[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide

[Rick Halperin]

June 21




VATICAN CITY:

Death penalty fosters revenge, not justice, pope says


Use of the death penalty is an unacceptable practice that sows vengeance and 
does not bring justice to the victims of crime, Pope Francis said.

No matter how serious the crime, to kill a convicted person is "an offense to 
the inviolability of life and to the dignity of the human person," as well as a 
contradiction of God's plan and "his merciful justice," the pope said June 21 
in a video message to participants at the 6th World Congress Against the Death 
Penalty.

"It does not render justice to victims, but instead fosters vengeance. The 
commandment 'Thou shalt not kill' has absolute value and applies both to the 
innocent and to the guilty," the pope said in his message to the meeting in 
Oslo, Norway.

The June 21-23 conference, sponsored by the French association, "Together 
Against the Death Penalty," promotes the universal abolition of the death 
penalty. The group expected more than 1,300 people -- including government 
officials -- from more than 80 countries to attend.

Thanking the participants for their commitment to "a world free of the death of 
penalty," the pope said growing opposition to the death penalty as a legitimate 
means of social defense is "one sign of hope."

The Year of Mercy, he added, also can serve as an occasion globally to promote 
"more evolved forms of respect for the life and dignity of each person."

"It must not be forgotten that the inviolable and God-given right to life also 
belongs to the criminal," he said.

While the Catechism of the Catholic Church says the death penalty can be used 
"if this is the only possible way" of defending lives from an unjust aggressor, 
it also stresses the importance of not removing the possibility of redemption 
from a person convicted of a crime.

"The cases in which the execution of the offender is an absolute necessity are 
very rare, if not practically nonexistent," the catechism states.

Pope Francis echoed the church's teaching, calling on conference participants 
to also work toward improving prison conditions "so that they fully respect the 
human dignity of those incarcerated" and promote the rehabilitation of 
convicts.

"There is no fitting punishment without hope!" Pope Francis said. "Punishment 
for its own sake, without room for hope, is a form of torture, not of 
punishment."

(source: Catholic News Service)

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

Pope on death penalty: 'Thou shalt not kill' is absolute


Pope Francis is amplifying his opposition to capital punishment, saying it's an 
offense to life, contradicts God's plan and serves no purpose for punishment.

In a video message to an anti-death penalty congress in Norway, Francis 
declared: "The commandment 'Thou shalt not kill' has absolute value and applies 
both to the innocent and to the guilty."

Francis has gone beyond his predecessors and traditional Catholic teaching in 
saying there is simply no justification for the death penalty today. He said 
Tuesday that rather than rendering justice, it fosters vengeance.

Church teaching allows for recourse to capital punishment when it is the only 
way to defend lives "effectively" against an aggressor.

Francis said: "It must not be forgotten that the inviolable and God-given right 
to life also belongs to the criminal."

(source: Associated Press)






IRELAND:

>From death row to romance: ex-con couple beats the odds


She was headed for the electric chair in Florida, he for the gallows in 
Ireland: both escaped death row and are now an unlikely couple campaigning for 
an end to capital punishment.

The chances of them ever meeting were small. Frail but alert, Sunny Jacobs 
spent 5 of her 68 years in a small cell in total isolation, waiting to have 
2,400 volts sent through her body.

Thousands of kilometres away, Peter Pringle, his hair and beard now white at 
age 77, was rotting away in jail, waiting for a noose to be placed around his 
neck.

'Peter and I, we don't often talk about it but sometimes things will remind us. 
That reminds me (of something) from inside, that reminds me (of something) from 
when we first got out,' says Jacobs, ahead of the 6th World Congress Against 
the Death Penalty, being held in Oslo until Thursday.

'We very, very rarely mention the word prison. It's a visceral feeling you get 
when you say it.'

That's where she ended up after the murder of 2 police officers in 1976.

According to her version of events, she and then-boyfriend Jesse were in a car 
belonging to a friend along with their 9-year-old son and 10-month-old 
daughter.

During a routine check, police found a weapon in the car and a deadly gunfight 
broke out.

The friend, whom she says was holding a gun, later cut a deal, blaming the 
young couple. He received 3 life sentences, while Sunny and Jesse were 
sentenced to death.

'I was at the wrong place at the wrong time with the wrong people,' she says.

After 5 years, her death sentence was commuted to a life term, and she was 
finally released in 1992 having spent nearly 17 years behind bars.

Jesse Tafero was electrocuted in horrific circumstances: his face caught fire 
due to a malfunction, executioners had to start the chair 5 times, and then it 
took 7 minutes for him to die.

- 'Like an animal' -

In Ireland, Peter Pringle was just 11 days away from execution by hanging. 
Known to police for his past IRA connections, he was wrongfully convicted in 
1980 for the murder of 2 police officers in an armed robbery.

>From his death row cell, he could hear the guards who monitored him around the 
clock talking about his upcoming execution, about the bonus they hoped to get, 
about the fact that they would have to pull on his legs to ensure his neck 
vertebrae were properly broken.

'If the jailers learned to like the condemned prisoner or respect the condemned 
prisoner, then it would be very difficult for him or her to engage in killing 
that person cold-bloodedly because you don't kill people you like,' he 
suggests.

'So for their own protection, they would treat you like you were an animal, or 
less than human.'

Less than 2 weeks before his scheduled execution, he was informed that his 
sentenced had been commuted to 40 years in prison.

'It would have been political suicide to hang somebody in the country at that 
time,' he says.

He had already resigned himself to the idea of dying, but not to the idea of 
spending so many years in jail. He taught himself law and was exonerated after 
15 years inside.

- 'It's about revenge' -

It was in a pub in Galway, Ireland, in 1998 that he met Jacobs, who was there 
to talk about the death penalty. They found they had a lot in common: their 
convictions, the happy endings, their interest in yoga and meditation that they 
had practised in prison, and more.

Married since 2011, they now run a help centre in Ireland for the victims of 
wrongful convictions. And they work tirelessly for the abolition of capital 
punishment.

'If you teach children that if you make me angry enough, or you do something 
(that) I think is completely wrong, (and that) it's just fine for me to kill 
you, then when they get angry enough, they get a gun.

'And then you have Orlando, you have Sandy Hook,' says Jacobs, referring to 
this month's massacre of 49 people at a gay nightclub, and another shooting at 
a Connecticut school in 2012 in which 26 people were killed.

'The death sentence is not about deterrence,' adds Pringle.

'It's about revenge. It's a situation where society cannot rise above the 
lowest level. Society has to be capable of rising above that.'

At least 1,634 people were executed around the world in 2015, according to 
Amnesty International, the highest number since 1989.

(source: Gulf Times)