 4. Saeed Hossein Khani from ward 4 5. Saeed Ahmed from ward 6 6. Kazem Khadem Rezaeian (source: Human Rights News Agency) KUWAIT: Commute Hassan Abdulhadi Ali al-Hajiya and Abdulredha Haydar Dahqani's Death Sentences (UA 199/15) A Kuwaiti appeal court issued its verdict on 21 July in the "Abdali Cell" case. It upheld a life sentence, a 5-year prison sentence and a death sentence against individuals convicted of charges including "spying for Iran and Hizbullah". 9 defendants were acquitted and other sentences were reduced to shorter prison terms and fines. Please write immediately in Arabic, English or your own language: -- Calling on the Kuwaiti authorities to commute the death sentences imposed on Hassan Abdulhadi Ali al-Hajiya and Abdulredha Haydar Dahqani immediately; -- Expressing concern that the trial was unfair as "confessions" or other statements obtained by torture and other ill-treatment or coercion were used as evidence in court and calling for those convicted and imprisoned to be retried in line with internationally recognized standards for fair trials, in proceedings that exclude torture-tainted evidence and without recourse to the death penalty; -- Calling on the authorities to order an impartial and independent investigation, including forensic medical examinations that are in line with international standards, into all the allegations of torture in this case, and bring those responsible to justice. see: http://www.amnestyusa.org/get-involved/take-action-now/kuwait-commute-hassan-abdulhadi-ali-al-hajiya-and-abdulredha-haydar-dahqani-s-death-sentences-ua-19 (source: Amnesty International) KENYA: Kenyan separatists sentenced to death for police killings 2 suspected members of a Kenyan separatist movement were sentenced to death on Friday for the murder of four police officers in Kenya's 2nd city of Mombasa during the 2013 election campaign. High Court Judge Martin Muya said it had been proven "beyond doubt" that Jabri Ali Dzuya and Bwana Mkuu Alwan Jabu were guilty of killing the officers who had responded to an alert in Mombasa's Miritini suburb on March 3, 2013. However, despite their sentences the death penalty has not been carried out in Kenya for several decades. 2 other suspects were acquitted due to lack of evidence. The killers were accused of belonging to the Mombasa Republican Council (MRC), a group seeking the secession of Kenya's Muslim-majority Indian Ocean coast, which is popular with tourists. The police murders marred otherwise peaceful elections viewed at the time as a crucial test for Kenya, following bloody 2007-8 post-poll violence in which over 1,100 people were killed. The banned MRC insists it is a political movement and has repeatedly denied any involvement in a string of attacks in the coastal region. The authorities have accused the group of being involved in poaching as a source of financing. (source: Agence France-Presse) From rhalperi at smu.edu Sun Jul 31 12:57:14 2016 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Sun, 31 Jul 2016 12:57:14 -0500 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide----UN, NIGER., BAHAM., MOROC., S. ARAB., INDIA, BANG., IRAQ, INDON. Message-ID: July 31 UNITED NATIONS: UN chief bucks capital punishment The United Nations human rights chief is opposing the imposition of capital punishment in all circumstances, saying death penalty is "not an effective deterrent" to crime and does not protect people from drug abuse. UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein was reacting to the execution of four convicted drug traffickers in Indonesia last Friday. Convicted Filipina drug trafficker Mary Jane Veloso was spared because the Philippine government under former president Benigno Aquino III asked that she be allowed to testify against Maria Kristina Sergio, who allegedly recruited her and tricked her into smuggling 2.6 kg of heroin into Indonesia. But the new Philippine administration under President Duterte has expressed conviction that death penalty can be used to stop illegal drug trade in the country. Al Hussein said the focus of drug-related crime prevention should involve strengthening the justice system to make it more effective. He also called on authorities of "the most prolific executioner" in Southeast Asia to immediately reinstate a moratorium on the death penalty. "The increasing use of the death penalty in Indonesia is terribly worrying, and I urge the government to immediately end this practice which is unjust and incompatible with human rights," he said. "I find it deeply disturbing that Indonesia has already executed 19 people since 2013, making it the most prolific executioner in Southeast Asia," he added. Al Hussein noted that under international law, particularly the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights which Indonesia has ratified, countries which have not abolished the death penalty may only use capital punishment for "the most serious crimes." He pointed out that drug-related offenses do not fall under this threshold of "most serious crimes," which have been interpreted to mean only crimes involving intentional killing. He said that while he acknowledges the challenges faced by Indonesia in combating drug-related crimes, the country's response must be rooted in international human rights law. Phl death penalty bill Meanwhile, the death penalty bill in the House of Representatives faces rough sailing as opposition congressmen are determined to block its passage. "We will fight tooth and nail any and all attempts to renew the death penalty and send us back to the medieval ages," Rep. Lito Atienza of party-list group Buhay said yesterday. He said he and his pro-life colleagues would argue doggedly against any measure that seeks to re-impose capital punishment. Another opposition lawmaker, Harry Roque of Kabayan, said he, like Atienza, is against the revival of the death penalty. "What we need to do is to reform the criminal justice system," he said. The 2 belong to the opposition bloc led by Minority Leader Danilo Suarez. Ironically, Suarez is supporting President Duterte's proposal for re-imposition of the death penalty. (source: Philippine Star) NIGERIA: Court remands 22-year-old man in prison----22-year-old Okoh, stabbed the deceased in the stomach and head on May 29, 2016 in Mafoluku, Oshodi. The Ebute-Metta Chief Magistrates' Court, Lagos, has remanded a 22-year-old man, Innocent Okoh, in prison, on a suspicion of murder. Okoh, who appeared before the court on Friday, July 29, 2016, was accused of stabbing Kehinde Kafaru, 18, which lead to his death. The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), reported that the deceased was stabbed on the stomach and head. 2 counts charges of conspiracy and murder, has been levelled against the suspect for his crime. Inspector Jimah Iseghede, a prosecutor in the case, told the court that Okoh killed the deceased on May 29, 2016 in Mafoluku, Oshodi. The offences contravened Sections 221 and 231 of the Criminal Law of Lagos State, 2011, with the former carrying a death penalty for anyone convicted. The court magistrate, Miss B.O. Ope-Agbe, instructed that the accused be remanded at the Ikoyi Prisons until further notice. The case was adjourned till August 30, 2016, for hearing. (source: pulse.ng) BAHAMAS: Sentencing Adjourned For 4 Convicted In Connection With Kidnapping And Double Murder The sentencing of 4 men convicted of having a role in the disappearance and murder of an Immigration Department officer and his girlfriend in Andros has been adjourned by another 8 weeks. Zintworn Duncombe, 28, James Johnson, 22, Daniel Coakley, 28, and Cordero Saunders, 26, were expected to appear before Justice Indra Charles on Thursday to be sentenced for their respective roles in the murder and kidnapping of Shane Gardiner and his girlfriend, Tishka Braynen. Though the probation officers and psychiatrist were present to give an account for their reports that had been ordered to be produced by the judge, the subjects of the reports were absent from the proceedings. It was revealed to the court that the men had not been sent for. As a result, the matter was further adjourned to September 30. Gardiner and Braynen were allegedly killed after a failed plot to take $8,000 in gambling winnings from the immigration officer. Braynen, of Cargill Creek, and Gardiner, who lived in Love Hill, both in Central Andros, were reported missing around 1.45pm on November 24, 2013. Gardiner had recently been assigned to the island. On December 21, 2013, police in Andros discovered the remains of a man with "items related to a female". All 4 men were unanimously convicted of double kidnapping, conspiracy to commit armed robbery and attempted armed robbery. The Crown is seeking the death penalty for Duncombe and Johnson who were unanimously convicted of murder. Because of the request for the death penalty, the court ordered the production of a psychiatric report and social inquiry report with respect to the 2 convicts. Duncombe, Saunders, Johnson and Coakley, who all denied the allegations, were respectively represented by lawyers Ian Cargill, Moses Bain, Donna Major and Terrel Butler. Darnell Dorsett and Patrick Sweeting prosecuted the case. (source: tribune242.com) MOROCCO: King Mohammed VI Pardons 1,272 Convicts on Throne Day On the the Throne Day, to be celebrated on Saturday in Morocco, King Mohammed VI granted pardon to 1,272 persons who were convicted by different courts across the Kingdom, the Ministry of Justice said in a statement. The detained beneficiaries of the pardon are 992: -- 11 inmates benefited from the pardon over their remaining prison term. -- 939 inmates had their prison terms reduced. -- Sentences for 23 convicts were commuted from death penalty to life imprisonment. -- 19 inmates had their prison sentences commuted from life imprisonment to fixed prison terms. The free beneficiaries of the pardon are 280: -- 53 inmates benefited from pardon over their imprisonment term or remaining prison term. -- 15 inmates had their prison sentences dropped and fines maintained. -- 12 inmates benefited from pardon over their prison terms and fines -- 200 inmates had their fines annulled. Pardon is granted to a number of prisoners by the Sovereign on the occasion of religious and major national celebrations. (source: moroccoworldnews.com) SAUDI ARABIA/UNITED KINNGDOM: Boris Johnson told to act over Saudi execution threat Fears are growing that Saudi Arabia is about to behead a man for crimes committed when he was a juvenile - in violation of both international and Saudi law - triggering calls for the foreign secretary, Boris Johnson, to publicly reject Saudi "propaganda" claims that the accused should have been considered an adult at the time of the crime. Human rights groups are concerned that a Twitter account with close links to the Saudi government is now raising the profile of Ali al-Nimr, who was sentenced to death on charges relating to his role in anti-government protests in 2012 when he was 17. In the past, similar activity on the Twitter account has been a signal that an individual is about to be executed. 2 other men, Dawood al-Marhoon and Abdullah al-Zaher, convicted of similar offences when juveniles, also face beheading. Under Saudi law juveniles cannot be executed. But, in its latest Human Rights Priority Country assessment for Saudi Arabia, the Foreign Office states that "all 3 were convicted of crimes committed when they were juveniles, although under Saudi law they are considered to have been adult at the time". The case of al-Nimr was highlighted by Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn last year and became a cause celebre. Following Corbyn's appeal, the Foreign Office, which raised the matter with the Saudis, said it did not expect the three to be executed. But the Foreign Office's decision to repeat the Saudi claim has alarmed human rights groups, who are concerned about the signals it sends out to the kingdom. "The British government should not be accepting the Saudis' excuses for their appalling plans to behead people sentenced to death as children," said Maya Foa, director of the death penalty team at international human rights organisation Reprieve. "The government must stop hiding behind the fiction that Abdullah, Ali and Dawood are considered adults under Saudi law. The reality is that the Saudis are breaking both their own laws and international law in their plans to execute these 3 - all of whom were arrested when they were under 18 and accused of involvement in protests calling for reform." Saudi law stipulates that juveniles can be classed as adults if they have hit puberty and are close to adulthood. But this has to be made clear at their trial. Reprieve insists this was not the case. It points out that all 3 were held in juvenile detention on arrest, and has written to the Foreign Office urging it not to accept the Saudi line. It has also raised the matter in a letter to Johnson. "The attention the Foreign Office has paid to these cases so far is welcome," Foa said. "However, they must ensure they are not giving support to Saudi government propaganda, as they have done all too often before. Boris Johnson needs to set the record straight and call on the Saudi authorities to immediately commute the death sentences handed down to these 3 juveniles." The issue represents an urgent challenge to Johnson's authority. As foreign secretary he must recognise the UK's commitment to human rights - but will also understand the need to placate the Saudis, who have bought billions of pounds' worth of UK jets, weapons and military hardware. The 3 young men claim that they were tortured into confessions. Along with serious crimes such as making and throwing Molotov cocktails at police, they were convicted of an array of offences including "observing the movements of vehicles belonging to the security forces", "buying for and distributing water to protesters" and "explaining how to give first aid to protesters". All 3 deny involvement in violent activity. There are widespread concerns that their trials did not follow due process, as lawyers for the three were denied access to the evidence against them. There have also been claims that the case against al-Nimr is politically motivated because he is the nephew of Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr, a reformist cleric who called for an end to corruption and discrimination against minorities. Nimr was executed in a mass execution of 47 prisoners last January, including Ali Saeed al-Rebh, 18, who was arrested after attending protests when he was 17. A Foreign Office spokeswoman said: "The government's position is clear and understood by Saudi Arabia: we oppose the death penalty in all circumstances and in all countries. We regularly raise the case of Ali al-Nimr, and the 2 others who were juveniles when they committed the crimes of which they have been convicted, including during the former foreign secretary's most recent visit to Saudi Arabia. We expect that they will not be executed. Nevertheless, we continue to raise these cases with the Saudi authorities." (source: The Guardian) INDIA: Death penalty for HuJI operative in Shramjeevi Express blast A HuJI operative was today awarded death penalty in the 2005 Shramjeevi Express train blast case by a local court here. Alamgeer alias Rony, a Bangladeshi national, was awarded death sentence and a fine of Rs 7 lakh by Additional District and Sessions Judge Buddhiram Yadav who had held the accused guilty yesterday. The verdict for another accused in the case, Ubed-ur-Rehman alias Babu, would be pronounced on August 2. 12 persons were killed and many others injured when an explosion ripped apart a coach of New Delhi-bound Shramjeevi Express from Patna near Jaunpur station in Uttar Pradesh on July 28, 2005. The explosion was later found to have been caused by RDX stored in the toilet of the coach. According to eyewitnesses, 2 men had boarded the train at Jaunpur with a white suitcase but shortly afterwards jumped out of the moving train without it and ran away. A few minutes later, the explosion shook the carriage. Along with Rony, Ubed-ur-Rehman, Nafeequl Biswas and Sohag alias Hilal -- all Bangladeshi nationals with links to terror outfit Harkat-ul-Jihad al-Islami (HuJI) -- were subsequently arrested by the police. Nafeequl and Hilal are currently lodged in Hyderabad jail in connection with another case, while another accused, Sharif, is on the run. 2 more accused, Ghulam Razdani alias Yahya and Sayeed, died during the pendency of the case. (source: The Economic Times)) *************** Why prisoners are executed before sunrise Executions are rare in India and death sentences are awarded only in cases of rarest of rare crimes. Among the last few executions witnessed in India were of Mohammad Ajmal Amir Kasab, a Pakistani terrorist, and Afzal Guru, conspirator in Parliament attack case. While the debate continues over whether capital punishment is justified or not, there is an interesting aspect associated with it. Why are those on death row executed before sunrise? We all have seen in films that whenever any prisoner is executed, only a handful of persons are present to witness the act. Among them are a judicial executioner, a magistrate or his representative, a doctor and some policemen. And there are several reasons why executions are carried out before sunrise in India. -- Jail authorities have to focus a lot of energies on carrying out an execution and they wind up the same before sunrise so that it does not affect their daily schedule. Requirements pre and post execution include medical tests and noting of procedures in multiple registers. -- The body also needs to be handed over to the prisoner's family post execution in time so that they can conduct the last rites the same day. -- Executions are carried out early in the morning so as to ensure that the person on death row does not have to wait for long on a day he is due to be hanged and to prevent him from undergoing further mental trauma. -- Hangings are carried out early in the morning in order to prevent sudden reactions from the society as most people are asleep when the development takes place. (source: zeenews.com) BANGLADESH: British reporter, 81, held in Bangladesh for three months as his family fear he could face death penalty An elderly British journalist investigating corruption in Bangladesh has been arrested by a police squad that received UK aid funding despite allegations of torture. Shafik Rehman, 81, was seized in April on accusations of plotting to kidnap and kill the prime minister's son. He has been held without charge for 3 months, and his family fears he faces the death penalty if convicted. The former BBC contributor, who has dual British and Bangladeshi nationality, is a prominent opposition figure. He is also credited with introducing Valentine's Day as a holiday to the mainly Muslim country. Britain is Bangladesh's biggest aid donor. This year it is handing over 154 million pounds, despite growing repression and a free-speech crackdown that has seen three leading opposition journalists arrested since 2013. 'This is the problem with aid all over the world - there is no accountability,' said Mr Rehman's son Shumit, who runs a tuition company in North London. 'But ultimately Britain is responsible if it is paying these people.' His father, who trained as an accountant and edits a popular magazine, was taken by police posing as a TV crew then interrogated for ten days, his family say. Mr Rehman was forced to sleep on the floor in solitary confinement for a further 15 days, despite worsening health problems. He suffers from diabetes and has a stent in his artery. His cell in a notorious prison is next to another prominent journalist who has been held without charge for 3 years. Mr Rehman, who has 3 grandchildren in Britain, has told his family he fears the same fate. He was arrested by Bangladesh's detective branch, which is accused by Human Rights Watch of being responsible for serious abuses 'including arbitrary arrests, torture, enforced disappearances and killings'. Yet in 2009, Britain gave 10 million pounds towards a 5-year United Nations scheme to enhance the unit's ability to deal 'professionally' with investigations. The police training continued until 7 months ago. British aid to Bangladesh includes 33.63 million pounds for a 'safety and justice programme', despite a warning last year that such support 'could be used for political purposes and/or human rights violations'. The watchdog said UK aid may be helping intelligence efforts 'used to monitor and suppress political opposition groups'. Bangladesh has been sliding into authoritarian rule and was hit by a series of Islamist murders in recent months. Mr Rehman's family, who called the allegations 'farcical', believe his arrest was linked to an advisory role he took with the main opposition leader earlier this year. Maya Foa, of anti-death penalty charity Reprieve, which has taken up the case, said: 'Britain must demand answers from Bangladesh on whether UK aid has contributed to the arrest of journalists like Shafik Rehman.' The Department for International Development said aid to Bangladesh police stopped last year, adding: 'It is wrong to suggest DFID funding contributes to human rights violations. The UK Government is committed to protecting human rights and holding to account those responsible for the worst violations and abuses.' (source: dailymail.co.uk) IRAQ: Iraq Upholds Death Penalty for 40 Alleged Camp Speicher Massacre Participants In February, Iraq sentenced 40 out of 47 men to be be executed by hanging over the June 2014 massacre, when Daesh killed over 1,600 Shia Iraqi Air Force cadets in an attack on Camp Speicher in Tikrit. The Iraqi government blamed the massacre on both Daesh, outlawed in Russia and many countries, and members of the Iraqi wing of the Arab Socialist Baath Party, which is banned in the country. "The decision [to uphold executions], taken earlier by the Central Criminal Court has been approved," a spokesperson for the court system was quoted as saying by the Al Sumaria broadcaster. In February, the sentence was criticized by the Amnesty International watchdog, that noted that the vast majority of such trials have been "grossly unfair". (source: Sputnik News) INDONESIA: Indonesia Ignored All Plea to Not Execute The 3 Nigerians Indonesia executed four convicted drug traffickers, including three Nigerians, early on Friday as it pushed ahead with its "war against drugs", although another 10 scheduled executions were delayed. As many as 14 people were originally set to face the firing squad together on Friday, but officials decided a "comprehensive review" was needed to "avoid any mistake" in the 10 cases, Attorney General H. Muhammad Prasetyo said. The date for the next round of executions has not been set, Prasetyo told reporters in Jakarta. At least 2 prisoners among that group of 10, a Pakistani national and an Indonesian woman have applied for presidential clemency, their representatives said. "They said legal proceedings could take a long time. Those executed - 3 Nigerians and an Indonesian man - were shot during a thunderstorm shortly after midnight on Nusakambangan Island in Central Java. The government ignored international calls for clemency and pushed ahead with its drive against narcotics. "Our battle against drug crimes is not over and it will continue. We will maintain our commitment, our firmness and our consistency," Prasetyo said. Indonesia has become a "business field" for the production, distribution, import and export of drugs, Prasetyo said. Indonesia executed 14 prisoners, mostly foreign drugs offenders, just over a year ago, causing diplomatic outrage. Rights activists and governments have again called on Indonesia to abolish the death penalty. Those calls have gone unheeded and President Joko Widodo has said drugs pose as serious a threat as terrorism in what is one of Southeast Asia's biggest markets for narcotics. The president's office often cites figures that drugs are killing at least 40 people a day, but several international experts have questioned the methodology used to arrive at those statistics. The death penalty is widely accepted by the Indonesian public, but police had to break up a protest outside the prison on Thursday by members of a migrant workers group who called for mercy for the Indonesian woman who was scheduled to be executed. Amnesty International called the latest executions "a deplorable act that violates international and Indonesian law" and pleaded that the other death sentences not be carried out. Around 152 people remain on death row in Indonesia, including convicted drug traffickers from the Philippines, France and Britain, according to the Attorney General's Office. Authorities plan to execute 16 prisoners this year and more than double that number in 2017. (source: nta.ng) ***************** Indian national Gurdeep Singh to be executed by firing squad in Indonesia Jalandhar city in the state of Punjab is currently lodged in an Indonesian jail. But his days are numbered since he will soon be executed by a firing squad. An Indonesian court has given him the death penalty for his alleged involvement in the drug trade. On Thursday, the Indonesian government executed 4 people for a similar crime even as Gurdeep along with 13 other people, including a Pakistani, is expected to face the firing squad. All of them were sentenced to death by a court. This is despite the public protesting against the death penalty in the country. Scores of people on Friday had taken out candle light marches in different parts of the island nation to press upon the government to abolish the capital punishment. In Indonesia, people are executed by shooting them dead. Gurdeep's family members are hoping against hope. They have called on the India government for help. In an emotional appeal, his daughter has urged the Indonesian government to overturn the verdict and send her father home. Fourteen years ago, Gurdeep had left home for New Zealand. But he couldn't reach that country as his travel agents had failed to complete the paper work. However, he could travel only up to Indonesia where he was caught allegedly for trafficking 300 grams of heroin. He was arrested from Jakarta Airport and since then he was lodged in an Indonesian prison. (source: zeenews.com) ***************************** Pakistani drug trafficker avoids death penalty in Indonesia The daughter of Pakistani Prime Minister, Nawaz Sharif, on Friday credited her father with saving the life of a convicted Pakistani drug trafficker in Indonesia. Jakarta executed 4 convicted drug traffickers on Friday while delaying the death penalty of 10 from different countries, according to Indonesian officials. Among those spared was Syed Zulfiqar Ali, a Pakistani national, arrested on drug trafficking charges from Bogor, Indonesia, in November 2004 and sentenced to death in 2005. Maryam Nawaz Sharif took to social media to proclaim that Ali's life was saved due to efforts of her father. "Despite bleak chance of success, PM NS (Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif) decided to make 1 more attempt to have Zulfiqar's execution suspended and it happened," she said. Maryam, considered Sharif's future successor, effectively ran the government when her father underwent open-heart surgery in London in May. Pakistan has been asking Indonesia at various levels, through both political and diplomatic channels, for review of Ali's case, Pakistan's foreign ministry spokesman, Nafees Zakaria, said. "The matter was taken up at the level of the heads of state in 2007," Zakaria said. He added: "Most recently, the adviser to the prime minister on foreign affairs raised the matter with the Indonesian ambassador." Pakistan's efforts to convince Indonesia to show mercy towards Ali stands in contrast to its own track record on capital punishment. It has executed 416 convicts since resumption of the death penalty in December 2014 after 6-year moratorium, according to independent Human Rights Commission of Pakistan. The Pakistani government hanged 333 people in 2015, performing more than 1/5 of worldwide hangings that year, according to Amnesty International. Pakistan has also rejected appeals from several international and local human rights groups to restore the moratorium on executions. (source: theeagleonline.com.ng) ****************** Execution law needs further review As a country that has championed the upholding of human rights, it needs to further review its implementation of the death penalty and whether if it is still needed. Criminal law experts say that the death penalty should be a special punishment, not a general punishment, so that judges will still have 2 more options apart from capital punishment and life sentences--or 20 years' imprisonment. Then, the judges' final decision should be based on a lengthy case review and in consideration of convicts' legal efforts. Muzakir, criminal law expert with the Indonesia Islamic University (UII) in Yogyakarta, Central Java, said on Friday that the country should not execute people without any comprehensive, transparent and legal process, because the arbitrary decision to impose the punishment violated the Constitution. If the death sentence became a special law, Muzakir added, the judges would have options to lessen the punishment if convicts could prove their reformed character. "There should be many reasons to support the punishment and the implementation should be strict. Moreover, [judges] have to ensure that convicts have the opportunity for legal recourse, such as filing an appeal or for clemency, and the completion of these processes," Muzakir said. However, he emphasized that the nation still needed such a punishment, otherwise it might open the door for more extraordinary crimes, such as drug smuggling. The House of Representatives is currently deliberating the revision of the Criminal Code, where capital punishment has become one of the most debated articles. Many rights activists have called on the legislative body to remove the death penalty from the law, as it violates human rights and, purportedly, has no impact on reducing the drug trade. Law expert Ganjar Laksamana Bondan from the University of Indonesia (UI) said the death penalty was still relevant in Indonesia, but the implementation must be restricted. Moreover, law enforcers and judges should be more careful in sentencing the penalty. "The punishment cannot be arbitrarily imposed. But if it's omitted from our law, it means we open the door for extraordinary crimes," Ganjar said. Deliberation of Article 88 of the Criminal Code's revision is still in deadlock as lawmakers are split on whether the death penalty should be a general or special punishment. United Development Party (PPP) lawmaker Arsul Sani said the punishment could still exist but the government should also build a review team to audit all cases before imposing the death sentence. "The team may consist of officials from the Attorney General's Office (AGO) or from the LPSK [Victims and Witnesses Protection Agency]," Arsul said. However, NasDem Party politician Taufiqulhadi objected and said such a team was not needed as it would interfere with the judges' independence. "Technically it's not allowed to let any individual or team get involved in the decision-making process of judges," Taufiqulhadi said. Meanwhile, Democratic Party lawmaker Benny Kabur Harman said the death penalty should be omitted from the law as it was not an effective deterrent for drug rings. Moreover, no data proved that drugs smuggling cases were falling after the government's 2 rounds of executions. "It's not effective. It's better for us to comprehensively debate whether to keep the law or not. If we have to have it, we should at least limit it to only certain crimes," Benny said. However, Cabinet Secretary Pramono Anung seemed to neither support nor oppose the idea, but signaled that there might be a time for such deliberation in the future. (source: Nurul Fitri Ramadhani and Ina Parlina, The Jakarta Post)