[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide

[Rick Halperin]

March 24




CANADA:

Trudeau Should Follow Dad's Footsteps on Death Penalty, Advocate 
Says----Prominent US activist in Vancouver tonight to call Canadians to action.

Leno Rose-Avila remembers the 1st time he met someone who narrowly avoided the 
electric chair.

While attending a debate 3 decades ago, a United States district attorney 
stated that nobody on death row had ever been found innocent.

"I'm innocent," protested a man in the audience, Rose-Avila recalls, "and I 
just got off death row."

The black ex-convict, Joseph Green Brown, had been exonerated just 15 hours 
before his scheduled execution when authorities admitted they knew the witness 
who helped convict him was lying.

(In a strange twist, Brown, who became an anti-capital punishment campaigner, 
was convicted of different charges -- the 2nd-degree murder of his wife -- in 
2013 and sentenced to 15 years in prison.)

Today, Rose-Avila heads the anti-execution group Witness to Innocence, a death 
row survivor-led organization founded by Helen Prejean, the nun depicted in 
Dead Man Walking.

It's now been 40 years since Pierre Trudeau's government abolished the death 
penalty in Canada, though only by a razor-thin 7 votes.

"Those who vote against the bill," the prime minister warned MPs in 1976, 
"cannot escape their personal share of responsibility for the hangings that 
will take place if the bill is defeated."

Rose-Avila is in Vancouver tonight to call on Canadians -- and Justin Trudeau 
-- to push their southern neighbours to end the "inhuman" practice.

He sat down with The Tyee to explain why.

The Tyee: Canada hasn't had the death penalty for decades. There's a sense that 
we can't do anything -- it's not our moral responsibility.

Leno Rose-Avila: It is your moral responsibility. Other people pressured Canada 
when Pierre Trudeau eliminated it. Now you have an opportunity to do that. 
People in Europe for years have been working to abolish the death penalty in 
the U.S. People used to ask me, 'What do Europeans have to do with it?' Well, 
they've actually gotten people off of death row, and they stopped the sale of 
all the chemicals used to execute people from European companies.

We're your neighbours, we're doing something wrong, and you've got to correct 
us. And just like you would in your city, if you saw somebody was abusing their 
spouse, you'd report them. If you saw somebody abusing their animals, you'd 
report them. That's a responsibility you have. Here, you have your neighbouring 
country killing its own citizens. It would be wrong for Canadians not to say, 
'Stop it. We know you're a smarter country. We know you can do better.'

Talk about the racial overtones of the death penalty. The majority of people on 
death row are minorities.

That's because we put more emphasis on what the colour of the victim was. If 
the victim was Anglo-Saxon white -- and particularly if the [accused] is a 
person of colour, primarily black -- you're more likely to get the death 
penalty. White people also get the death penalty; [those who do are] low income 
and don't have the proper representation. So the two factors are economics and 
race. And race is a bigger factor.

Do you think there's more popular interest in wrongful convictions through 
podcasts like Serial or shows like Making a Murderer? There's a sense in both 
those cases that there was a prosecutorial zeal to get someone and to railroad 
them through the system.

For every one of our members who's been found innocent, there was prosecutorial 
or police misconduct. A lot of times, they know they have the wrong guy. But 
they have enough that in a court of law, who are you going to agree with -- the 
prosecutor and police, or somebody they say killed somebody? Most of the 
defendants don't have good attorneys.

Right now we have prosecutors and police who are coming to us saying, 'We've 
made mistakes. I want to help you.' We even have wardens who oversaw executions 
who [now] say, 'It was wrong. I saw innocent people being executed and even the 
guilty should not be executed.'

Was there something for you, personally, that made this issue hit home for you?

In 1985, I joined Amnesty International in the South where we have a lot of 
death penalty cases. The deeper I got into it, the more reasons I found to work 
on it. In 1986 or 1987, I met my 1st innocent person that came off death row -- 
he came within 4 hours of being executed -- Shabaka, better known as Joseph 
Green Brown.

What was he like? Was he quite angry about his experience?

What struck me most about Shabaka was his sense of humour, his calmness and 
even though he was emotional, he wasn't super angry -- that they didn't let him 
out of death row to give a kidney to his brother when his brother needed it to 
survive, and died. That they didn't let him out for his mother's funeral. That 
he came within hours of being executed.

The heroes of the American judicial system are those people who survive prison, 
especially the exonerated men and women of death row.

(source: The Tyee)






MALAYSIA:

Stop possible 'Good Friday' execution of Gunasegar Pitchaymuthu


Malaysians Against Death Penalty and Torture (Madpet) is shocked to hear that 
Malaysia may be executing 34-year-old Gunasegar Pitchaymuthu, possibly on Good 
Friday (March 25, 2016).

In a letter from the from the Taiping Prison???s Department, received by the 
family on Wednesday, it was stated that that they should visit him for the last 
time as he would be executed "soon".

The family was also advised to discuss arrangements to claim Gunasegar's body 
for his funeral. (The Star, March 24, 2016).

The letter provided no date or time for execution, but it was reported that 
executions in Malaysia usually happen on Friday morning.

Malaysia is in the process of considering the abolition of the death penalty, 
starting possibly with the abolition of the mandatory death penalty.

Nancy Shukri, Minister in the Prime Minister's Department and also the de facto 
Law Minister, was reported stating that the proposal to amend laws to abolish 
the mandatory death sentence may be tabled in Parliament as early as March this 
year. (Malay Mail, Nov 17, 2015).

Attorney-general Apandi Ali also did commit to propose to the Cabinet that the 
mandatory death penalty be scrapped (The Malaysian Insider, Nov 13, 2015).

Apandi, who is also the public prosecutor, said that '...mandatory death 
sentences were a 'paradox', as it robbed judges of their discretion to impose 
sentences on convicted criminals....'

"If I had my way, I would introduce the option for the judge in cases where it 
involves capital punishment. Give the option to the judge either to hang him or 
send him to prison.

"Then we're working towards a good administration of criminal justice," Apandi 
had said.

Victim of mandatory death penalty

As such, Malaysia should not be executing anyone at this time, especially 
persons who are victims of the mandatory death penalty.

Gunasegar was convicted of murder, and that carries the mandatory death 
penalty. He was on death row for his role in the murder of B Venukumar on April 
4, 2005, which means that he was merely 23 years old when the alleged crime was 
committed.

It must be noted that '...In court documents sighted by The Star, Gunasegar was 
charged, together with J Ramesh and J Sasivarnam, with murdering Venukumar at a 
playground in Taman Ria Raya, Sungai Petani, Kedah.

Though the trio claimed during the trial that they had been attacked by a 
group, which included Venukumar and only defended themselves, the High Court 
found them guilty in 2011...' (The Star, March 24, 2016).

It must be noted that even if one is represented by a lawyer, lawyer errors at 
the court of first instance can lead to injustice being done, and the 
possibility that an innocent man be sent to his death. If evidence was not 
challenged, or not adduced at the court of first instance, it is extremely 
difficult to introduce relevant evidence later at the appellate stage.

We recall also the case where an innocent man was wrongly executed, whereby in 
January 2011, Taiwan's Ministry of Justice admitted that Chiang Kuo-ching, a 
private in the Air Force, had been executed in error in 1997 for a murder 
committed 15 years previously.

We recall the words of former Court of Appeal Judge KC Vohrah who said, "The 
law is the law but I wish Parliament would abolish the death sentence because 
if a mistake is made, it would be irreversible. There are other ways of dealing 
with heinous crimes."

Royal intervention

Madpet urges the Sultan of Kedah and/or Sultan of Perak, to intervene and stop 
this hanging, as was done by Sultan of Johor in 2014 who saved Chandran s/o 
Paskaran from being hanged. The crime was committed in Kedah, whilst Gunasegar 
is being imprisoned in Perak, and in all likelihood, execution will be carried 
out also in Perak.

Madpet also urges Nancy Shukri, the de facto law minister, and the 
attorney-general, to act and obtain a stay of execution as they did before, in 
the case of Osariakhi Ernest Obayangbon (aka Philip Michael) in 2014.

On Dec 18, 2014, the UN general assembly reaffirmed for the 5th time since 2007 
the urging for a stop to all executions.

In 2014, 117 nation-states voted in favour, 38 against, 34 abstained, with 4 
absentees. Every time the said resolution had been adopted, the number of votes 
in favour has been increasing. The global trend continues to be for abolition.

The urging for the abolition of the death penalty in Malaysia has been made by 
many individuals, bodies and civil society organisations, including Malaysian 
Human Rights Commission (Suhakam), Malaysian Bar, and Madpet.

Madpet prays the planned execution of Gunasegar Pitchaymuthu be stopped and 
that his sentence be commuted.

Madpet also urges a moratorium on all executions pending abolition, and also 
for the commutation of sentence of all persons on death row, whereby in October 
2015, the number on death row as disclosed was about 1,022.

Madpet also urges Malaysia to abolish the death penalty.

[CHARLES HECTOR is coordinator for Malaysians Against Death Penalty and Torture 
(Madpet).]

(source: malaysiakini.com)